Its 10:37 and I’m trying to will myself to sleep. The past five days have been a whirlwind of emotions…

On Friday, we had the opportunity to do a RefineUs Ministries marriage retreat at a church where Justin was the youth pastor in 1998. In attendance were three of our students from that student ministry as well as dear friends we have known for years. We were also blessed to have a couple that have been married for 50 YEARS attend! It was an amazing time of teaching and sharing. Seeing couples choose to go to hard places in their relationship to allow healing to begin was beyond words. Our hearts were filled with a sense of joy of what God had done but also a heaviness knowing the hard work that’s ahead for these couples.

Sunday, we had baptisms at Cross Point and Justin spoke. It was so cool to witness 10 people at the Bellevue Campus get baptized by our Pastor Pete. One of those 10 was Pete’s neighbor he has known for 10 years. I later found out that 57… YES 57 people got baptized at our Nashville campus. AMAZING! What an honor to be a part of church that continually fights to provide a place where people are loved and challenged to grow. It truly was an amazing weekend!

But then Monday came…

The physical and emotional fatigue of all that took place started to set in. Desperate for rest with none in site I found myself constantly in deep thought over the reality of so many hurting marriages. Later that morning I got a text from a dear friend of mine. She has been fighting for her marriage for months but she is loosing the battle and divorce is quickly on the horizon. Seeing her cry that deep desperate cry was almost more than I could take. I felt helpless as her friend to heal her heart from an ache I know to well.

So here we are Tuesday night and its now 11:00pm. Trying to sleep yet caught in my thoughts. Tuesday just like Friday-Monday has been filled with amazing highs and heartbreaking lows. I hear the wind blowing outside and can’t help to think of my family in Indiana and Illinois and wonder if they are okay in the midst of a blizzard. Do they have power? Are they staying warm? Or what about my dear friend who sat her kids down tonight to tell them that mom and dad are getting a divorce?

Have you ever had one of those days, weeks, months or maybe years where life seems so turbulent? Exhausted between all the good and the bad of life that you long for days where your biggest problem is that your garage door opener isn’t working.

Tonight I sat down and read the prayer for my daily devotion:

My Prayer…

Precious and righteous Father, please use me today as your servant. Take my words and use them to bless, encourage, and comfort. Take my influence and use it to mend and inspire. Take my time and fill it up with your concerns. May the glory and honor of all I do ultimately bring glory to you. Your grace has saved me; please now use me to share that grace with others. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.

Such a gentle reminder that it is God who gives me what I need when I need it. My job is to follow after him and he will guide me through the rest.

Easy to say…

Hard to do…

Do you struggle with maintaining a healthy balance between concern and control?

Two years ago this month, Justin and I shared our story for the very first time. Aaron Brockett asked if we would come and share our story at his church, Trader’s Point. At first I told Justin “no”! He didn’t push me and just gave me time to think and pray about it. As time past I felt God nudging me to take this step of faith and share… and so we did. What we didn’t expect was the overwhelming response by the people in the congregation. It was like someone had ripped open a massive wound that had never been acknowledged before.

Justin and I were lost. We didn’t know how to help so many people. I met with so many different women that next week that I thought my heart was going to physically break. They didn’t want “5 steps to a better marriage” they just wanted to know that there was hope! I was where they were just 4 years prior and deeply felt their pain. But Justin and I knew we couldn’t continue at this pace and needed to figure out another way to help people.

That’s when a good friend told us about blogging. Justin and I had sheltered our selves from the world for 3 years. We had no idea what a blog was! We didn’t even know our friend had one. But we were desperate to share our story for two purposes.

1.    To give hope to hurting marriages and individuals.

2.    To give God ALL the glory for the miracle of our marriage.

As our blog grew so did the opportunities to speak. We spoke at our dear friend’s church in inner city Tampa, Florida. People in the congregation wept as we shared. We shared handshakes, hugs and prayers but when we left I felt such sadness. We opened this major wound and then just left them to bleed out.  I felt the sting of that experience for weeks to come. I found myself asking God what on earth more could we do with our pitiful story of brokenness? If I do anything more with RefineUs then that means I’m committing to this being a full fledge ministry and I’m not sure I’m ready or even want that.

As I wrestled with next steps I felt like God kept bringing to mind

Mathew 25:14-29 (you can read it here)

A story of three people given the opportunity to do something great with something they had been given. After reading this story for the 10^th time it finally hit me. Am I going to bury the story that God has given to me or go do something with it? I had to make a choice and decide between helping others (even though it would make me vulnerable) or keep my story to myself. I chose not to bury His story. Ttwo years later God has blown the doors wide open in giving us the opportunity to give hope to hurting marriages and individuals and give God ALL the glory for the miracle of our marriage.

So here’s my confession.

As opportunities grow for RefineUs there’s this shadow that looms that tries to cast a different reality for who we are and what we are about. It says that as you get more recognition you will have to fight to maintain your “platform” and constantly make it bigger and better. It tries to paint a picture that we have arrived and know all the answers.

I’m not sure who’s casting it but its there and often times it makes me want to jump ship. But here is what I know. I LOST EVERYTHING and God was still there. What we do for RefineUs doesn’t define who we are; rather its an overflow of who we are. We have a passion to help the church become the hope of the world by helping people, no matter where they are in their relationship with God, find hope, healing and a fresh start.

So my question is do YOU have a story God longs for you to share? Does it mean he will launch a ministry through you?

I have no idea but I do know that every life on this earth counts. If you change one life by choosing to let God use you I promise you it will be worth it!

We started this blog almost two years ago. We had no idea what we were doing. One of my best friends told me we could help a lot of people find healing by talking about ours. So our journey began.

I read this quote from Brennan Manning last night that brought tears to my eyes:

Christians who remain in hiding continue to live the lie. We deny the reality of our sin. In a futile attempt to erase our past, we deprive the community of our healing. If we conceal our wounds out of fear and shame, our inner darkness can neither be illuminated nor become a light for others. We cling to our bad feelings and beat ourselves with the past when what we should do is let it go. As Dietrich Bonhoffer said, “guilt is an idol.” But when we dare to live as forgiven men and women, we join the wounded healers and draw closer to Jesus.

That is the heartbeat of RefineUs. The story of two wounded healers overcoming fear and shame to bring light into the dark parts of our heart, and hopefully inspiring you to do the same.

For many of us the church hasn’t been the place we have gone for healing, but rather a place to conceal our wounds. We live with guilt as our identity instead of forgiveness. We’ve learned that living the lie is a lot more acceptable than coming out of hiding.

I don’t know where you are in your life today. Maybe you have realized that you can’t erase your past, so maybe you can outrun it…but you are tired and worn out. Maybe your life is filled with fear and shame and you can’t see past your own guilt to even begin to embrace the love of Christ. Maybe you have tried so hard to hide your woundedness that you’ve lost your belief that healing is possible.

Welcome. Welcome to this community.

This is a community of wounded healers. We are mess-ups and failures. We have lied and cheated and envied and hated.

But guilt is not our idol.

Shame does not define us.

Darkness doesn’t have the last word.

Redemption is our story.

Together we are drawing closer to Jesus.

Accountability is Useless:

When Trisha and I first got married and entered ministry in 1995, I prided myself on being a person that was accountable. I was accountable in my choices: I wouldn’t counsel with a woman behind a closed office door; I wouldn’t give a teenage girl a ride home from church without another person in the car. I wouldn’t do lunch with a female without my wife or another male at the lunch. At all costs I wanted to be accountable.

When we started the church in 2002, I knew that accountability would be of utmost importance. I sought out a guy in our core group and asked him if we could meet each Wednesday morning to “hold each other accountable.” As a church planter, I had a church planting coach. He and I would meet every Thursday morning and he would ask me questions about my relationship with God. He would ask me questions about my marriage, my struggles, my weaknesses. He wanted to hold me accountable. I had a group of Elders that I met with once a month that were the spiritual leaders of our church, and I was accountable to them.

So with all of these boundaries and all of these safe guards and all of these great leaders and friends holding me accountable how could I ever be unfaithful to God and my wife? That’s not possible right? But I was unfaithful, despite all of my accountability.

What I have discovered is accountability is useless.

Accountability is only as valuable as the transparency you and I offer in the context of that accountability.

We have a unique ability as humans to BS each other. It is easy for me to fake you out. It is easy for you to lie to my face. It is easy to pretend like your marriage is better than it really is. It is easy to offer just enough accountability to make yourself look spiritual. At the same time that partial accountability can be so dangerous because you are not only fooling me, you are fooling yourself.

The truth is you and I can meet every Wednesday and I can lie to you. The truth is that you can have several circles of accountability and unless you are 100% transparent in at least one of those circles, implosion is on the horizon.

I am not saying you should be 100% transparent with everyone, but I am saying you should be 100% transparent with someone. I have two people in my life that if I am asked a question I give 100% of the truth; I withhold nothing. I know if I am struggling or need to confess something, or am in a dark place, I can share that with these two people.

One of the biggest mistakes I made in my life, my marriage and my ministry is I substituted accountability for transparency. Accountability without transparency is useless. It is easier in the short term to offer accountability and it seems more spiritual…but you experience more of the grace and mercy and love of Christ when you offer transparency.

In fact, when you are willing to offer transparency, you will find you don’t need to be “held accountable.”

Have you ever substituted accountability for transparency?

There are times that I feel like I have it together. I feel like my relationship with God is moving in a great direction at a great pace. I hear from Him; I sense His promptings; I have a desire to follow those promptings; my prayer life and my devotional life are consistent.

There are times that I feel like my marriage is thriving. Trisha and I are on the same page. We are communicating. We are connecting spiritually. We are spending time together. We are valuing one another.

A few weeks ago, I found myself in funk. I wasn’t feeling that close to God. I felt like prayer and reading the Bible were chores not something I wanted to do. I acknowledged God throughout my day, but not like I knew I should.

This funk made its way into our marriage too. It wasn’t anything big…but it felt funky nonetheless. We felt like we were missing each other. Small misunderstandings. Lack of quality time. Surface level talking replaced deep meaningful conversations. Our tempers were shorter. Our patience was thinner. Responses to situations that should have been minor had more bite than they should have.

It is interesting when I get in these places I try to find the reason for my funk in something or someone else than me. I was lying in bed last week and just said in my head to God, “What is the deal? Why do you feel so far away and why aren’t Trisha and I connected like we should be? You got anything for me?”

In that moment, I sensed God say to me, “Why don’t you read your own blog?” I knew exactly what He meant. You don’t drift into praying for your spouse…you choose it. You don’t drift to putting your relationship with God first…you choose it.

This isn’t a one-time choice. This is a daily choice. The Eight Things that Destroyed Our Marriage isn’t just a blog series…it is reality. So last week, I reread those words. I set aside time to reconnect with God. I broke out my five-year-old book The Power of a Praying Husband, and got back to basics.

This post is a reminder that you will not drift closer to God today. You will have to choose it. You will not drift to be on the same team with your spouse, you will have to fight for it.

If I’m honest, there are days that drifting takes its best shot at me…but it won’t get the best of me.

What do you when you find yourself in a funk?

Do you remember being in school and the first assignment back from summer vacation or Christmas break was to write a paper. The title of the paper had to be the same but the content of everyone’s paper was different. The title was “What I Did on My Summer Break.” Our family never had money, so the content of my paper wasn’t ever that exciting. But as we were driving back from Indiana, I thought of some things that I learned over Thanksgiving break.

Trisha and I are in a season of processing some deep hurts. My parents’ divorce is still on the front burner. Family dynamics as a result of their divorce have changed, and we are adjusting. Finding out that my dad isn’t my dad and I am adopted is still at the top of the list for me, personally as well. I feel like I am in a new season of refining, and while it is hard, I know it is worth it.

Here are some things that I feel like God revealed to me as we drove back from Thanksgiving. Maybe these are things He wants to share with you as well:

1. Time is more valuable than money.

It is easy for me to think that money holds the greatest value. I was reminded though a number of situations that time is so much more valuable than money. My wife wants my time more than money. My kids want my time more than money. I can’t build intimacy with money. I can’t create depth with money. I can create the illusion of a relationship and the feeling of appreciation but not true intimacy.

2. Forgiveness is a choice I have to make over and over and over again

My wife is the most grace filled person I know. The fact that she has so selflessly forgiven me, you think I could have learned this from her. In a way, I guess I did, but in a way I had to experience it and realize it for myself. I have to choose forgive the same person sometimes over and over. As the layers of hurt are revealed in my heart, I have a choice to make more than once. Will I forgive the hurt today? Maybe you are there today? Maybe the most important decision you can make today is to forgive.

3. I can’t force someone else to pursue health and wholeness.

I know that I can’t change someone’s heart. Only God can do that. As I interact with those I love, I can see the brokenness they carry. I can sense the pain that lives in their heart. I am no better. I am just as broken. I guess the only difference between us is I recognize how jacked up I am and want to pursue the health only Christ can provide. As much as I want to, I can’t force anyone else to pursue wholeness, they have to pursue it on their own. Maybe for you today, you need to find freedom in your inability to force someone to pursue health.

4. I can pretend that everything is okay in a relationship, but I’ll never have the relationship I desire.

I am amazed at our ability to pretend everything is okay. I can pretend that a relationship has no problems. I can pretend that a wound doesn’t exist. I can pretend that feelings haven’t been hurt. I can fake even myself out at times, but I will never have the intimate relationship I desire by pretending. By sweeping things under the rug or pretending the past will take care of itself, I will always settle for a counterfeit form of intimacy with that person. Honesty paves the way to intimacy.

This post wasn’t intended to be a therapy session to help me deal with Thanksgiving. 

I felt led to share these with you as this is where God has me today. What about you?

Out of the four listed, which do you think you need to process the most?

Last night as I (Trisha) was getting ready for bed I noticed the TV in our bedroom was still on. It’s not abnormal for my boys to watch TV in our room AND leave it on. Right away the show playing caught my attention. It was a special about children dealing with parents who are alcoholics. It stopped me dead in my tracks.

When I was a little girl I knew that my dad struggled with drugs and alcohol. But when I was around the age of 5 we started going to church, my dad found Jesus and in my mind…a new life. Our family fell in love with God and the church where we would attend for the next 15 years.

When I left for college I was the first in my family to move away. I remember this transition being particularly hard on my dad. One cold Friday evening I decided to drive home for the weekend to see my family. Little did I know that the events that would soon take place would forever change my life.

Honestly, I don’t feel comfortable sharing the details of that night but I will share this… on that cold Friday night I found out that my dad started drinking, was always drinking honestly I still don’t know. All I knew was that he was drinking. As the events started to unfold I found myself in an intense argument with my dad pleading for him to choose me over his addiction. He chose his addiction or you could say his addiction chose him.

Last night as I sat watching and listening to children pour out their hearts about their alcoholic parent(s) my own memories came flooding back. It broke me to see the pain and desperation in their eyes. Children whose only request was for their mom or dad to be sober and choose them. Because not choosing them meant losing the parent they know and love to addiction.

I don’t know who you are in this story. Maybe you’re the alcoholic? Maybe you’re the child? Whoever you are I pray today you would see, hear, believe that…

You are a loved child of God

No addiction is stronger than God’s healing power

Your life matters and can and will impact so many others

God can give you the grace to forgive your mom, dad, husband or wife

God can show you how to forgive yourself.

Often times the Serenity Prayer is quoted by those who have an addiction and I totally get why. It helps me to remember that I can’t change my dad but Jesus can change ME. He gives me courage and wisdom as to how to love my dad as well as others in my life. I’m daily learning how to surrender to His will and trust that He will one day make all things right. I pray this prayer will do the same for you.

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.
Amen.

–Reinhold Niebuhr

Trust in the LORD with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will direct your paths.

Proverbs 3, 5-6

I’ve been a Christian long enough to know that you never arrive. I’ve also been a Christian long enough to know how easy it is to have a sense of arriving. There is a tendency in all of us to think that our relationship with God has arrived. It’s not that we think we are done growing, it is a sense that we don’t think we need to grow anymore.

This isn’t something we would articulate to anyone, it is this feeling we have inside as we go to church; compare ourselves to others; evaluate where we are now compared to where we were 3 years ago. It is easy to have a sense of “I’m good. I’ve arrived.”

I guess to some extent, that is the season I’ve been in.

I’m guest posting for my friend Lindsey Nobles: CONTINUE READING HERE

What if you weren’t the only one?

That is what you believe at times isn’t it? Your reality seems to be that you are the only one. But what if you weren’t?

What if you weren’t the only stay at home mom that felt guilty for wanting to go to work?

What if you weren’t the only mom that worked outside the home that felt guilty for not being at home?

What if you weren’t the only couple that had problems in their marriage?

What if you weren’t the only person in your family that was sexually abused?

What if you weren’t the only one that pretended to have it more together than you really do?

What if you weren’t the only single dad that was depressed about being alone every other weekend?

What if you weren’t the only one in your small group that has had an abortion?

What if you weren’t the only person that is hiding their drinking problem?

What if you weren’t the only one that felt self-conscious about their weight; smile; hair or figure?

What if you weren’t the only one that was clueless about being a good parent?

What if you weren’t the only one addicted to pornography?

What if you weren’t the only one that lived in shame and guilt?

What if you weren’t the only one that struggled to forgive?

What if you weren’t the only single 30-something adult that longs for a spouse and kids more than anything else?

What if you weren’t the only one that had regrets from your past?

What if you weren’t the only one that felt invisible?

What if you weren’t the only one that is hiding an affair.

What if you weren’t the only married couple that felt more like roommates than lovers?

What if you weren’t the only one that felt lonely even though people surround you?

What if you weren’t the only one?

That is the lie we buy into isn’t it? We are all alone. No one else feels what we feel. No one else has done what we have done. No one else have been abused like we have. No one else is addicted to what we are addicted to. No one else has the marriage problems we have. No one else wants to be married and isn’t. No one else has low self-esteem.

When we buy into the lie that we are all alone we set ourselves up for a life of pretending. What is so ironic is that the more we believe that we are the only one that feels what we feel or struggles with that we struggle with…the more isolated we become. It is almost a self-fulfilling prophesy.

The truth today is YOU ARE NOT ALONE. You are not the only one. Don’t allow your heart to be robbed of the life God has planned for you today buying into this lie.

You are not alone.

Find freedom in knowing that where you are right now is known. You don’t have to hide. There is hope. How you feel is shared by others.

Have you ever felt like you were the only one?

About 8 weeks before the affair started, a pastor-friend of mine questioned my relationship with that particular staff member. He wasn’t accusing me of anything; he was questioning my heart and giving me an opportunity to be honest and come clean. Telling the truth in that moment would have cost me…but not nearly as much as withholding the truth cost me and those I cared about most.

I blew him off. I was not only in denial about the danger that this relationship possessed, I didn’t want to admit any weakness at all.

That conversation was my way out. That conversation and a few others like it, was God providing the fulfillment of this verse:

1 Corinthians 10:13

The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure.

God will show you a way out.

What I have experienced is that this promise is always true. He always provides a way out. But most of the time, I’m not willing to take it. There is something in me that doesn’t trust God’s way out…so I try to create my own way out.

• My way out involves hiding
• My way out is deceit
• My way out is medicating my problem
• My way out is pretending
• My way out is avoidance
• My way out is compromise
• My way out is justifying
• My way out is rationalizing

When we choose our way out instead of God’s…we end up in more bondage; more brokenness; with more regret than when we started.

God’s way out is intimidating. God’s way out will usually cost you something. God’s way out will require courage. God’s way out will often humble you. God’s way out will not allow you to avoid the consequences of your choices. God’s way out will shine light into dark places. God’s way out will start out hurting but brings about healing. God’s way out will always look more intimidating than your way.

Maybe this blog post is your way out. Maybe a conversation you had over the weekend was your way out. Maybe your wife offered you a way out last week. Maybe the lunch meeting you will have on Thursday will be God giving you a way out.

Here is the truth: God promises you a way out. That is a promise from the heart of God. He will give you a way out.

Will you be willing to listen for it? When you hear it, will you be willing to take it?

Your way out may look easier. Your way out may look better. Your way out is fools gold. It promises you more than it can ever deliver. God longs for you to escape the temptation you are facing.  Will you have the courage to take it when He provides it?

Do you struggle with choosing your way out over God’s?