(PART 1 of 4) HOW GOD IS TURNING MY "GREAT DEPRESSION" INTO GTD'S "GREAT SUCCESSION"
PART 1: "THE INJURY"
PART 2: "NEXT MAN UP"
PART 3: "PREPARING FOR A WINNING SEASON"
PART 4: "BUILDING A DYNASTY"
THE INJURY:
When I was playing baseball in my senior year of high school I broke my hand while diving to catch a ball that was hit just out of my reach in the outfield. I was in excruciating pain, but I kept playing. My hand swelled up like a balloon. (I almost got a base hit with a broken hand at my next at-bat... that would have been a great story). The swelling in my hand got so bad that I tried to wrap athletic tape around it just so I could wedge my hand back into my baseball glove and keep playing in my favorite position - centerfield. As the game went on I could no longer move my hand and I was unable to close my glove to catch the ball. At that point I realized I was holding the team back and preventing one of our healthy non-starters from replacing me, because I was no longer able to play centerfield or swing the bat. So I took myself out of the game. Next to God & family, baseball was my greatest love. I ate, drank, & slept baseball... I couldn't get enough of it. I loved going to practice as much as I loved playing in games. After that game my parents took me to the hospital. The x-ray revealed I had a clean & complete break of one of my metacarpals (hand bones). The prognosis was I had to immobilize my left hand and refrain from using it until the bone healed on its own. So I had to wear a full fiberglass cast that extended from my knuckles to just below my elbow for 6 weeks which meant I would not be able to play baseball for 6 weeks. The heartbreaking reality was that there was only 6 weeks left in the season... my last season of high school baseball. I. Was. Crushed. But I was determined to figure out how I could still be a part of the team, and do whatever I could to help our team finish the season strong. Every day I continued to show up for practice. I tied my baseball mitt onto my cast and around my hand. I learned to catch the ball on the outside of my glove while trapping it with my other hand. The coach got me into games as a pinch runner (I was pretty fast!) and one game we were losing so bad that I talked him into letting me go in as a relief pitcher for one inning. It was the only time I ever pitched in high school. I wanted to play every inning of every remaining game, but my injury limited the capacity to which I could play. In reality my injury actually became an opportunity for the younger players to get actual game experience by replacing me while I healed. But I was determined to play my position again before the season ended. After 4 weeks of wearing the cast I couldn't take it any longer so I ripped all of the cotton stuffing out of the inside of my cast so I could forcibly slide it down my arm & over my hand. I did it! I removed my cast! The coach did not approve, but he said if my x-ray came back negative I could play. To my overwhelming joy my hand had completely healed in just 4 weeks and I was cleared to play the last 2 weeks of the season! PTL!! I had hopes to play college baseball and my greatest dream was to play professionally. But my dreams ended a few months later when on the same day that I made the cuts onto the college baseball team I tore the ACL in my right knee while playing a pick-up game of tackle football. The year was 1988. That day was the start and end of my collegiate baseball career. I. Was. Crushed. Again. A few years later God would give me a new dream and a new passion to start an outdoor adventure ministry. After 5 years of prayer & preparation, at age 25, I started a Christ-centered non-profit organization called Going The Distance Adventure Ministry and have been running God-awesome adventures for 29 years. Baseball was my first choice, but adventuring became a wonderful second choice. But even before that dream of playing professional baseball I had an even grander dream when I was around 10 years old to one day take care of my parents... to be there for them like they have always been there for me, and to be a good son that honored them & never added any grief to their lives (other than practical jokes, of course lol). We had some major family challenges during the first 20 years of my life that endeared my heart even greater for my Mom & Dad. Dad had some major struggles (I shared these at his Celebration of Life Service) that, in time, he overcame. Watching him valiantly try & fail, try & fail, try & fail, and then ultimately succeed was inspiring. He has one of the best comeback stories overcoming alcoholism, chain smoking, & infidelity. He is 3rd place on my list of top 3 heroes in my life. My Mom endured my Dad's struggles valiantly. It. Crushed. Her! But she hung in there, and in time things went from bad (1970's) to worse (1980's) to healed (1990's). Mom holds 2nd place of my top 3 heroes. I love them both so much! And without Jesus our family unit would have fallen apart ending in divorce and a broken home... but Jesus turned a guaranteed loss into a come from behind victory. So Jesus holds 1st place in my top 3 heroes. Without Him our family unit would have died. Fast forward 30 years (2020), and my parent's worsening health dramatically takes a harsh downturn. Mom's Alzheimer's and Dad's many organ issues hit a level that required around the clock attention. We had soooooo many amazing people help shoulder the heavy load. Traci, Laurie, & I maintained a 24/7 presence for a couple of years. I had no idea how bad of a toll this would take on me (and my Sister and even Laurie). The most recent statistics reveal that Caregivers are experiencing off-the-charts levels of deep depression, and are even dying before the person they are caring for dies. For reasons I'm only now beginning to understand I'm one of those statistics. I became deeply depressed 2 years into our intense caregiving journey (which was about 3 years ago). I let my Sister and Laurie (and some close friends) know that I was deeply depressed to the point that I hated life & I longed to die 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I wasn't suicidal, but I was probably headed that way. To be completely raw & transparent, all day long I would tell God I hate this f***ing life and I can't wait to f***ing die (and I don't even cuss lol, but my heart had become so dark and hopeless that the cuss words just naturally flowed... and I would vent this to God in my desperate prayers). I longed to just get run over by a bus all day everyday 24/7. But I didn't want to leave all the workload and added grief for my Sister to shoulder. I was spiraling worse and worse every week. Inch by inch I was being dismantled. Day by day I was methodically being whittled down. Thought by thought I was departing who I once was and slowly becoming who I never imagined I could be - hopeless, hostile towards God, full of rage, mad about everything, blaming God for every downward turn, I dreaded going to bed - dreaded waking up - dreaded existing another day. Just like when I dove for that baseball in high school - something inside of me broke. I was a far cry from where I used to be "love'n life because of Jesus Christ" or experiencing a "God-awesome" day. The process of rushing from physically demanding GTD events to physically & emotionally demanding caregiving to rushing to just trying to survive while renovating a house, taking care of dying dogs, doing all the administrative work for our non-profit organization, trying to pay the bills, losing friends to suicide & drunk drivers, watching my dreams die of marriage and one day having kids & grandkids (and many other dreams), and literally about 20 other heartbreaking things all resulted in a deep situational depression and possibly a mid-life crisis. My hope was gone. My resiliency was gone. My optimism was gone. All my energy was gone. I had run my gas tank until it was completely empty, and like my friend recently told me, "When you run your car till it's out of gas you can damage your entire engine." That's exactly what I did. I ran myself till I was completely empty, and I damaged "my engine". It was more than physical. It was more than emotional. It was more than mental. It was also spiritual. My exhaustion lead to less quality time with God each day which lead to less walking in the Holy Spirit which lead to a mind controlled by the flesh ( Romans 8 ) which lead to no longer seeing things through spiritual eyes of faith, but rather hopeless eyes of the flesh. Romans 8 says that a mind controlled by the Spirit is life & peace, but a mind controlled by the flesh is death... it becomes a mind that cannot please God and is even hostile to God. That's exactly who I was becoming. Arguing with God! Blaming God! Accusing God! Not just angry at God, but pissed at God!! Frustration, anger, rage... I was drunk on all of them. Desiring to disobey God... planning to disobey God... starting to actually disobey God... I was spiraling down, down, down. It got very dark & very ugly. The only things that saved me was the fear of God, the love for others, and my own ministry... God used my own ministry to save me... every time I would run a GTD trip God would resuscitate my soul. Instantly I would be surrounded by Godly people, daily devotions, worshipping God, encouragement, God's beautiful creation, adventures, fun, levity... it was all instantly there and God would do spiritual CPR on me and pump life back into my soul. Then I would return home to unsustainable needs plus all the hard things about watching your beloved parents go through the dying process... it was so heartbreaking... they were more than just my parents... they were 2 of my best friends, 2 of my greatest heroes, 2 of my biggest cheerleaders, and they were my original mission field... I was with them both when they took their last breath... I watched my Dad die twice... that really killed me... that was the knockout blow for me. Like Rocky in "Rocky 3" being knocked out by Mr T and watching Mickey die I also lost "the eye of the tiger" and the desire to fight back. It took me months to hit rock bottom and begin to climb back up again. I'm only a few inches up from rock bottom, but I'm moving upward, praise God. I used to want to die 24 hours a day 7 days a week, but now it's down to 24/4. Instead of longing to die 7 days per week now I only want to die 4 days per week (not in a suicidal way). I try not to show it in public. In fact, I try not to be in public these days because I'm "in a fiberglass cast" trying to recover, heal, & understand what just happened. But that also means that 3 days per week I'm actually joyful and there are signs of life in me again. And those other 4 days per week I can barely function... All I want is just to die... nothing but dread & exhaustion & "what's the point of even trying". Thankfully adventures teach you many life skills. You know what you do when you're backpacking in the middle of a storm? You either take a break or you just keep on hiking... you quickly learn that the storms come & go while you hike... you can't hide from them or outrun them so you just have to weather them knowing that "there is sunshine on the other side of those clouds" (as Laurie likes to say). It's the same with situational depression. You just weather the storm and either take a break or take baby steps all through the day. I'm actually finding much value in my deep dive into depression, and since so many of the younger generation is experiencing depression at high levels I know I will now be able to have greater compassion and empathy and understanding so I can actually minister to our youth & young adults from personal experience instead of theoretical imagining what it's like. Soooooooo all this to share that over the past few years I didn't have anything left to give. I dove for a ball that was out of my reach and something broke. My brain broke. My spirit broke. I broke. That's my injury.... it's my "Great Depression". The phenomenal news is that God fixes broken things. I hit rock bottom in May when I experienced my life's greatest defeat & greatest victory all at the same time (a post for another time). From that moment God has been repairing me one inch at a time. It took me 5 years to inch by inch hit rock bottom. God could instantly heal me, but He is taking a more methodical inch by inch approach which I happen to love. As someone once said, "It only takes 24 hours to grow a mushroom, but it takes many years to grow an oak tree." God is growing me into an oak tree, and I'm okay with it being a process instead of instantaneous. I have been immobilized in a fiberglass cast so to speak. Healing. I'm actually starting to want to rip the cotton stuffing out of "the cast" 3 days per week, but I'm learning so much through this painful process. I'm unpacking a lot of things. One of the biggest things I'm realizing is that the devil wasn't just trying to kill me... he was more so trying to kill GTD. As the old saying goes, "If you want to kill a snake you don't cut off its tail, you cut off its head." (My apologies to my snake loving friends). The devil was trying to kill this ministry by killing me. I can't tell you how many people I talk to that tell me how much God has used GTD to impact & change their lives, and more importantly find Jesus or grow in Christ. What this "near death experience" has shown me is that we've never had a succession plan for GTD. There was no plan in place for what will happen to the ministry when I can no longer run it. I'm happy & excited (those are 2 words that have been strangers to me in recent months) to share with you that we are building a succession plan right now! In fact, that's what Part 2 "Next Man Up" is all about. God is up to something... what the devil intended for harm, God is using for good. I can't wait to share it with you in PART 2.
(Note: There was a 3 month period last year when God had radically healed me. They were 3 of the best months of my life as I took care of my Dad in the midst of high demands. But I unwittingly walked out of that healing as I started becoming "ambitious" again... I started wanting more than the struggle that was before me. But I was thriving for 3 months in the struggle with total contentment & joy. The enemy to contentment is envy & ambition. James 3:16)
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