Unscripted

un·script·ed (ənˈskriptid) - not adhering to or in accordance with a script written beforehand

When we left the United States for Costa Rica 6 months ago (August 24th) I pretty much had the script of our life written out for the next year. It went a little something like this. Arrive in our new country and settle in. Adjust and adapt our family to starting life in a new culture. Get the boys enrolled in school. Start language learning ourselves. Grow tremendously in our language ability over our 12 months in Costa Rica. Transition to our base of operations in Nicaragua right around the year mark, August 2016. That's what I expected; that's what I had scripted.

However, my expectation has not been met by my reality. My script has been tossed aside for the unscripted. While language learning and assimilation to a new culture and a new way of life have gone tremendously for us, I did not script hearing a doctor say "we're going to need to admit you" to my bride. I did not script having to say goodbye to my love as I left her hospital room in order to go pick our boys up from school. I didn't script our youngest crying uncontrollably when I shared that his mom wasn't coming home that night because she was in the hospital. I didn't script the feeling of loss and loneliness that comes with sleeping alone (well, I take that back - I've had two young'ens keeping me safe through the night), or should I say without my partner in life and "crime" right there by my side throughout the night. I did not script that after two full days in the hospital that they would still be at a loss as to how to bring healing and wholeness to her body; that in fact her 3-4 days could turn in to 6-7 or who really knows how long at this point.

But let me share one more thing I didn't script. I didn't script how God, through His Word and Presence, could bring comfort in the time of trouble; joy in the time of despair; peace in the time of unrest. He is our Rock; He is our Hope; He is our Stay. I could not have scripted God caring for my bride so much that He would choose to place her in a top-notch Christian hospital (perhaps one of the best in all of the Country) where even the doctors come around to pray for the patients. 

I can't stop there though. There's one more thing I didn't script. I didn't script the beautiful and awesome body of believers; the family we call ILE (our language school) coming around us in this time of need. There's just something amazing about this community within which the Lord has chosen to place us. For 11 years of pastoral ministry at Radford Wesleyan we truly understood the value and the authenticity of true community. After we resigned from the church (to pursue this calling to missions) we spent a year of our life in transition visiting a different church almost every Sunday (over 35 in 52 weeks) and we lost this most crucial, vital and life-giving resource. It was something we continually grasped at and longed for yet could never fully attain. Until...until the Lord brought us to Costa Rica, specifically to ILE. 

And it's in this moment that I am reminded again of the beauty of the unscripted; of the rawness that comes from seeing a different script and a different plan play out than the one you were expecting. And it's the bigger truth here that brings me comfort on a night like tonight - just because it was unscripted to me, doesn't at all mean that it was unscripted to God. And in that we can find our rest; in that we can find our peace; in that we can find our hope! 

Out of the Darkness and Into the Light

You may remember this picture from our January newsletter. In that newsletter I (Barry) wrote briefly about my journey over this past year and the dark, desert-like struggle that it has been for me. I also alluded to the fact that I would talk about that in more detail in an upcoming Blog post. I first sat down to write that in March, yet I finally feel like this is the time.

These past 3 months have been incredible for me. I have been experiencing the most freedom and joy in my relationship with Jesus than what I can remember for a long time. I believe that with God's help and Christy's patience, I have finally "come out of the darkness and into the light."

A lot has been made about the difficulty for me of transitioning out of the pastorate; if you read an earlier Blog of mine, it really was like a death for me. However, to put the entirety of this dark season on that move alone would be not only a gross over statement but also something entirely inaccurate. Did the transition out of pastoral ministry contribute to the darkness? Certainly, but there was so much more to it.

In looking back now, I realize that this past dark, desert experience was not something outside of God's plan for my life, but was exactly spot-on right in the middle of it. I realize now that what God has been accomplishing in my life was something that I obviously did not allow him to accomplish while in the pastorate and probably would not have allowed him to accomplish on the ground in Central America. I realize now that only by leading me to the desert could God do the work in me that he needed to do. And I'm not just talking about getting me ready for the mission field. I'm talking about making me the kind of husband to my bride that she deserves; the kind of father to my boys that they deserve; the kind of Christ follower to the world that it needs.

You see, you can't be those things when there is unconfessed and undealt with sin in your life. You can't be who you need to be when you are at the center of your own world and seek to control everyone and everything. You can't become who Jesus needs you to become when your view of yourself isn't anything even close to Jesus' view of you. And yet that was the man I saw every time I looked in the mirror. But thanks be to God, that is no longer the man I see!

The Bible says that God disciplines those he loves and right in the middle of the desert God showed up and broke me; He broke me of me and I will never be the same. There were so many different ways that God met with me during this time (His presence, His Word, a counselor, sermon videos, worship songs, great friends, a loving wife, and the list goes on). And yet as undeserving and unworthy of it all as I was, I'm so incredibly humbled and thankful for those who continue to stand by my side.

No one ever asks for the desert; I know I didn't. Yet I stand here today to let you know that if you allow it, you can enter the desert dying, yet come out fully alive; you can enter in the darkness, yet come out in the light.