The Cry of the Orphan

I am writing this not to shame you but to warn you as my dear children. Even if you had ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel. Therefore I urge you to imitate me.                - 1 Corinthians 14-16

Two days from now is Thanksgiving Day. It used to be my second favorite holiday after Christmas. I was raised in a family that embraced the holidays and filled them with traditions that always gave us something to look forward to every year. Not only that, my parents always made sure that the door was open to any of those who might be alone on the holiday. We were going to love people outside our own family on Thanksgiving, it was just part of the tradition.

For me Thanksgiving meant not only eating a lot and sharing time with family, it meant family competitions. Every year we'd play at least one board game together. Every year we'd watch a family movie together. Every year we'd all be in one house for an entire day, and hilarity would ensue. Thanksgiving at the home of Wolf and LaDonn Krismanits was always full of joy from beginning to end, and it always met or exceeded expectations. This is one of the greatest gifts my parents ever gave me.

Then it all changed two years ago. Two years ago this week my parents both died as their car was hit by someone who ran a red light. They died as they were returning from my dad receiving a clean bill of health after recovering from heart surgery. This year the anniversary of their death falls exactly on Thanksgiving Day. Obviously, that changes everything.

But this is not a post about Thanksgiving. It isn't even going to be a post memorializing my parents.
I've already written those posts, and it's too painful to write them again right now. Yet this week I'm confronted by both of those things; the joyful memories of Thanksgiving and the sorrowful pangs of great loss are stirring in me hourly right now. All of this, on top of the trying season of my life I've been in, has forced me to make a decision; run away or process and learn.

I've chosen to process. And if I've learned anything in this season and from the death of my parents it is this: we can't do life alone. We can't move ahead in life alone. We can't be happy alone.

From the time I was born until they passed away, my parents were my biggest cheerleaders. They believed in me wholeheartedly and they never, ever let me go a minute in my life without knowing it. As it pertained to my dreams and ambitions, the word "can't" was illegal in my family. If I purposed to do something my parents would do two things. One, they would voice to me any concerns they had and help me understand what my decision meant as far as sacrifice and effort required. They would do this once. After I had heard them out I would either stick with the decision or change my mind. Which brings me to the second thing they would do. After I had made my choice for good, they would support me with every ounce of their being. If they disagreed they would never let me know. They would love me with everything they could, letting me know they proud of me and that I could do it. In my entire life I can't think of one time I felt discouraged by my parents when it came to going after my dreams.

I believe that because of them and the way they chose to believe in me I was pretty fearless in life. They taught me personal responsibility by not allowing me to drive until I had a job and could pay my own insurance and gas. They were empowering without being enabling. My parents encouraged risk, and they always helped me back up when I failed. Because of them I was brave enough to travel at a young age. Because of them I had the guts to try new things. I knew I was loved and believed in no matter what.

As long as they were alive I can see that I was always moving ahead in life. I did well in school and was involved in many activities. I would get new jobs and be promoted quickly. I was always trying new things. I wanted to see a new place, so I would go. I wasn't afraid of money or failure. I always knew I was covered and safe.

As I grew and encountered disappointments in life my parents still believed and even fought for me. They were my greatest advocate. When I was moving back to California from North Carolina during the horrible economy of 2009, my parents spread the word of my return and I had 4 job offers immediately. When I was laid off and couldn't pay rent my mom spoke out on our behalf and got us help. When I was working dead end jobs I was still moving forward in my dreams of ministry because people respected my father and trusted him when he said "my son can do this too." Thanks to them I always had someone to push me and encourage me all at once. They knew exactly how to speak to me to keep me hoping and moving forward. They knew how to make me feel safe even when things were seemingly falling apart.

I didn't realize I had lost all of that until recent months. When I was at school at Bethel I was in a culture of encouragement, empowerment, and risk-taking. Because I was in school for another 18 months after my parents passed, I never had to face the full reality of what I had lost in their death. Now, 6 months after graduating, I fully understand. The last few months have been the loneliest of my life.

I'm learning that all the things I had accomplished over the years that felt like I did by myself were never by myself. I'm learning that I was that person because of who was behind me. Even when their support was 99% from the shadows, it was still there. Now the covering is not the same, and neither is my life.

This is not to say that I don't have people in my life who believe in me, for I know I do. But for all the goodness those people have shown me it isn't quite the same. They aren't parents. They can't tell me that "no matter what, we're here for you." At least not in the same all-encompassing way. People have supported our family financially and blessed us with encouragement, of which I am extremely grateful for. Yet none of them can offer me the certainty of knowing that "if you fail, we'll be here to get you back on your feet." And while there are those who would take us in if we needed it, but they aren't calling weekly to say "how are you doing? We believe in you. You're doing so good! Is there anything you need to talk about?" I'm starting to realize how much I needed that, how much we all do.

We all need parents in our lives, whether they be by blood or by choice. We need someone to invest their love and belief in us without restriction. It's true that people do amazing things as orphans, but they are never complete. I never learned how to do life as an orphan, and so now I'm stranded, trying to figure it out. But to be honest, I don't want to figure it out. In the church especially, I shouldn't have to. We are all meant to be fathered and mothered, and we're all meant to give that to someone else as well. It's what God intended for us, and it's the surest, most complete way for us all to reach the destiny we are meant to reach.

My intent here is not to complain, but to inspire by igniting hearts to solve a great need out there. I'm an orphan and I need parents. I'm not the only one either. Whether you have no parents or your parents have neglected you or treated you wrongly, you may be an orphan too. And it's ok to recognize that. We all need parents the way God meant us to have parents.

We also all need to find someone to believe in. Men you need to father someone, women you need to mother someone. It doesn't matter if they are your blood or not. Find someone to love and believe in who doesn't have spiritual or natural parents, and give them all you would give your own child. They need you, probably more than they even know. Pour your love into them, your encouragement, and your covering. Let them know that you will be there for them if they fail, and keep lovingly pushing them forward while they are succeeding. The world needs this, for it is full of orphans. For the first time in my life, I'm truly understanding this.

I am an orphan, and wherever you are, I need you too.

In My Weakness...

It's no secret to anyone who knows me that the last few months have been some of the hardest of my life. I've been faced with many things I never thought I would have to face. We all have our own inner battles, we all have our imperfections that need to be worked out with God. Some people would look at my past few months and say, "What a wimp. He didn't have to go through anything hard at all." And in some ways they'd be correct. I didn't have any deaths in the family, I didn't have to face a critical disease or sickness, etc...  But then again, I've faced those things at other points in my life and dealt with them pretty well. Some people collapse when the outside world is collapsing, others rise. I'm a riser. That's not my weakness.

No, in some ways my weakness is much weaker and almost embarrassing. I've learned the past few months that the greatest weakness in me is that, after years of working toward the desires of my heart and sacrificing for them, I actually started to think I deserved those things. In short, I allowed myself to fall into the ugly mindset of entitlement. I don't know how it happened, I don't know when. But somewhere in the past couple years I made an agreement that moved beyond hope into expectancy, but the wrong kind of expectancy. Somewhere along the line I made an agreement that said, "I've lost my parents, I've struggled financially, I've fought to get through school. So when I graduate I WILL get mine, because I deserve it." Instead of making my expectancy reliant on God's nature, instead of trusting that whatever He had was good for me and part of the plan of growing me toward good things, I fully formed my expectancy from my own plan.

Now whether or not that plan was good or bad is irrelevant. My plan was to finally get into ministry in order that I could help people encounter the love of God. My plan was to finally have steady income to take care of my family, be more generous, and to build toward the inheritance of my kids and grandkids. My plan was, after years of transplanting my family, to finally plant in a community and become a part of it. All in all, not a bad plan. In fact, it's a plan I truly believe God has for me as well.

But somehow, somewhere, I made the plan my hope and my future. I made the plan my security, and I moved God to second place.

As a recent graduate of ministry school who wants to teach, preach, and father others into their identities with God this is a very hard thing to admit. I've never expected myself to be perfect or any other nonsense that other leaders fall into, but in some ways what I've done is worse.

The process of discovering this and recovering from it has been one of the most difficult points of my life. Some of that process is covered in my previous blogs. I look back on some of what I've written and find it foolish. I've even been tempted to pull them down instead of embarrassing myself. But I've decided against it. It's important to see process. It's important to know the struggles of others in order to know the full extent of their victories. It's important to see the full power of God's grace. I think of C.S. Lewis writing A Grief Observed, and the courage it took to publish that book. I think of how that book has helped me many times in my life. I don't know if my blogs will ever do that for anyone else, but if I pull them down they will never have the chance.

My victory is still not complete, but there's light now. I see so much that I couldn't see before. Lewis writes at the end of A Grief Observed that he had been like a person in pitch black, who suddenly heard a sound that alerted them to the fact that he had never been as alone as he had perceived because of the darkness. How his perception had been wrong the entire time. I feel the same.

I do not know what God is doing in my life, but I know He is doing something. It would have been so easy for me in the past few months to fall into the trap of believing God was somehow not good, or that He had abandoned me. There were moments when I was on the brink, especially because my emotions did feel that way. But thankfully the foundation bred in me is deep and strong. I could no sooner start to believe those lies then I could believe that the earth was flat. To change those beliefs would have meant creating a new faith, it would have meant rewriting my history. A history that runs deep with miracles, love encounters, and intellectual depth. For all the hell my emotions were running through they never could quite overcome one of my stronger traits, that of honesty.

And so I've been processing and processing, and I will continue to process more. There is still so little I understand about why I'm where I'm at. There is still so little come to fruition from what I've sown over the years. I still have days where it's extremely difficult for me to face what I feel is great disappointment in my life. It's difficult, but it once seemed impossible. I'm ok with baby steps forward.

For now, I'm learning how to be content in every circumstance. I'm learning how to worry only about the day I'm in and leave the future to the future. Life is sometimes a harsh teacher, but it is still a teacher. For all the things we must deal with whether from God or totally apart from Him, He still uses it. At the basest level He's always teaching us, it's just up to us whether we want to learn the lesson or keep ignoring it. I see now that He had to allow my dreams to be stripped bare. He had to allow my expectancy and my entitlement to be crushed. He had to allow it in order that He can teach me the right way to do it. He had to remind me that He was enough, and if I seek Him first all these other things will follow.

I'm still learning. I'm not there yet, but I can finally see the course I'm on. The inner pain which was so searingly hot before is now the beginnings of fresh scars. Still not fully healed, still a little irritable, but no longer leaking life.

I wrote some weeks ago that I was learning to let go of my expectations. While I wrote cynically I now see that the message was not altogether wrong. The heart was, but not necessarily the message. I did have to move beyond my expectations in order that He can grow in me new ones. In order that He can grow them with the right focus. At the moment, I'm at a lack. My expectations are gone, my hopes and dreams are unfocused and rudderless. But it's ok. As I grow to make Him my hope and dream the rest of the blanks will fill in.

Recently Kris Vallotton, the founder of Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry of which I graduated, remarked that He was afraid that the message they were teaching about God's goodness had inadvertently bred alumni who felt entitled. When I first heard him voice this concern I agreed, for I saw it in myself. I no longer do. The truth is, it's not the fault of the school. They are simply teaching a truth and steering their students toward God in a way that most Western Christians have somehow overlooked in all their pursuit of knowledge and logic. It's a truth that needs to be spread. The real problem is human nature. When we find out we have a wonderful God who's not mad at us, a loving Father in heaven who cares about our desires and will always take care of us then the natural course of the fallen nature is to get spoiled. You need look no further than the upbringing of most wealthy children to know that it is true. The coinciding truth which removes that feeling of entitlement is not something which can be taught by theory but only experienced. It's not until we experience how flawed our own strength, planning, and logic is that most of us can move past that entitlement sense. Obviously some grasp these truths without struggle, but most of those that do have been humbled so much in their lives that they are already looking through the correct lens. It's easy to feel entitled when you learn that you cannot fail in God, what removes that entitlement is learning that the deeper truth is that the reason you cannot fail is because your "failures" still teach you. You "fall forward" so to speak.

These last months have been my advanced course in these things. They have been my "hell week", the week in which athletes are pushed so hard they cannot bear it any longer, in order to shock their systems into the shape needed to hold up under the grueling long season. I've encountered, fought with, been beaten down by, and been forced to re-conquer every weakness in my life this past season. Most of the time I've hated myself during it. Thankfully He never hated me. When I drank too much and dared to listen to Him all He'd say was, "I love you, I'm proud of you." When I was distant from my family in depression He'd tell me "You're doing good, hang in there." When I screamed and cried out curse words in my hurt and despair He'd wait for me to calm down, and then I could feel the warmth of His smile on me. He is so good, and He is so loving. He has just been waiting on my process, loving me the whole time. I don't deserve it for a second, but He doesn't care. He refuses to give up on me, and He refuses to treat me any less than a redeemed son. I've gone through my "dark night of the soul" and found that the darkness was simply the dark in me being brought to my attention. He's been letting me hit bottom in order to build me back up better.

For the first time in my life I feel like I truly understand what has long been my favorite verse. I'm learning to rejoice in my weakness in order that He can make me strong.