Halloween is behind us, but the idea for this post was conceived along some county roads as I stared out my windshield on Halloween morning several weeks ago. I was on my way to meet a real estate client and look at a house. As I drove along, I thought about how many times my client or her daughter have spoken of some “creepy closet”, or the “creepy crawl space” in houses we’ve seen. I was reminded of how my client has stated several times that her previous house was haunted.
As I drove along looking out at cornfields, grasslands, and dirt roads, I remember almost outwardly saying to myself, “I don’t believe in ghosts…but I do believe in demons.” As I said those words, suddenly the thoughts in my head had nothing to do with the client I would soon be meeting, but instead, I began revisiting images of my own life…events that took place in my life where patterns were established in my youth and continued to play out as I became an adult, and continue to “haunt” me to this day.
I’ve made references to my past as a probation officer in previous posts, and again it comes up because so much of who I am today is influenced by the 20+ years of working with people with damaged pasts. I’ll say it forever, but my clients and I had so much more in common, and our office appointments were as therapeutic for me as I hope they were for them. Many of my previous posts were about situations that took place in my office and left me feeling great inspiration.
THIS HAS BEEN A LONG PROCESS
As I work through my own shit, I see how I am simply further down the road in a process that (I think…) began at some point while I sat in church in the mid 2000’s. I’ll spare the long and drawn out details, but I stand in a place right now where I have no interest in being a part of organized religion. I’m not mad at God, I’m just not interested in participating in rituals that I find no “life” in.
Now, I could go on and on about some of the thoughts I’ve had over the last few years since backing out of church-life, but that’s not the point of this post. What is the point of this post is that I’ve been haunted by experiences in my past and I believe in the God of the Bible…so when I read the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and I read of the 1st Century Church in the Book of Acts of the New Testament, what I read of is far different from what I’ve experienced in my own life. This leads me then to question why I haven’t experienced restoration in certain areas of my life…why am I still haunted by a past that relives itself through certain decision-making patterns?
What I’m tired of, and want nothing to do with is some ritual of going to a weekly meeting, singing a few songs with a light show and smoke to give ya’ goosebumps and make you feel like you were in the presence of God, hear a pastor give a positive self-help message with some religious words thrown in, and then send you on your way at the end with an upbeat and energetic song to hopefully make you want to come back next week.
Wow! How cynical I sound… And before I go on, this isn’t one pastor in one church…this has been my limited experience since I decided to get involved with the church in the early 1990’s.
BUT WHAT ABOUT BEING “HAUNTED”
I began to touch on it several paragraphs before, but what I am in search of is that Gospel I read about in the Bible. I examine my life, those painful life patterns I mentioned earlier; I consider the brokenness I experienced as I got involved with my probation clients for all those years; I think about the brokenness I am aware of in the lives of those I am close to… (long pause as I consider where this is going…)
So many of us are haunted, damaged, broken…and as I said so many times to myself after meeting with certain probation clients, I say here as well… “God? If you don’t show up, there’s just no hope for this person.”
Well… “God? If you don’t show up, there’s no hope for me!”
THE LIMP
The “Limp” is a term I used so often in the past as I not only thought about my probation clients, but also experienced within my own life. We become injured somewhere in our lives emotionally, or psychologically. Over time, rather than finding complete healing and restoration, we learn to compensate for the injury…we burry it and try to forget it ever happened, we fill our lives with noise and other distractions so we are not reminded of it, and pretty soon, the limp we walk with begins to feel quite normal. “So many around me are walking the same way so it must be normal right?“
OUT OF ALIGNMENT (METAPHORICALLY SPEAKING HERE)
As we walk through life with this metaphorical limp that we avoid acknowledging, problems begin to emerge. We try to walk-off that “ankle” injury and act like it’s not a big issue, we ignore the fact we’ve begun to overcompensate for the injury and our body becomes out of alignment. We begin having knee problems…then hip problems…then lower back problems…then, tension headaches…
Perhaps I’m generalizing here…I’m willing to concede that this scenario doesn’t fit some. However, I have seen enough stories where people were damaged in some way and they failed to properly heal. Many of these stories led down paths that ended in my office with good people telling me about painful stories of how they got wrapped up with heroin, meth, or alcohol; and this in turn led to additional injuries or criminal involvement.
When it came to discussions about sex-offenders, I use to say, “Show me a kid who raised his hand in 3rd or 4th grade and said he wanted to grow up and devastate people’s lives by violating them in the ugliest ways possible.”
I challenge you as the reader, find a boy who says he wants to grow up and beat up his girlfriend or wife, break her down to a point where she has zero self-esteem and feels completely dependent upon him because no one else will love her but him…because he’s said so over and over and over.
If we think the only damaged people are in extreme circumstances like the criminal justice system, well…I’m not even sure how to respond to that. I look to myself and the reoccurring patterns within my own life as evidence that I’ve simply been one (like so many) who has been able to conceal my injuries from the general public. My wife can observe them to some degree, but even there I’ve tried to minimize the depth of the injuries.
YOU THINK YOU KNOW SOMEONE…
Within the past year I had the eye-opening experience of getting to know someone I thought I knew for over 15 years. We were often in settings that had the appearance of transparency and trust, where we “shared from the heart”. Before I go on, this was not an illusion. We did have all that, and yet, we still failed to get to that point over 15+ years of really stripping down the BS and getting to core-injuries. I thought I knew him, and I do…yet, there was still so much buried deep, safely hidden away from others. Then the day came when he tearfully shared with me a lethal-wound he had carried with him from his early years…a wound that damaged his spirit to some degree and quite possibly has significantly influenced so many decisions he’s made as an adult. Guess what? He’s just a normal guy doing life like me. No criminal background, no addiction issues, just a guy walking with a limp through life…like me.
Another young man has come into my life in the past year. I play a specific role with him and as I get to know him more, I see the fire burning in his belly. There’s something there but I don’t know what it is, but it’s there…you can see the limp.
Then one morning as we talked, I asked him what drives him. That question was meant to prod a bit and it did what I wanted; it took us off the surface and we began to touch on his history a bit. Our meeting ended and he mentioned to me there have been some things he wanted to share with me about his past, but he was avoiding it. He committed to sharing more on our next meeting. Again, this is a young man who is successful, has some great goals, and yet, somewhere down inside, there’s an infection that he’s learned to “manage” rather than treat.
Again I want to point out, I see these things because I’m also willing to see them within my own life. It doesn’t mean I have it all figured out…hardly! I’m just at a place where I realize walking through this life out of alignment is not at all healthy, and every day I avoid these matters is a day I’ve missed out on healing and wholeness, passion and purpose.
EXORCISING THE DEMONS
Several years ago while I was still involved in a church, my wife and I had lunch with an older couple after a church service. As we shared our stories and got to know each other a bit better, the man said to me, “You’re a seeker.” The term has stuck with me because it seems to fit.
Full disclosure here: I have not found what I am in search of but I believe it is out there. I want to make that clear right now…I have so many more questions than answers. However, here’s where I stand:
- I do believe the Jesus of the Bible to be real, that the Holy Spirit has been sent to us to guide and counsel us, to help us navigate this life…if we will listen.
- I believe there is a “salvation-experience” that is much much more than simply praying a prayer, raising a hand when everyone’s head is bowed, filling out a card at the end of service, or walking an aisle and standing in front of a congregation of church people,
- I believe there is a Savior who came to set the captive free, to heal the lame and the blind, to bring us good news of restored fellowship with the Father,
- …and I’m not ready to say it’s going to be found in some multi-million dollar building. It may, I’m just not ready to say I see that coming.
IN PURSUIT
So that leads me to believe there is a healing that can take place within a relationship with Jesus. I believe he loves me too much to allow me to remain injured through this life, so I believe I will someday look back and see how my footsteps have taken me through experiences He used to teach, to heal, and to make whole, this broken person who types this blog post. This driving belief has also allowed me to see the beauty in broken people who have crossed paths with me in this life. I believe He has shown me what He sees when He looks at these injured people… I just need to allow myself to believe He also sees me that same way. Some days I can, many days I struggle with this.
So…..
Whatever your previous experiences have been with “church”, if those experiences were negative, I encourage you to toss them out the window as you journey forward. This is not about a church…this is about a person, Jesus Christ. I have no other option to hope in but to believe the Jesus of the Bible is real and desires to do today in my life, what he said he was here to do over 2,000 years ago.
If that is the case then He already knows about all those skeletons in my closet (and yours) so it’s okay to let them out. He’s accepted us as we are and has promised to not leave us where He found us. I think it’s safe to say we no longer need to be haunted by a past that Jesus came to deliver us from.
I’m going to hit “publish” and be done with this. I may come back and edit it, but it’s time to put it out there.