Reflections

I decided to read through some of my first blogs the other day--to get in touch with where I've been and to help me stay true to my vision for this blog.

I found that my blogging has become a journal of my thoughts and the events in my life that I want (or not) to share with others.

And so I reread the first entries that I made as I inaugurated the blog in December 2007 and into 2008. I reviewed the entries of joy, and hope, and also the hard times surrounding the miracle baby, Jax and his stunning recovery from open heart surgery at six days old.

I reflected on how Jax is one of the smartest and most energetic kids that I know--and I recalled seeing him connected to all of the wires and tubes keeping him alive in those hours after the surgery, no one would believe it now--except for still visible straight line on his chest--that reminder of God's mercy and healing power given to this one little precious boy.

And then I ker-thunk-ed.

From the miracle of Jax I ran headlong into one of the darkest and most difficult decisions that I have ever made recorded in the entries from March and April 2008. Perhaps I was reviewing these blog entries because of a song that Eric Scott sang at the house concert which I found therapeutic. Perhaps because there are still dangling threads to this chapter of my life that need to be tied up. What ever the reason--they are still there, raw and dangling.

I saw that I had hidden within my leadership essays the pain that I was feeling during that time. The betrayal. The loss of friends and connectedness with a family of believers that I had been a member of for a long while. I chalked much of it up to life lessons, but even now, two-and-a-half years later I have a hard time getting over the broken relationships with people whom I considered not just friends--but family. When I really needed support and an arm on my shoulder--I got sermonizing and bad theology from the person who I both respected and considered to be my closest friend.


I felt that I had to leave because the bonds of trust and friendship had been crushed through words and inaction.

I was reminded at this point of a verse from Job--"Then they sat down with him on the ground for seven days and seven nights, yet no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his pain was very great." Job 2:13 - NIV. And I reflected that for seven days Job's friends just sat with him--they were with him and said nothing. Can you imagine sitting with someone for seven days and saying nothing? Just being there?

Sometimes the best thing to say is nothing at all.

I wrote some blogs which helped me deal with my hurt while also trying to help me catalog some of the leadership principles that I could see coming from the reflection on everything that brought me to make the decision--Empowerment and Encouragement and People or process? Where's the joy? These two blogs were the first in my Leadership Series and they also were ripe with the pain I was feeling. Another Leadership Series blog about Co-leadership is also based upon my experience and it has been read worldwide and I have received more email about this entry than any other blog I have written. It is apparently widely used in some colleges.

Sadly, though I wrote of my pain and frustration--my friend never pursued me, so I know that the relationship was one-way. I believe this because when I lose something, or something gets lost, like keys or a dog or a cat, I pursue it. I look for it. I find it! Are not people and their relationships worth even more than the relationship with a dog or cat? Yet, through this I felt as if I have been erased from the memory despite my occasional attempts to reconnect, which so far have been rebuffed.

The whole situation is like a festering sore that is quiet for a while and then flares up. And then I bury it again and forget it. But some nights, when I have insomnia, I remember the good times and wonder how they went so terribly bad. I think is was a package deal, all wrapped up in the emotion of Jax's crisis and the family coming together.

But it is still out there--in the dark nights, in the blogs, in my heart. Maybe like Eric Scott, I should write a song.

Or a blog.

To read again in a few years.

But I stopped reviewing my blog at that point. Who knows what else is hidden in there, clawing at the prison bars to escape? I'm almost afraid to look.