This was a big week for us. We were able to tell a few more key people and had a great time with the staff at the church as they heard, first hand, what has been going on with us. All of the staff members knew before we had a chance to tell all of them, but we were able to share more detail and more heart behind what was going on. The grieving process has already started for us and this was a particularly draining week for us emotionally. I may write more about that later, but I don't know that I have the strength right now.
One really unexpected thing happened on Wednesday. I decided at about 4:15 pm to run to Tree of Life to grab a book for Kyle Bixler for winning the office picks for the NCAA tournament. I was going to breeze in, breeze out and make it home in time to get us to a dinner date with the Kesslers before 5:00.
I walked in the music department door and headed straight for the 50% off books (not because I'm cheap, but because I had a few titles in mind and had said the prize would be $10 or less). As I rounded the corner by the main entrance I looked over at the cafe sitting area and locked eyes with someone I hadn't seen in several years.
Jake was a member of one of our ministry teams at Hanfield when his family attended the church several years ago. He was a good guy that we liked a lot, but he was a little different than most of the folks we had worked with up 'til that point. He had been hurt in the past in churches, especially where his service in ministry was concerned. When we met Jake, he lacked confidence but had a great heart and we wanted to serve with him. Unfortunately, one morning things blew up. A situation occurred that we didn't handle well that ultimately led to his family leaving Hanfield and we lost a friend. Before the family left, we tried to apologize and patch things up. It seemed to go okay for a month or so, but ultimately I think he felt he couldn't trust us and didn't believe that we wanted reconciliation. The family left and I hadn't seen Jake since.
When Jake went to Hanfield, he had lived in Somerset which is a small town about 13 miles northwest of Marion. It happens to be in an area that I ride my bike through a lot and I found myself thinking about Jake a few years ago. Since he had left, we had realized more and more how his past hurt amplified this hurt that we had inflicted on him. I thought about writing a letter to him to tell him (one more time) how sorry we were that we had hurt him and that we just didn't understand how deep that hurt was, but I didn't think he'd be receptive to more words from us and just decided to do my best to let it go. Our situation with Jake was always going to be a loose end for me that I would look back on and regret.
When our eyes locked, I knew I had to talk to him. He was sitting by the window with a freshly finished plate in front of him. We said hi to each other and then I said what had been in my heart for the better part of two years. I told him how I felt that I still had one last apology that I owed him, how I didn't realize how deeply we had hurt him and how much I regretted the whole situation. He was incredibly gracious, even apologizing for anything he had done to contribute to the situation. He said he didn't realize, at the time, how all of this other stuff was effecting him either. He said that he was a little older, a little wiser, a little more mellow and that everything was fine. I let him know how his situation caused us to look at what we had done wrong and helped us to change some things in the ministry that allowed for people with different personalities to be a part of the ministry and how sorry I was that he had to be a part of our learning experience. Jake said he really appreciated my coming over and told me how greatly God was blessing his family. The details and sequence of the conversation are all a bit fuzzy to me now, but the Spirit of God was thick in it. It was a better moment than I could have hoped for and a chance to patch things up with my brother.
I left with the book I had picked up and praised God all the way home. The loose end that the enemy would always use to condemn me and hurt me anytime I had conflict with someone in ministry had been taken care of in our last days in Marion. God is good.
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