I started this blog ten years ago to write, as well as to record my
experience as a pastor in a small town in British Columbia.
During that period, from 2010 to 2015, I did a series on assertiveness,
using Randy Paterson’s The Assertiveness Workbook as a framework to guide both the
reader and my own learning. Interspersing
blog posts with re-tread sermons, I did an Advent Series, leading up to Christmas, a series on my favourite Old Testament book, Ruth, as well as posts centering on Jesus, based on Luke’s gospel (my NT favourite). I did
a series on workplace bullying, with referenced sources, and with a focus on bullying in the church. Much of this was self-care.
Then life got dark. I was
battling. My capacity to manage the stress became overwhelmed. I faced challenges at work. Through all this, health challenges consumed one of my children. My marriage failed.
At my limit, the turning point came on a mountaineering trip, when I tossed a profanity laced prayer heavenward,
daring God to do something, if he was even there. The next
morning, my party and I were nearly killed in an avalanche. I considered that God had done the something I
dared him to do. And somehow, I found hope again.
Bit by bit, I began piecing together a new path. I voraciously consumed dozens of self-help books. I sought out a counselor. I tapped into my creativity. I immersed myself in nature. I exercised. I retrained. I got a job in public
education and applied to a local university. I completed my Master's in Social Work. I am repairing relationships. I found love again. I continue to take care of myself.
This has not been a retooling, a little fine tuning of a near finished product. This has been one man, scraped clean to the bone, rebuilding from the ground up, from the inside out. There is restored a feeling of purpose and of destiny.
What follows is my accountability to that destiny.
