Tomorrow is my 41st birthday. This time last year as I was turning 40, I found myself as a complete wreck. I was anxious, paranoid, insecure. I found myself living in fear and dealing with an easily offended heart. My family was in Winnipeg for Christmas and a well deserved rest after the first 2 1/2 months of our fall Justice and Worship tour. Man, just looking back now I remember crying out to God for peace and healing in my life. I didn’t know exactly how I got to the place that I was in, I just knew that I needed to get out of it, and fast.
I am sitting here now, 365 day’s later and thanking God for answering my desperate prayer. So much has happened over the past year, both physically, emotionally and spiritually. In the last year my heart has been healed, my anxiety is gone, the fear and paranoia is no longer there and I am continuing to kill and bury my insecurity. I am in the worlds of Amy my wife, a new man.
I am not sure how this exactly happened, but bear with me as I recap year 40 and highlite some key victories that brought me to a place of freedom.
- After Christmas we drove back to San Diego, via Saskatchewan and prepared for the spring Justice and Worship tour. I didn’t want to go on the tour, as the fall one nearly killed me emotionally, but I stepped out in obedience, as did the rest of the Steps of Justice tour crew and went for it.
- Our family, along with our amazing friends Chris and Jenna drove from SD to Nashville, leading worship, teaching, facilitating evenings of justice and serving at rescue missions all along the way.
- After the tour our family drove up to New Jersey and spent 2 months with our good friends John and Jen Megaw and their kids. During that time we lead at team to Phnom Penh, Cambodia for 2 weeks.
- In June our family headed back to SD (man that is a long drive).
- In August, after living in a camper for the past 11 months, Amy and the girls went to Canada to visit her family after a serious health scare and I headed back to Cambodia for our second trip of the year.
- In September, against all odds and understanding we stepped out once again in obedience and headed to Kona, HI to work with YWAM Ships (still leading and growing Steps of Justice).
- Now we find ourselves living carless and in a one bedroom apartment with a loft and feeling more free and content than we have in many, many years.
The reason I share our last year is because it has everything to do with the change in my life. All along the road I continued to step into obedience to what I felt Jesus calling me and our family to. Some of those decisions were difficult, some were easy. During the past year I stopped running away from my issues and faced them head on. When you live for part of the year in a camper and the other part in a 1 bedroom place with no car you can’t run very far anyway.
I also started asking God for more this year. I found myself chasing the very thing that I wanted. I wanted healing and restoration for me personally and also for my marriage and family. I decided to face my fears and stand up to my insecurities and replace them with truth. The truth that I am a child of God, that my wife loves me and that I am on this earth for a purpose.
Now here I sit, a changed man. Now don’t get me wrong, there are still times where Zombie Phil comes around for a visit, but now I recognize him and I have given Amy permission to smash Zombie Phil in the face with a baseball bat when she sees him. I guess what I am trying to say is this, I am grateful for where I am at. I am thankful for the healing that Jesus has done in my life and that I have invited. I am thankful for my good friends the Wilsons, the Rupps, the Megaws, the Walkers, the Pallisters and the Hornbrooks who let me go through my lowest lows, didn’t judge me and were always there to help me up.
If you want your life to change let me suggest that you ask God, travel with your family and simplify your life to the point where others think you are insane.
