When Life Looks Nothing Like You Imagined

One of the most impactful events of my childhood was when I moved from Northern Virginia to San Antonio, Texas. My melodramatic younger self thought that life was surely over as we moved to endless summer halfway across the country where I knew no one. I never expected that it was in Texas that I would begin following Jesus, meet my wife and lifelong friends, and feel called to something profoundly bigger than myself.

As a freshman at Dallas Baptist University, I found myself on a trajectory that seemed so steady and sure that in hindsight, I can see how it was easy to trust that I was in good hands and set up to follow my dreams and live a fruitful life. I felt a strong call on my life to pursue vocational ministry in the local church. I felt confident that I would marry my high school sweetheart, Sarah. Even through one of the most trying seasons of my relatively suffering-less life, in which my dad was diagnosed with cancer and my grandfather with Alzheimer’s, it felt natural to trust that God was good and would be faithful to me. I got my first job in ministry before I graduated college and got married a short seven months later. On the outside, I know that it seemed like I had a lot going for me. There was a joy and peace associated with living in Texas that I had grown accustomed to. I could look back and see how God had worked through an unclear change to bring forth new life in me.

Unfortunately, things seldom are the way that they seem from the outside. When I left my first job in ministry after two years, it wasn’t because I was “climbing the ladder” (language that I hate to use regarding ministry) or because of an open door that I felt confident pursuing; it was under the pressure of changing leadership and organizational vision that left me without community and far outside of the gifts and space that I felt called to. Now, instead of dreaming about where God would lead me, I found myself entering survival mode, struggling to figure out how Sarah and I would support ourselves as she worked on her doctorate. This led me to a contract position leading worship a very large, reputable church in Dallas. Amidst the congratulations and excited responses from those I knew, I began drowning. At times I worked 55-60 hours across three jobs, often waking up at 3:30am 4-5 times a week and leading at four services every weekend in order to make enough money to live. I was mentally, emotionally and physically exhausted. I began having small anxiety attacks multiple times a week. I felt profoundly lonely. Sarah and I were really struggling because we were both so overextended. I had poured so much of myself into the church trying to do what I thought was right and yet I felt so incredibly alone. Then, I was fired because I wasn’t the right personality for the position.

I think I used to be afraid that no one would ever take a chance on me. I didn’t realize that it felt far worse to be given a shot, put your all into it, and be told you’re not enough. Here I was, 24 years old, and doing nothing that I thought I was supposed to be doing. I felt abandoned by something that I had loved so dearly. I was angry and confused for the first time in my life with God because I felt like he had given me a gift and then ripped it out of my hands. I felt like a failure of a husband because I had to deal with the fallout of realizing the ways I had put Sarah second behind my ambitions. I found myself in the darkest and loneliest place of my life and I didn’t know where to turn.

In the last six months, God has used both obvious and unexpected people to break through and pull me back above the surface of the water. It hasn’t been easy, and I’ll be the first to admit that I’m still working through a lot of things. I still struggle to see what my identity is and where my value lies. I’ve found one question constantly on my mind: “Who am I the thing that I thought God called me to is stripped away?” First of all, though we’ve both had our own struggles in this difficult season, Sarah has patiently pressed in as I’ve struggled to see what my worth is and who I really am. She has loved me and cried with me and forgiven me for all my faults and mistakes. My best friends have come alongside me and walked with me as I’ve journeyed to figure out who I am. My boss and coworker at my current job have been a source of camaraderie, support and steadiness that have helped me normalize when my life felt very chaotic. The church that Sarah and I joined in the wake of all this helped reignite my love and vision for what the local church can and should be. When I felt like the institution of the Church had left me to my own devices, they helped me process everything we had gone through, empathized and related to me in my hurt, and helped me to have hope again.

My life feels so different than what I thought it would be.  In less than two months, Sarah and I are moving to San Diego to begin a new chapter. I have to admit that I have fears. I am afraid of feeling that profound loneliness that I have felt so much in the past year. As I reflect on all that we’ve gone through, I can start to see the threads of God’s faithfulness through it all. The first time I moved halfway across the country, so much unexpected goodness was born out of it. As we move across the other half, I feel that God is with me in a profound way that I don’t think I’ve felt before.

I’m still wrestling through so much of the identity struggles that have bubbled up in this process. In a lot of ways, I don’t feel like I know who I am anymore. I certainly don’t feel like I have it all together, I don’t have a perfect marriage, and I can’t tell you what I’m going to be doing with my life in the next six months, year, or five years. I have learned that I’ve measured much of my life as a Christian by what I was doing “for God.” When all of that was taken away, it forced me to start figuring what it looks like to truly know him and that be enough.

When you’ve been in such a low place for an extended period, the sun seems distant and it’s hard work to start climbing towards the mountaintop. I feel like every inch that I’ve moved forward has given me a little bit more perspective on the season behind me, and I am coming to believe more and more that there is purpose to be found in what I’ve experienced; I may just not fully see it until I’m on the mountain. Even now, through all this struggle, I know for certain that God is with me, and that’s enough.