Missing THEM

  I haven’t been writing anything new for some time now. I’ve been spending the lion’s share of my time trying to refine my next book. Although much of my time is spent looking at language and punctuation, the bulk of my thought life has roamed in a separated land.


  When you hear a particular song, does it ever take you back to a certain phase in your life? About three weeks ago, my ear caught on to Wherever You Will Go, by The Calling. It’s not a Christian song, but its sentiment captures a part of my life that I can’t seem to escape, even if I wanted to.

Remember That One Time, When I Did That One Thing…

  If you knew me between 2000 and 2005, you might have referred to me as being a volunteer youth pastor. In many ways, I saw myself as such. I was a newer believer at the time and looking back, I had never known the love of Christ until I met THEM. I had of course loved my family and I had loved my friends. I had not, however, loved His people.

  It’s difficult to explain who THEY are. I can’t call them youth; not now, and neither did I identify them as such back then. THEY are just THEM. I hope THEY know who THEY are. In my time with THEM, I had the audacity to believe that I would in some way be able to follow THEM throughout life. No matter where THEY went, I’d find a way to be there.

  Over the past 3 weeks, I have had to wrestle with both reality and hope. There are many realities of this life which prove themselves to be intolerable. The intolerable reality is that I am not able to go wherever THEY go. My heart still aches when THEY are down. I still rejoice when I hear from THEM. I simply find myself incapable of being everything that my soul desperately longs to be for THEM.

  The hope I cling to rests it the knowledge that God’s Spirit is at work in those who know Him, and that we share in an inheritance which is kept beyond decay and thievery.

  I hope it’s okay for a Christian to be sad, because I am. I am not terribly sad. It is not that I have lost a loved one, either to the jaws of death or to a life of sin. It is a general melancholy, born out of some inconvenient truth.

  I often wonder if I will ever be able to love a people the way I love THEM ever again. The first 5 years of this millennium have proven to be 5 years which seem to, at least in some way, define my life. I don’t suppose I shall ever rejoice in the fact that I am unable to go wherever THEY will go. I’m not even sure if I am supposed to be happy about this one small’ish injustice of life.

  There are many aspects of my ministry that one might call into question. You may feel free to question the accuracy of my theology. You may bring my actions under scrutiny. You may accuse me of either being too legalistic or too worldly. Do not accuse me of losing my love for THEM.

  If I could, then I would go wherever THEY go. If I haven’t been there for you, it isn’t because I don’t love you anymore. It’s because I really can’t.