The last 7 days have been unlike anything I have ever experienced. I have gone from being the most non-construction, least mechanical man alive, to a deconstruction, mold eradicating, drywall and carpet ripping pro. We have served 17 homes in our neighborhood; carrying out their furniture, taking out their carpet, tearing out their drywall, insulation, baseboards, door frames, window sills, fireplace mantles, appliances and kitchen cabinets. It has been overwhelming to see most of the things that make a house a home for my neighbors piled up in their front yards. I wish I hadn’t had to learn so much about flood recovery.

A few days ago, I received word that one of my neighbors wasn’t going to remove their drywall or wood flooring and was going to save their bathtubs and their furniture.  They thought they were safe just removing carpet. They took their baseboards out, poked some holes in their dry wall, removed their carpet, and moved their dried out furniture back into their house. Their wet clothes still hung in their closets.

I began to explain to them the danger that they were in. They didn’t believe me at first. They couldn’t see any mold. Their drywall looked fine above the line where it had flooded. They were going to treat what was visible and move on with their life.

I put my hammer into their wall and pulled away the drywall. I pulled out a soaking piece of insulation that had already begun to grow mold. I told them that it wasn’t what they could see that was dangerous; it was what lied beneath the surface that could be deadly. I told them that they had to be committed to doing whatever was necessary to remove any hint of mold in their house; otherwise they would be in trouble.

As I was thinking about my life, I have seen the same pattern in me. There have been times in my life where I have settled for treating only what is visible. There have been deadly sin patterns or hazardous heart conditions that weren’t visible to others, but I knew existed. I didn’t believe it would be all that dangerous. I treated that which was most obvious and hoped that which lied beneath would just go away. It destroyed my life, my marriage and my relationship with God.

Maybe you are there right now…you pretend like everything is fine…but it’s not:

• There’s no visible sign of sexual sin, but in your heart you have lustful thoughts for a co-worker.
• There’s no visible sign of an anger problem, but in your heart you have bitterness toward a family member.
• There’s no visible envy in your life, but in your heart you are so jealous of the life your sister has; or the wife your brother has; or the job your friend has.
• There are no visible forgiveness issues, but in you heart you resent your husband.
• There are no visible problems in your marriage, but in your heart you have left your spouse a thousand times.

The times in my life that I have felt the farthest from God and have compromised my values the most, are the times that I knew something lied beneath the surface and wasn’t committed to tear away all of the junk around my heart and get to the place where restoration could begin.

Have you tried to find restoration without being committed to deconstruction?

Trisha and I appreciate you going on this journey with us this week. As we have talked about it, writing our experiences down here and talking about how this flood has changed us has been so helpful just to process feelings and emotions. Thank you for your prayers, you notes of encouragement, your support for us and our community here.

Next week, we plan to go back to semi-regularly scheduled programming here at RefineUs, but I wanted to leave you this week with some questions that this experience has prompted me to ask. They are in no particular order, but are refining me all the same:

-Why did it take a catastrophe of this magnitude to compel me to serve my neighborhood?

-Why did I not know Eric, the guy who lives behind me, name until he climbed over my fence?

-Why did it take being separated from my kids 4 ½ years ago to compel me to be the dad I’d always talked about being.

-Why did it take almost going bankrupt for me to commit to getting my finances in a healthy place?

-Why did it take the near destruction of my marriage to cause me to be the husband I vowed to be on my wedding day?

-Why does it often take extreme pain, disappointment, a tragedy, or heartache to cause me to completely surrender to God?

What this week has taught me is that God still has so much room to grow my heart. My prayer today is that I will begin to learn the refining things of life before my circumstances dictate the lesson. I want to know Jesus more, I want more of Him to be in more of me. As Jesus cousin said in the Bible, “I want to decrease so He can increase.”

Any questions you are asking today? Any questions you need to be asking? Please share.

I (Trish) wish I could somehow, as I sit at a friend’s house flowing with electricity eloquently put my thoughts together… but I can’t. My first thoughts are to type complaints of how tiered and emotionally drained I am. I know that my family and my entire Cross Point Church family are feeling the same. Days of devastation have taken its toll. But then I look out my window and realize that going without electricity isn’t that big of a deal.

Beyond the devastation that is visible to the naked eye there are heartbreaking stories not so visible. Like a couple that just replaced their whole kitchen less than a month ago. The newly retired couple that were so close to paying everything off but without flood insurance fear financial ruin. A new dear friend who had to say-goodbye to a loved one who has only a few hours left to live. The sad reality that three of our Cross Point church staff members have lost everything. And the stories go on and on.

But in the midst of all the pain I feel this deep sense of peace and joy that is rooted in knowing our heavenly Father is in control! God has given us an amazing opportunity to love on our community not through our words or church building but simply by our actions. I have hugged, cried and silently prayed with many families that have been affected.

The first 24 hours of the flood for our family involved rescues and watching helplessly as their homes were overwhelmed by the floodwaters. Before the clean up even began we were toasted. Yet again deep joy overwhelmed us as we watched our church family quickly rally around those in need. They came strong, equipped and filled with hope that none of us were in this alone.

There are no words that would express the gratitude I have for our church family. Each person represented hope and help that we couldn’t provide. I felt deep joy seeing first hand our mission statement come to life:

“To continue to grow as a community of believers radically devoted to Christ, irrevocably committed to one another and relentlessly dedicated to reaching those outside God’s family with the Gospel of Christ.”

Thank you Cross Point family for living this out!

Thank you to our families and friends around the world for your encouraging notes. Although we still have no electricity there are small windows your messages come through and they have been so good for our hearts. Please continue to pray for

-       Flood victims

-       Our church staff as they continue to organize supplies and volunteers

-       Our volunteers living in Nashville and those coming in from other states

-       Supplies and contributions to get people back on their feet

With much love and gratitude for each of you!

Trish

When you decide to make ministry your occupation, most of the time you choose that path to help people. That is why I went into ministry.

Over the course of my first 11 years in ministry helping people drifted to some form of leading, teaching, creating a worship experience with an occasional mission trip thrown in. It became very corporate. Not bad, just different than I had envisioned.

When I left ministry in 2005, I realized all that I had been missing. As we reentered ministry last year we knew there was so much more to ministry than just Sunday morning.

This week as Trisha and I have done our best to serve our neighbors, I’ve rediscovered somethings:

-the power of a hug
-the way moving furniture communicates care
-how just showing up says a lot more about my relationship with God than any message I preach
-offering a meal and a place to stay impacts people forever

I know that our neighbors lives were rocked this week. Our family was too in so many different ways. I am praying God uses us in small ways to bring hope in His name. I’m hoping it doesn’t take a flood to keep this perspective.

(still no power or Internet, so I am posting from my phone, so excuse typos)

We are so thankful for all of your prayer, emails and encouraging facebook and Twitter messaages.

I wanted to give you a quick update. We have power back at our house and are so grateful for that. We do not have phone or Internet access and cell phone coverage is still not consistent. I am writing this post from my phone again.

I’d like to share one story from yesterday that just rocked us. We had several people stay with us on Sunday, many of whom spoke different languages. We had an Indian family here and the dad Mike didn’t want to come inside…he stood in our backyard for hours just watching the water rise in his house. His wife was not with him, but his kids we
re. Yesterday we went by to take them some bottled water as they were tearing carpet out of their house and his wife just hugged Trisha! We all cried as she thanked her over and over again.

As we were leaving, I told Mike how sorry I was for their loss. He said “We moved here (to U.S.) with nothing and have worked to build this. We will rebuild and recover, and are thankful.”

That just blew me away. I was so humbled by his attitude and his heart. I can’t wait to serve people in our community today.

Please continue to lift our community up in prayer.

Thank you RefineUs community for your love, support and encouragement!

I am typing this post on my phone as our house has no power. Water is on all sides of us and the homes behind us are completely flooded…like 5 feet of standing water in their living room, flooded!

About 9am yesterday two people climbed over our fence…by 11am 27 people and 5 dogs had been rescued and were at our house.

By God’s grace and provision, we had just purchased 2 weeks worth of groceries on Friday! He is so good! We fed everyone lunch and then realized all of our food was thawing out! We were going to lose all of the meat we just bought…there had to be a better plan!

All of these people had lost everything, Trisha and I wanted to treat them like royalty. We grilled 6 steaks, 30 chicken breasts, 12 hamburgers and 3 hotdogs. We had frozen our extra bread and buns so we had plenty of those too. We also had just bought 72 bottles of water! God showed up big time!

As my boys went to bed with no power, Micah said to me “I take so many things for granted.” Me too, son. Me too!

We will be sharing more with you later this week!

To see a video I shot of the devastation go here: http://twitvid.com/KIMJ4

Just this past week, we’ve had several hundred people find our site through a Google search variation of this term “what to do when you spouse has had an affair”. As we were talking about this, we wanted to respond in two ways today: we are reposting a post that Trisha wrote a few weeks ago to hopefully provide hope today for people who need it.

Additionally, we are going to be offering coaching this summer. We have realized that writing posts and returning emails only goes so far. If you’d like more details you can email us here: refineOURmarriage

_______________________________________________________

The pressure of writing this post is a bit overwhelming and my heart is heavy. Sigh… not because I think I have all the answers but simply the reality of the broken person who will search for this resource. Remembering that surreal and painful moment of hearing “I’m having an affair.” And now knowing that I may be speaking into your “moment” causes me to stop and pray hard that I don’t mess this up.

As I (Trisha), write I am reminded that this isn’t about what I’ve done. This post is all about what Christ did for me in my “moment” and how He continues to restore and bring HOPE in what was a very hopeless situation! This post is for YOU the hurting and broken spouse whose world is being turned upside down. I pray my words are encouraging and hope filled as you begin your journey of healing.

1. Grieve!
The Grieving process is a gift from God. As Christians we often feel guilty for being angry, sad or depressed. Knowing your spouse has had an affair is like being told they have died. All that you have thought to be true about your marriage and your spouse is now dead. It is OK to be angry! It is OK to feel depressed! It is OK to feel confused! It is OK to feel hopeless. Just because you feel these emotions it doesn’t change who God is and the love he has for you.

Grieving is the start to the restoration process and maybe not for your marriage but for you as a person and child of God. While it can be unhealthy to get stuck in one of the stages of grief it is essential to grieve and understand that with grieving comes healing!

2. Get Help! You Need Community.
When Justin said “I’m having an affair” it seemed that all my community disappeared. The affair was with my best friend and staff member of our church. The two people I should be able to turn to in a crisis were no longer there. It was SO LONELY. I was confused, tired, disoriented and in desperate need of help. The Lord brought an amazing group of women who despite hurting themselves loved me, embraced me and helped me SURVIVE the next few days and weeks.

I don’t know who this is for you. Pray that God would bring people to mind and trust those people to help you. I know it’s hard. Here I lost the two people closest to me and now had to trust others? Community may not be easy but IT’S A MUST. You need community for the sake of your family, your mental health and for a covering of prayer.

3. Create Boundaries / Create a Plan
I often say that just like with parenting there are general principles we can apply when parenting our children but if you’re a parent you know that each child is different. The same is true for your marriage. Although there are general steps you can take for your marriage, each marriage is different and your boundaries and plan will look different from mine.

Justin was NOT broken at the beginning of his confession! He was cold and made it very clear he was not in love with me and was not coming home. This was MY reality and I needed to create healthy boundaries. I kicked him out of our house. I created a new checking account and took the majority of our money. I had someone help me understand our finances because Justin did everything. I had a couple that helped me connect with Justin to take our boys since I wasn’t speaking to him. The list goes on and on. But with a plan and clear boundaries it gave my boys and I stability when my life was falling apart and time and space to begin to heal.

4. Counseling. Counseling. Counseling.
Let me first say that just because someone is a counselor that doesn’t mean they are good at what they do! Justin and I were so blessed by two amazing counselors Kathy (JD’s counselor) and Dan our marriage counselor. I don’t care if it takes you 5 tries to find a counselor your comfortable with YOU NEED TO GO.

Dan helped me navigate my emotions of the hurtful details Justin would share with me. He gave me tools to know how to grieve in a way that is healthy. He taught me that it was ok to “go after Justin” in sessions and demand the truth. He helped me to see my own junk and brokenness instead of hiding behind Justin’s. He allowed me to be angry but helped me not to become bitter. Each session we had to trust and choose to take ownership and action to step into that path of healing he was helping to provide.

5. Identity Thief / Finding Who You Are
It’s emotional to write this one. Who am I? What do I do from here? What will my family and friends say or do? What will my work do? Will I find a job to support my family? Am I really a single parent now? What if he marries her? How do I tell my kids? How do I walk my kids into school knowing half of our congregation will be there? God why? God what do I do? I worked so hard. I sacrificed so much just for this?

I no longer knew who I was. I hadn’t realized how I used so many other titles such as pastor’s wife, mom and friend to find my identity. The loss of so much brought me to my knees. Yet it allowed me to see that the only identity that matters is who I am in Christ. A loved daughter of the king and in time Jesus would teach me that this is enough.

Last week I sat on the couch reading email on my phone, as life in our house went on all around me. It was about 7AM and, I had gotten up and went for my phone to check my email. “Checking” email turned into reading email, turned into returning email.

At some point, Trisha said to me: “Justin, we need you engaged here, with us. You have all day to read your email, the kids are going to school in 40 minutes.”

I’ve had a few days to process and pray about that day and here is what I’ve realized:

Being engaged in the moment isn’t about my attention span; it’s about my heart.

It is so easy at times to justify half-hearted engagement. So often, I’ve been guilty of equating not being engaged with my family or not being engaged in friendships or not being engaged with God with being important. If so many people didn’t need me, if there weren’t so many pressing things to get done, then I’d have more time to be fully engaged with God or with the kids or with Trisha.

That is such crap. It’s pride actually.

Last week was a reminder that I haven’t arrived. God is still refining my heart. It was a wake up call to me that I may be allowing other things to become more important the right things.

I want to be fully present in each and every moment of my life. That is my prayer that God would grow me and change my heart to be fully engaged.

Does anyone else struggle to be fully engaged in relationships that mean the most to them?

You might think its over, but its not over. In fact, It might feel like its over, but its not over.

When Trisha and I separated in 2005, I was invited to stay with some dear friends. As I prepared to walk into their seven year-old daughter’s bedroom, where I would be staying, my friend said to me “It is going to feel like its over, but its not over.” I walked in to see all of my clothes stacked up against the wall. It felt like it was over.

A few days later, I came home from a counseling appointment. He handed me a sheet of paper with a number on it. I asked him what it was…he said this is the amount of money you have; Trisha has withdrawn the rest and opened her own checking account. I sat down on the bed and cried. He said again, “It’s going to feel like its over, but its not over.”

Maybe as you read this, there is something in your life that needs to be over:

-An abusive relationship

-A dysfunctional or co-dependent friendship

-A destructive behavior pattern or sin pattern

-A reoccurring unfaithful marriage

Often times God calls us and leads us to allow things to die in our life that hurt us or damage our relationship with Him.

But maybe today, there is something in your life that feels like its over, but with God, its not over:

-Your dream is dead

-Your marriage is beyond repair

-Your relationship is too strained

-Your friendship has drifted too far apart

-Your past mistakes are too numerous to overcome

I’m not saying that God will restore your marriage or He will resurrect a dream that seems dead, or there won’t be consequences to your mistakes.

But I do know that even when you feel like its over, He’s not done yet. Even if your marriage has ended; even if your dream hasn’t come true; even if a friendship has crumbled…He’s not done. He’s not done molding you, shaping you, healing you, preparing you, calling you, equipping you, loving you, providing for you, hearing you, leading you, forgiving you, restoring you.

There has to be a death, in order to experience a resurrection. Even when it feels like its over, its not over.

The Apostle Paul said it best: “And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.”

When Trisha and I started marriage counseling, one term that kept coming up in our counseling sessions was the term “the seduction of the stage.”

As we talked about this phrase, we discovered how easy it is for us to live for the applause of others rather than for the approval of God. It is a subtle shift that happens in our life that we don’t recognize until we begin altering our values. These values were once driven by a desire to please God, but slowly drift to impressing others; convincing others how great we are, proving to others how worthy we are.

During this time, we began reading a book called Abba’s Child by Brennan Manning. I highly recommend it. In the book Manning says this:

“Sanctity lies in discovering my true self, moving toward it, and living out of it… While the impostor draws his identity from past achievements, and the adulation of others, the true self claims its identity in its belovedness. We give glory to God simply by being ourselves.”

That statement hit me like a ton of bricks. “We give God glory by simply being ourselves.” For so many years I had felt like “myself” was never good enough. It wasn’t good enough for my dad; it wasn’t good enough for my basketball coach; it wasn’t good enough for my professors; it wasn’t good enough for Trisha; it wasn’t good enough for the people that came to my church. Inadequacy had a grip on my heart:

• If I could not mess up as much, I’d be good enough for my dad.
• If I could score more points or get more rebounds then I’d be good enough for my coach.
• If I could excel at basketball enough, I could impress more girls or be more popular with people to whom I constantly felt inferior.
• If I could write better papers and get better grades then I could be good enough for my college professors
• If I could be a better husband and be a better dad then I could finally feel like who I am is good enough for Trisha.
• If I could preach better sermons and think up creative services and if next week’s message could top last weeks, then more people will come to my church. If more people come, then I’ll be more important and I’ll finally feel worthy to lead this church.

At some point, I created this belief system that thought if I could achieve enough, receive enough applause and impress people enough, I would finally be comfortable being “myself”.

Living this way will never lead to you and I being ourselves…it only leads us to be performers; performers who are seduced by the stage. It is subtle and it is incremental, and it is exhausting.

So today, I just want to tell you that you don’t have to be more than you are right now to impress God. You don’t have to be better than you are right now to receive God’s affection.

All of the false parts of yourself that you wear to try to impress others and gain the applause of others aren’t needed for you to be loved by your Heavenly Father.

Live in your belovedness today!

Have there been times in your life where you have been seduced by the stage and found yourself performing?