Facebook told me that
three years ago today I was standing in the mud in Iowa. A Youth Pastor, I had
been preparing an annual event involving knee-deep muck and impressionable
middle school students. A recipe for messy success. That was three months after
our family tragedy, and around the time my internal darkness was blacker than
the mud I was mixing. Dirty. Smelly. Probably containing traces of wasteful
byproduct. If our internal condition were externally manifested I might have
seen the irony in the muck; maybe someone else would have noticed, too.
The event went off
without a hitch. Eighty or so preteens left dirtier than they came, many with
intentions of returning the next week to see about cleaning up their souls. It
was our smoothest year yet, both in the consistency of the mud and in the
execution of the event. Eight painful months later I surrendered to my
condition, confessed my failings, and reached out for help, ready to be free of
the filth of that summer.
I did not spend today making
mud. Today I played kickball and got sunburned. We've now been in Northwest
Indiana more than two years. In that time I've come to recognize that rain
cannot create mud without dirt already being present. I've cleaned up old
patches. I've undergone the sweet and effective solvent that is grace. I am no
longer a pastor, and the vast majority of relationships from Iowa were shed
when my dirt came to the surface. Along the way Janet and I have opened
ourselves to new friendships, relationships planted in what is now a healthier
soil. Not everything is sparkling clean, but we're moving in the right
direction. Some of those friendships are taking root; we're not as lonely
anymore. Today in the park our family played with other families. I stood in
the sun, not in the mud.
