From Wandering to Redeeming Grace This is My Last Hope

I have started my Bible reading in Genesis following the rage event of earlier this week. I decided to go back to the beginning as I have hit rock bottom and do not know where else to turn. I am struck by how most people can quote the initial verse of the Bible, In the beginning God created.....God created! If the question is why does God get to make all the rules? The answer we must come to is "well, actually this is all his and I am included in the this." God was, and at that very moment our wonderful world was formless and empty which means I had no chance of coming into existence unless God decided that I would come into being. 

So God created and I exist at his pleasure and he did not create me to rage or create me full of rage. That is something I have picked up on my own when I left the trail he had set me on. My quest now becomes where did I get off the trail and how can I get back on the trail again?  There is one clue close to the beginning. In the creation story we learn that it doesn't take Adam and Eve very long to be banished from the garden. Then we see that within one generation mankind develops anger, hatred, rage and then learns how to murder. So Cain got off the trail, yet God did not kill Cain for murdering Abel, but banished him to be a wanderer for his remaining days. So we go from Adam and Eve disobeying the word of God to Cain committing the first murder and from then forward, the wickedness of mankind continues to pile up and up, and even seems to accelerate to even deeper depravity. Yet in the midst of accelerating evilness a remarkable thing occurs. Genesis 4:26 At that time people began to call on the name of the Lord. 

It is as though people come to hate the separation from God, and while clueless on how to get back on the trail, they intuitively understand that they have no power to get themselves back on the trail even though that is their desire. So, they call on the name of the Lord. This is actually profound, because people generally have to hit bedrock bottom before they will admit - my attempts at redeeming myself have failed and I have no other choice but to confess that I can't do it on my own.  I am powerless and who else has the power required to fix me? Who else can I call on that will result in real, and meaningful change. The first principle of Celebrate Recovery is Realize that I am not God and admit that I am powerless to control my tendency to rage and that my life is unmanageable. This allows me to embrace the second principle, Earnestly believe the God exists, that I matter to him, and he has the power to help me recover.  

This is my Genesis 4:26 moment, where I call upon the name of the Lord. I am powerless and I have mucked up my marriage and I cannot repair it, so I call on you God and ask in desperation is there any hope? I want to get on the trail you initially set me on, but all my attempts have brought me to this place, this moment and I feel I cannot sink any lower. You have said no one will ever find themselves in a place beyond the reach of grace. So God, then help me.  My marriage is over and I am to blame, yet grace is perhaps the only thing I have left to hold on for. Lord, I need you, oh I need you. Every hour I need you. My one defense, my righteousness, oh God how I need you. (Lord, I Need You - Matt Maher)

A Dark, Dark Night and Then Grace

My previous post was a summarization of the grace that was exhibited in the play Les' Miserables, and a few hours following that post I was to have a serious meltdown at home and fly off into a rage against the woman I am in love with.  Yet if you had heard my words and the volume at which I yelled them, there is no way that you would have concluded that love is an accurate word to describe how I feel about her.

I was in a severe funk that I could not pull myself out of and so I resorted to an anger and a rage that resulted in her fearing for her safety. After my meltdown, I went to bed and was drifting off to sleep when I heard Susan unlocking the bedroom door. She came into the bedroom, and told me she is not staying here she is leaving to go to a hotel room, and she has called the sheriff to come and help her to leave. I was stunned and in disbelief, but she was not going to be swayed by any words I would say. Three deputies were in the house prepared to subdue me if I attempted anything foolish. I tried to get some information from her as to if she is going to come back and when. She could not definitively answer my questions and this caused a large amount of worry to enter my heart. I asked are we through?  She could not answer that question either. I asked her to pray with me and she reminded me that she had asked earlier if I wanted to pray, but I was raging at the time and could not do that. One of the deputies informed me, we are not going to pray because all I am doing is trying to stall her from leaving.  At which point Susan told the deputy, I will pray with him and so I was able to lift up some words to God on our behalf.  She then finished up her packing and eventually after a few more minutes of discussion she and Aimee left the house.  The last deputy to leave the house expressed his hope that it would all work out.

I tried to call Susan on her cell phone, but she would not answer, so I called my dad and told him that it looks like Susan and I are going to divorce. I then called my son, Travis, to share the sad news with him as well. I called both of them, because I was alone and needed to talk to someone. I tried calling Susan again and she answered and said she was in the hotel and she would call and talk to me in the morning. She did say that she wanted me to go to counselling and if I was unwilling to do that she would not come back. So with my back against the wall, I called my company's hot line and requested counselling. They gave me three names to call the next day. It was a dark, dark night and I could not sleep.

The next day Susan agreed to come over to the house and sit and talk with me in the front yard. I called the counselling center and asked for an appointment that day. They were able to work me in early that afternoon and I met with the doctor and shared what my previous 12 hours had been like and what I had done to precipitate them. I went home following the appointment and Susan called two hours later to ask how it went. She also said she and Aimee would come and visit in the front yard for a few minutes if I wished. I expressed my desire for her to come, and reminded her I needed to go to the Celebrate Recovery meeting at 7:00 at the church. We visited and she asked about the session and I shared what I could and told her the doctor expressed that it is a long process and I told both the doctor and Susan I am committed to the process regardless of the time frame. She and Aimee left for the night and I went inside to get ready for Celebrate Recovery.

The meeting on May 14, 2013 is a significant one for me. It was the fourth meeting I had attended and during the part of the service where the marker chips are given out I decided this night I would go forward and get the first marker chip signifying the beginning of my recovery process from anger. This date, May 14, 2013, now has significance for me, because it was at this date that I stood before the brothers in the small group portion and said, "Hi, I'm Ken. I'm a Christian who struggles with anger." I then relived the moment for them so they could see my powerlessness and understand how much help I would need from them in the days and months, perhaps years ahead.

On May 15, I woke up and went to work. After the work day concluded I drove home. Hoping that Susan and Aimee would be home, but resigned myself to accept that they probably would not be there, but would call to visit later. So, I had a glimmer of hope when I saw the car parked in the front driveway as I parked my truck and went inside. Susan was making supper for me and asked if I wanted to go sit outside and talk. I said yes, but let's sit on the patio and talk. She then laid out her expectations of what I would have to do to make amends. I listened, understood and acknowledged that I am obligated by Celebrate Recovery to do everything she needs for amends to be possible. I also told her I am not allowed to argue with her demands or express feelings that they are unfair or even say her needs are not in proportion to the event. I simply said I have to do all you shared.  That night Susan chose to stay home with me.

In my previous post I shared how grace always occurs when man is at his worst.  It makes absolutely no sense why grace ever results given the events that occur prior to the grace act. But grace is not of this world and that is the only way it is possible. It is not logical, it makes no sense, it is incomprehensible, and it never leaves a person the same. You cannot be truly touched by grace and remained unchanged. Jean Valjean expressed his puzzlement over grace by saying I must leave the world of Jean Valjean, because Jean Valjean is no more. I too am puzzled and can only say I must leave the world of Kenneth Garrett, because Kenneth Garrett is no more and now another story must begin. Thank you my wife for whatever you saw that caused you to say even when he's a monster there is still something worth fighting for that must be saved and can be saved.

The Grace of Les Miserables

In the play, Les Miserables, we are introduced to the prisoner Jean Valjean who stole a loaf of bread to feed a starving child and was sentenced to 19 years hard labor. He was granted parole when his sentence was over and given his parole papers that he had to carry with him at all times and make available to people should they ask to see them. Jean Valjean then begins his search for work and is rejected at every turn when the hiring person reads his papers identifying him as a parolee.  At one interview, the inn keeper told him to leave his premises at which Valjean said "please, I am hungry and cold", only to be rebuffed and sent away. He finds a place on the street to make his bed and try to survive the night, when a priest sees his predicament and invites him to his house where he feeds him and gives him a warm bed to sleep in.  Valjean, however does not recognize that he is being touched by grace because he has never seen grace in his life. The world has taught him it is everyman for himself. No one else cares about you and no one else will ever care about you. Later that night when the priest and the others living in the house fall asleep, Valjean steals some items of silver with the intention of selling them for a little bit of money. However, he is caught by the police and brought back to the priest to return the items he has stolen. Valjean's fate is clear. He is going back to prison for the rest of his life because he broke parole. The police force him to his knees and with his head bowed in brokenness listens as the police return the stolen items to the priest. The priest however, surprises everyone when he tells Valjean how happy he is that he came back because he left without taking the candlesticks the priest had given him.  With this the police are told they may go their way because Valjean did not steal the items in his possession they were given to him.  After the police leave the priest tells Valjean, he now belongs to God.

Now Valjean has a dilemma to reason through because he has no clue how to interpret the grace he has just been given.  It makes absolutely no sense to him. So, he asks the question why? Why did he give me this grace? Of course, this question can never be answered by earthly standards, because grace is of another world.  When a person is touched by grace he is humbled because grace always occurs when man is at his most worst. 

This grace act causes him to go into deep self reflection and he comes to the conclusion that he must "escape from the world of Jean Valjean because Jean Valjean is nothing now, and another story must begin". The Jean Valjean before grace and the Jean Valjean after grace cannot be the same people because grace never leaves a person unchanged. And a wonderful story of transformation occurs and Jean Valjean who remains hunted by the police and haunted by his past never forgets the grace he was given and chooses to never seek revenge, but always seeks to repay evil with grace in the hope that another person will come to understand that he has been touched by something of another world and change as a result.