Where I've been & what’s coming: A very personal update
If you don’t follow me on facebook or instagram, you probably feel I went MIA for almost a year now. I feel I owe you a report on what happened to me late 2020 through 2021, what I learned from it, and what comes next.
So here goes.
In the heat of the 3rd wave of the pandemic around November 2021, a series of events took place that threw me off balance in a way I have not experienced before. I think I could have stood up to any of these events individually but the fact that they came simultaneously all but took me out.
Here’s what happened:
I lost 8 close friends to COVID. These weren’t acquaintances. Some were friends since high school, some were lifelong mentors-people I have vacationed with and raised kids alongside. Others were colleagues in ministry. No memorials took place for them due to quarantine. They just painfully vanished.
While given oversight of a whole new additional area of our church’s ministry, our church closed down for 9 months and I was tasked to form an 8 week reopening plan with new COVID protocols for 2 ministry areas across 5 campuses, while transitioning to a new database. Using this new platform melted down all previous processes I had designed for assimilation at our church and required redesigning them with lots of temporary stop gaps in an unfamiliar application.
One of my closest friends whom I have had breakfast with almost every Thursday for 30 years, took his own life. He was not just a fellow leader at our church. We raised our kids together. We went on vacations together. We shared deeply with one another (or so I thought). Over the years, I have helped many people left behind through that agony. Now I know it from the inside.
Now here’s the big one: A few weeks later, my wife Michelle was diagnosed with cancer, a kind that loves to return and to spread. Over the course of 2021, It would require surgery, 6 rounds of chemotherapy at the highest dosage possible, and almost 6 weeks of daily radiation.
Due to the impact of COVID and Michelle’s cancer and treatments, we lost her income for almost a full year.
When our church reopened, I was not able to attend church due to Michelle’s compromised condition and vulnerability to COVID. I had to literally oversee the reopening of all our campuses without being physically present for any of it.
I know that I have not experienced the worst of what some of you have. Over the last 2 years, some of you have lost parents, spouses, children, jobs, and the familiar rhythms of your lifestyle.
Even though there were many difficult things, good things happened in 2021 too. My daughter Kendra fell in love, got engaged and we began planning a wedding. We celebrated my parents 60th anniversary in a large family getaway that was super meaningful and life giving. Michelle is now cancer free and even back to work. But in spite of this, the net effect of these events hitting me all at the same time was a reduction of my personal capacity for life, work and ministry to around 65%.
I was drowning most days.
I know many of you were too. Some of you maybe still are. I am grateful to report that I have come out of this season with a renewed capacity. I have been reshaped somewhat through these events, but I now have passion and a renewed energy for all I do.
Looking back, I can see that there were 3 things that got me through this season in a relatively short time (8 months) compared to other seasons of crisis in my life. I want to share them with you to encourage and prepare you for when you are overwhelmed, and to underscore the value of what we all do for others as we help them “climb the assimilayas” as spiritual leaders (Sherpas).
Here’s what got me through the losses and potential losses of 2020-2021 in a shorter time than expected:
Sharing what I was going through in real time.
I call these seasons of loss “Winters”. When I have experienced winters in the past, they have lasted a year and a half to almost 3 years. This one lasted a little over 8 months. So I asked myself, did I do anything different this time that might have helped me walk through this valley more deliberately? The answer was clear to me: I let others in as it was happening.
When my friend committed suicide, a tipping point internally was reached for me that I confessed to Julie Liem, our Director of Staff Care. I could not concentrate. Emotions were inside my throat at all times, not just somewhere inside. At Julie’s recommendation, the church gave me a week’s leave to heal and regroup. Being at a church where I can share that (and am invited to) is a gift I had not opened in quite this way before.
The truth is I always have had this kind of church. I just chose to go through my other winters alone, believing that it was better for a church to not be discouraged by a pastor wrestling with his losses. How devilish. How foolish.
This set the pace for when I got the news about Michelle’s cancer. I was counseled to communicate updates through Facebook, asking for people to not call or text but to look for my updates which took place around every three weeks to hear what to pray for next, and to bring meals to our family through a meal train if they wanted to.
It may go without saying that the support I felt and the grace I received were almost unparalleled to any other time in my life. Having the opportunity and discipline to write down how I was doing without the pressure of live conversations, while taking care of Michelle and serving the church at the level I could, was unexpectedly life releasing.
Since I am a 3 on the Enneagram, I am historically the last person who knows how I am doing. Most others read it on my face and tell me. During this season, sharing what I was going through with my inner circle and with everyone else through FB updates, made me in tune with myself. This was also a gift.
2. Watching The Chosen.
A life long friend of mine, Bev Holloway, is the Casting Director for this soon to be 7 season TV show on the ministry of Jesus through the lens of his closest followers. When season one was fully released on Easter 2020, Bev asked Michelle and I to watch it. I said “sure”, thinking to myself “I’ll never watch this. I hate Christian movies and music”. That’s the truth.
But when December rolled around and Michelle got her diagnosis, we were quarantined at the highest level due to her condition. We were bored one night and she turned to me and said, “Bev wants us to watch The Chosen. Why don’t we start it?” I rolled my eyes but realized my wife was subtly playing her cancer card. My hand didn’t stand a chance.
Once we started, I was hooked. I have never seen a show about Jesus that made me fall in love with him again much less made me envious of those who actually got to hang out with him like the characters in this show. I was in tears almost every episode.
What I didn’t realize was that in this winter season I found myself in, I needed to see Jesus, not just read about him. I binged both seasons and I am on pins and needles for the 3rd. Maybe this is the case for you too.
Combined with the other 2 things I did during this season, the net effect of The Chosen on my life was to make me very soft-hearted toward Jesus and his voice. Prayer during my winters were usually times of deafening silence and begging for help. During this winter, I sensed Jesus with me every step of the way. Even now, I can hardly get through a prayer time without wiping away tears from my eyes due to what the presence of Jesus does to me. Sometimes just his name appearing in a worship song moves me to tears. I used to get so uncomfortable when I would get emotional with God in prayer, especially in worship. Now I hope this powerful sense of his loving presence never leaves me.
Seeing Jesus through the lens of The Chosen has carved out room in my heart for God during a time that my heart was soft enough to be reshaped. If you haven’t, watch The Chosen, it’s free. Just download the app here.
One of the powerful moments a church prayed for us. We were so stunned and surprised by this moment in a worship service at Redemption Church in Marion Illinois. It’s worth the watch. It’s a clinic on praying and caring.
3. Receiving large-scale targeted prayer.
It was the middle of the day during our cancer quarantine in January when I felt it. It is hard to explain. It was a sensation that I hadn’t felt since I was in college, but it took my breath away when I finally recognized it.
My dad was in a chemical fire when I was 19. He wasn’t expected to survive. My church, Eastside Christian Church, went into a level of mass concerted prayer that I had never been the object of before. It felt like a blanket around my senses, like something was different and thicker about the air. I had never experienced that sensation before or been the object of that much prayer since….until January 2021.
That blanket of prayer surrounded us for months.
I remember an old friend calling from the east coast along side his wife in the car. No intro, they just started to pray knowing that I had little mental margin for conversation. Many confirmed their daily prayers for us on FB. Redemption Church in Marion Illinois is a church I did a Base Camp at. In a worship service, they put a proxy couple in front of the church to lay hands on and they prayed for us like we were family members (watch the 5m video clip above).
We had prayers from Chile, New Zealand, England, Kenya, Canada, Italy, and more. These prayers brought Michelle through her treatment and into a cancer free present. They brought me though my weighty winter and into Spring.
Note the honesty and specificity of my prayer request in the FB post dated July 15th above: on Tuesday July 27th, I woke up with a mental focus and energy I hadn’t had since the previous year. The sense of being overwhelmed was gone and I was immediately at 80+% capacity. It was such an obvious result of large-scale targeted prayer. But me being me, I didn’t call it that for a week just in case it was a freak accident. After several days, I realized there was a direct line between the July 15th post and the post here from the end of September.
So that’s where I’ve been and why you haven’t heard from me in a while. As someone who lives to connect people to God and to each other, this season got me “smoking what I’m selling” in a much deeper way.
Because of that, I was able to speak at many conferences and denominational gatherings (even doing some Base Camps) despite the challenges of this season. To my surprise, more staff and churches are using the Climbing the Assimilayas Video Course than I thought possible in 2021. I just didn’t have the mental capacity to transcribe assimilation strategies and new learnings into blog posts.
I do now.
You will be receiving at least one per month in your inbox (subscribe below if you don’t already). I am really excited for my next post. In the mean time, know I am honored to be a part of this world-wide tribe of Sherpas with you…and thank you for your love and support during this time in my life.
See you on the climb,
