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The heart. My heart. It is still a mystery to me, but I’m thankful I’m understanding it more and more. Despite my overly zealous pastoral confessions and the open omission of my guilt, Kimmy insists I never had a hard heart. While I say I trampled over the hearts of many in order to protect my religious ideology and vision, she says I was just a man burdened by an image I felt obligated to carry; burdened by the weight of tradition handed to me. She tells me I’ve always had a soft heart, it’s just that it is much healthier now, and that’s why it feels different. Whole. More alive.

My wife understands more than I do about God. For most of our marriage I considered myself spiritually superior because of my Bible knowledge. I spent my life trusting in God’s book, when I should have learned from her, I should have joined her in trusting in God’s heart. I should have followed his Spirit; instead, I followed my preferred interpretation of the Bible, and demanded everyone else follow that interpretation as well. My hope was in my three point sermons; Kimmy’s hope has always been in the Christ in her heart. I’ve joined her, but it was a difficult transition to make.

So was my heart hard like I remember, or simply overwhelmed with expectations and false traditions as Kimmy believes? While my mind is inclined to believe my version, the Spirit within draws me to believe Kimmy. Not because it’s easier on me. It’s because I trust Kimmy’s understanding of God’s heart and his gracious ways more than I do my own. She is so full of grace, how could I doubt her? God pours out his love through her, and God knows I need his grace.

I understand my guilt. I know my past mistakes. I’ve sought to right the people I wronged. I’ve taken responsibility for my actions, but only because Kimmy helped lift the lie that would have otherwise crushed me. The lie that suggested that the damage I caused while in the institutional church was the DNA of who I am, instead of realising it was a cloak that covered me during that time, but it wasn’t my skin. It wasn’t my inner man. She was the one who helped me realise that cloak has now been removed, and my true DNA is still intact. I’m still made in the image of Love. I’m still a son of the Divine. Kimmy helped me understand the reality of truth. What a valuable lesson worth learning. For so long I used the word ‘truth’ like a weapon, ready to attack anyone who tried to be too gracious or too liberal in their beliefs about God. I thought truth was defined by God’s discipline, anger and wrath. I don’t do that anymore. I’d rather let truth be what it is. You see, God is the Truth, and truth, like God, makes us feel loved; truth thinks we’re wonderful, even when we feel we should be condemned. Truth carries us when we think we should be left behind. Truth is love. Truth is grace. Truth led me to understand what it means for mercy to triumph over judgment.

I realise what Kimmy says is the truth, because God is the truth, and God takes delight in covering over our weaknesses and failings with his grace. God doesn’t keep track of our wrongs. God is always patient and always believes the best about me. So here I am, a man who has made a great deal of mistakes, learning how to walk with confidence despite them. I’m a son. I’m a brother. I’m a believer in the truth. After all this time, I’m free.

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My tears are beautiful.They’re beautiful because they are connected to my heart, and when I cry I realise my heart is alive, with me on my journey. I don’t desire tragedy. I take no interest in any kind of pain. I hope, like all of us, that misfortune passes by my household. However, if it does arrive upon my doorstep, I’m glad I’ll have my tears to accompany me. I’m glad my heart has been softened by the love of God enough to do more than acknowledge the facts; it can feel the situation.

Throughout the years of my successful accession to my glorified position as a Senior Pastor, I lost sight of the necessity of a soft heart. In fact, I thought having a hard heart was actually a strength. Of course I never would have used the word ‘hard’ to describe my heart. I would word it more along the lines of ‘well protected,’ but upon reflection I can confess that I believed a hard heart, with the ability discard people at a moment’s notice, was of great value to my ministry and leadership position. People were around my life constantly, but they weren’t in my heart. My heart was the exclusive sanctuary of something that had to be protected at all costs: My vision.

How sad a man I truly was. It was a sadness my wife knew about for years, but the hardness of my own heart stopped me from realizing it for so long. I’m an emotional man these days. I’m not afraid to let people see my weaknesses, my challenges, my questions – my sadness. I’m also not afraid to be filled with joy and outrageous hope. I’m a roller-coster, big highs and big lows, but I’m happy because I’m finally being honest to myself. Back in my days as a career clergy man I was more like the never changing church mascot. Always the same. Always well kept. Always smiling. Always inspiring. Just like my vision, I was perfect as much as I was lifeless. All that time I held my vision tightly, nursing it, protecting it, and allowing the walls of my heart to turn into a concrete fortress, all entry points securely locked in order to protect the vision inside. For so long, my great ministry vision was the only thing I cared deeply for. That’s why I was so lonely, because no matter how much I loved my vision, it couldn’t love me back.

What I’ve come to realize while journeying down this honest road is that my heart wasn’t designed to hold lifeless things; it was designed by its Creator to hold other hearts. God has given me the blessed opportunity to collect the hearts of others around me, as many as I’m willing to receive, and store them in my own heart. I’ve learned that my heart is a place of refuge. It is designed to keep its doors open. Trying to protect my own religious vision caused my heart to become so hard and calloused it no longer functioned as God intended it to. It wasn’t until I allowed my relationships with other people to make their home in my heart that I began to realize what it meant to have a soft heart that was fully alive. It was only then I could cry for others, and only then did I develop friendships that allowed others to cry for me.

My tears are beautiful, because no matter how sad the situation that caused them may be, they remind me my heart is soft enough to feel. To care. To love.

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Three years ago my religious world, with all its shaky foundations, came crumbling down. It was my my wife who saved me. In the midst of the mess, Kimberly, Kimmy to me, helped me understand something about Jesus I never knew, it was probably the first time I let her. You see, up till that point in our marriage, I had stormed ahead as the valiant leader, the great spiritual guru of the family, believing I was the one God trusted. I was the one with the mantle, a heavenly seal upon my life, called to obtain greatness. And who was she? She was there to support my cause, an extra pair of shoulders to heap my burdens upon when I was too busy to deal with them myself.

Yes, you probably just figured it out – I was a complete moron. It’s true, I was blind to my own foolishness, and, as it turns out, blind to my wife’s wisdom, for she clearly knew God far more than I ever gave her credit for. While I had spent my time trying to figure out God’s battle plan, she had spent hers understanding God’s heart. Thank goodness she did, it was the only thing powerful enough to bring me back from ruin. I still remember our conversation. I don’t think I’ll ever forget how her words floated into my heart as light as feather, and broke the yoke of false beliefs with all the strength of heaven.

I had left my pastoral position five months earlier and since that time, to my great frustration, nothing had turned out like I had assumed it should. We hadn’t spoken about my real feeling regarding the situation since my dismissal. I had spend months locked away in my study trying desperately to create a new plan, to find a way forward, but it was all to no avail. I started to give up, up to the point where I did little more than function. Kimmy tried to help, but I was keeping her at a distance, until I was too weak to do even that. It was late one evening and I was curled up on the couch. Lost. Broken. Unable to make sense of anything. She walked over and sat next to me and began slowly stroking my hair, and, after an eternity of silence, spoke in her soft, fragile voice.

“Joel, don’t let yourself drown in pity and don’t for a second believe God has left you. He hasn’t. He never will. Your religious dreams may have been burned up, but your identity is not lost. You have an identity far greater than the man with the big church vision. That’s not who you are. That’s never been who you are.”

I closed my eyes, struggling to even talk. I wanted to tell her to take her words back. I wanted to declare that that was my identity. That I was someone important, that I had a vision to prove it. But I was weak, and also caught off guard at her words, for we never really talked about spiritual matters. I was always ‘strong enough’ to deal with these kind of things alone. Yes, strong enough to lock everyone out. Strong enough to live guided by my vision instead of my heart. Strong? What a joke. No, I was always weak, but now, for the first time, I realised it. I couldn’t hide behind my alpha male talents any longer. I had nothing.

There really is something divine about weakness. It has a power I had never given it credit for. I always thought of it as a curse, but it was the only reason I opened up to my wife. It was only through weakness I finally realised just how blessed I am. It was my weakness that allowed God’s grace to reveal itself. I guess that’s one of the reasons I’m no longer disappointed or embarrassed about my weaknesses and limitation, and why I don’t judge anyone else for having them either. But none of that really made sense to me at the time, my attention was on her words ringing in my ears about my identity. I remember closing my eyes, thinking about what she said, to weak to do anything but be honest.

“Who am I without my vision?” I asked her, not waiting for an answer before throwing another question into the air.

“What will people think of me now? What value do I have in God’s plan now? I’m useless.”

That was all I could muster, and silence fell between us once more. My words depressed me, but they did more to her – they hurt her. They didn’t seem that potent to me, so why did they hurt her? I realise now it was because she knew just how wrong I was. Looking out the window, gazing up at the stars, she spoke once more, with more determination in her speech.

“You know, you don’t understand how God views you, that’s your real problem. You’re wrong if you think you’re useless to God now. You’re more than you believe, so much more,” There was a pause – and then she dropped the bombshell: “You need to stop believing that filthy lie! You’re not just a pawn in his game like you think.”

My heart stopped. How did she know? My secret I’d never so much as whispered to a living soul, but somehow she knew, and I realised in that moment that she’d always known. She had always seen the lie I was believing, I was the blind one. I’d never allowed her voice to find a place of value in my spiritual life and only now, in my weakness, could she help me see the heart of God.

My secret was simple: I believed God considered me expendable. I believed I was a pawn, being maneuvered to gain ground for him; a soldier whose worth was in my strength to fight, and to rally others to fight. I viewed my faith through the eyes of a soldier, and so, like any soldier at war, I hardened my heart in order to deal with the tragedy such a mindset creates.

Expendable. That’s why I felt useless, because I had failed in my mission. That was what I believed. That was the lie my wife saved me from. She revealed to me the true motivation of God is love. That I was loved as a son, not employed as a soldier. Her words may seem simple, but they were enough to reach into the depths of my soul and take the hand of my inner child, suppressed for so long, and draw him back to the surface of faith. It was enough to soften my heart once more.

These were her exact words, etched forever in my mind. I even remember the smell of her breath and the comfort of her touch as she spoke:

“I want to tell you the truth and I want you to allow these words to sink into your heart. The truth is you’re loved more than anyone could ever articulate. More than your best friend could ever understand. More than I, the very closest person to your heart, could ever replicate. You see darling, the One who loves you is the source of all life. You’re more valuable to God than all the stars in the sky; without you it’s as if they don’t shine. Without you, everything loses its value. But he’s got you. He’s holding you in the palm of his hand, like a pearl worth more than all he owns, he’s holds you tightly. You’re the reason he makes the world shine with warmth. You’re the one he died for; you’re the one he’d do it all again for. As hard as it is to believe, you’re his beloved child; you’re the one who motivates God to win – and he will win. For you, for me – for all of us. Don’t give up, keep walking, Love will find a way.”

Her words caused me to burst into tears, the reality of them so gentle and yet so powerful. I knew they weren’t just something said to encourage me. She believed every one of them. They were powerful because they were the truth. This was the God she belonged to, the God I belonged to, and in that moment I surrendered. I gave up being a soldier for God, and allowed myself to be a son.

That was the day heaven danced for me.
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(I’ll be updating this online novel a few times a week. Feel free to also comment on what you’ve read, as it will also help me with the writing and creative process.- Mick)

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Honesty is a revolution to the soul. It has allowed me to discover my true self, the person God created me to be. I don’t think God cares much for masks, do you? I spent so long afraid of taking mine off, convincing myself God’s children were to be, well, the same – same thoughts, same actions and same vocabulary. Turns out God made me unique for a reason. I’ve figured out that God likes unique things and I don’t have to try to fit a common mold. I don’t have to wear a mask. I don’t have to use the same words, believe the same things, accept the same theology. It’s a shame more of God’s kids don’t also enjoy my company, in all my uniqueness. They preferred me in my mask, but my mask has been abandoned, and most of my spiritual brothers and sisters have disowned me because of it.

The arena of honesty is completely different to the religious arena I spent so long in. All the rules have changed. In the religious arena, the obsession with being ‘right’ is the battle cry, judging others the sword, and inclusion the reward. I was a valiant fighter in the arena of religion. A champion admired by all who surrounded me, cheering me forward as they too took up their swords. And now they shake their heads at me. ‘Oh, how the mighty has fallen’ they think. In their minds I have betrayed them. They don’t understand my journey. They don’t resonate with the rules of fighting in the arena of honesty. In this arena I have no need or desire to be ‘right’, I condemn no one; in fact, I find such a weapon repulsive to my spirit. And about the reward of inclusion, well, as I stated, most of my sibling in Christ have rejected me. So here I stand, expelled from the favours of religion, an outsider.

Truth, I have discovered, is an outsider. If you want it, you’ll never be allowed to remain in the circles of main stream acceptance; like Jesus, truth isn’t accepted in religious circles. I tried to make it work, to find a middle ground, we all do. But there came a point when I simply stopped understanding the religious mind. It is a strange thing, because that was my mind for so long, but I can’t sympathise with it any longer; I want no part of it. And I am not alone. I’ve become part of a band of rebels who have found each other along the path of honesty. We’re not considered rebels because we are looking for a fight; we are rebels because we openly reject the cry of religion, demanding we return to captivity.

(the story will be updated a few times a week. Feel free to add your thoughts in the comments section – Mick)