So, the happy ending. There came a point after eight months of living with my parents that we decided to officially give up on trying to find another pastoral position. They didn’t want me, and I didn’t want them either. The antipathy was mutual. I started looking for a low-level secular job, figuring I was little better than a new college graduate with no marketable experience. By the end of this story, we had lived a full year with my parents in Tulsa.
Meanwhile, my older brother had been singing the praises of Austin, Texas, and the new church that had just been launched and was being pastored by a respected friend (BB). Also, he was thriving teaching at the flagship classical school in the United States.
Trina and I dreamed of moving to Austin, being near family. It seemed so hard and unlikely. But I decided to focus my job search in Austin. In 2004, Austin was still a cool, medium-sized city.
I heard there was a part-time job opening at my brother’s classical school (Regents School of Austin), but it was only 9 hours per week, teaching the high school Bible Survey classes. I applied. I did not get the job.
Still, for much of the summer of ’04, I left my family in Tulsa and came to help my brother remodel his house while applying for jobs. In late July, the person who had landed the Bible Survey teaching job at Regents bowed out. Regents called me to ask if I was still interested, and I said Yes, even if it was part-time. I would find a second job to make ends meet.
To cut to the chase, the Head of School (CE) decided the school was growing large enough that it needed a dedicated IT guy and voilå, a full-time job was created for me, part teaching and part computer tech. Now things started to fall into place. My parents helped us trade in our busted old minivan for a newer one (I think they actually bought it for us). By some miracle, we were able to buy a 4BR house, the house where we still live, with no down payment. The worst of my hostilities towards church had subsided, and we started attending with my brother and his family. It was a good place for us for several years.
And, to make all of our dreams come true, Regents had financial aid available, and our kids were able to attend the school we thought was far, far out of our reach.
My psychology during this time was very messy. Could I forgive God for those hard years? Isn’t it blasphemous to suggest ‘forgiving God’? Yes, but we were still not on good terms. Was I destined someday to coming around to see things from a divine perspective? Would I one day understand and be thankful? I bitterly admitted I probably wasn’t going to win that battle with God, or any battle. God always wins, damn it. He has an unfair advantage. He’s God, so he always gets to be right. He’s never going to come apologize to me. How is little tiny me going to be vindicated before the eternal creator? Isn’t that exactly what Job was after? And we know what happened to him.
But this was a time of happiness. It’s hard to express the sense of night and day that year meant for us; from the deepest, darkest valley to the top of the mountain in just a few weeks. The undeniable fact that it had all been orchestrated by the Lord produced a feeling of gratitude, yes, but I felt like a cartoon character that had just had a stick of dynamite go off in his face—fur blown back, duckbill on the back of my head, black soot stains on my cheeks, and bewildered eyes.
Everything we could have asked for fell out of the sky into our laps. The way behind us was scorched earth, the way forward was provision, rest, and community.
For the next ten years, I kept asking myself, “What was all that about?” Now I look back with even greater gratitude and better understanding. God’s mysterious plan included ending my faith. Ending it. Crushing it to atoms, destroying the one thing we are supposed to have as believers.
I can only say God is much more shocking and shrewd and devious than I ever would have imagined. He put up with my raging and insults. He endured my hatred while he worked. I know it caused him much pain, and he just took it.
I feel closer to the Lord now than at any other time in my life, however, the scars of that time have left me unable to sing in church. If you see me not singing, that’s why. And my prayers are now mostly nonverbal, just he and I exchanging eyes at each other. I’m not a big talker anyway. Why be fake before God and make up prayer-talk just to be praying? He knows what’s in my heart.
One more installment of this story remains, the part where I talk about how my understanding of the true Christian faith has evolved over the last 25 years.
