Inside Out

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.