Spring 1987

ARTICLE TOOLS

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Leaving the pastoral ministry was a traumatic experience. But God used my experience of failure to teach me something about hope.

My personality is much like Simon Peter's: bold, driven, impetuous, with a must-be-right attitude and the need to win at all costs. This gradually eroded my relationship with my wife, Fay, and in 1970, all communication broke down. We couldn't talk about anything without my having to prove she was wrong and I was right. Inevitably, she responded by withdrawing into silence.

This especially troubled me because as a pastor I believed I had no business leading God's church if I couldn't lead my own household.

In desperation, we sought marriage counseling, where I began to discover something I had never understood: I behaved as I did to protect myself. I was most secure when I was competing and wining. I couldn't admit I was scared and so tried to win by intimidation

The day this became clear to me, I had just returned from a week-long encounter group. I had listened to fifteen peers tell me day after day how they "experienced me" as a driving, smug, righteous person who always had to win. When I told this to Fay, she softened, put her arms around me, and said, "Honey, I've been trying to tell you for years."

That was the first time in a long time I felt acceptance from her. And it came when I was weak and vulnerable. Could it be that what I never would be able to achieve by force I could achieve in weakness? I knew at that moment it was so.

My defenses began to crumble. I broke and sobbed as I faced the terrible reality that my encounter group and my wife were right. I didn't change overnight, but I started to see I needed to stop trying to control others just so I could feel secure.

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