Waking From The Dream

I fell asleep last night - hard, at about eight o'clock. My wife was wonderful, letting me sleep, knowing I needed to vegg out for a time (and I tend to sleep hard). As you might imagine, I've got some major confidence issues going into "the future". The biggest hurdle to overcome might be this: if I hadn't sent that email Thursday, none of this would be happening. For better or for worse, I wouldn't have hurt my friends like this, and I wouldn't have to part with folks at all - at least not yet.

My first objective in all of this over the course of months has been to not bring division and divisiveness into the church body. As far as I can tell, I succeeded until that email went out. No one at church knew that any of this was going on. I tended to vent "off-campus" with other ministers who know that it's good to let off steam and then be able to still work hard and be, not just pretend to be, a team player.

I packed up my books from the office yesterday. A couple of couples were there, leaving for a daytrip to Carowinds - Pastor Danny and Carlos Jr and the wives and kiddoes. I hadn't expected to see anyone, but I'm glad I saw them. They understand, at least as far as that goes, that things happen and that they happen for a reason in God's ultimate purposes. Unless you're in ministry, I think it's harder to fathom. Pastors are the same as everyone else, but they're also a different population, and these things happen. I really appreciated their hugs and conversation in those few moments before they left for the amusement park, before I left their weekly schedules.