Things That Remain

“But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’  Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.  That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties.  For when I am weak, then I am strong.”  II Corinthians 12:9-10 

I’ll be honest, you aren’t getting my entire story here.  I’m a pretty transparent guy, but I’m not quite to the point where I’m prepared to divulge all of my life’s details in a public forum,  so I’ll provide the highlights.  But even in this redacted version of my life story, I hope that you will see the truth of the above passage born out.

I was born to wonderful parents, and three years after my birth was blessed with a wonderful sister.  I count myself the least wonderful of the bunch, though the rest of my family is too kind to agree with me.  We are of Nordic stock, I’m about half Swedish and half Danish.  My parents grew up on small farms in neighboring towns in Minnesota, where “Peterson” is nearly as common a name as “Smith” and nearly everyone is Scandinavian.  Though I was born in Minnesota, by the time I was 5 we had settled in Lithonia, Georgia after brief stays in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and Denton, Texas.  I spent 8 generally blissful years there playing with kids in the neighborhood, visiting Stone Mountain Park, attending the local public school and making it to a lot of Braves games in nearby Atlanta.  Faith was our core family value, and many of our relationships revolved around our wonderful, small Presbyterian church.  

Life in Lithonia wasn’t without its interesting moments, but it was generally most remarkable for being unremarkable.  Good parents, good friends, good school, good church.  It didn’t last.   

In 1982 my father’s company closed its Atlanta operations and we moved to their location in Chattanooga.  Dad was fortunate to have a job, but none of us were happy about the move.  We actually lived in another suburban area outside of Chattanooga that I won’t name.  The involuntary move was hard on all of us, and my particular hell was having to enter a horrid school midway through my eighth grade year.  In addition to being the new kid in an entirely different culture than the one I’d grown up in, I was nonathletic, awkward and developing a severe case of acne.  I experienced verbal and physical abuse nearly every day.  I was constantly trying to figure out the safest way to get from class to class, from class to the bus, and from the bus home and lived in the nearly perpetual fear that danger lurked around the next corner.  It often did.   I shared some of my trials with my folks, but we were all having our problems, so I didn’t want to become another one.  After being bombarded with insults and epithets every day, I started to believe what people said - I was ugly, unwanted and worthless. 

While I tried to shield my parents from my struggles, they weren’t blind to them.  After I suffered that treatment for a couple of years, my parents placed me in private school at great personal sacrifice.  My life began to change after that, largely because I was loved there.  My peers, even the cool kids, thought that I was funny, smart, and worthy of their friendship.  An interesting thing happens when people treat you like that - you start to be funny, smart and worthy of friendship.  I went on a couple of missions trips and saw a sizable portion of the world, I went on dates with lots of girls, was senior class President, and even played varsity soccer.  I ended up with a full academic scholarship to a small, liberal arts college in Tennessee. 

I prospered in college as well.  I was blessed with a wealth of friends, a great education and a solid academic foundation for life.  I enjoyed additional travels, dated pretty girls, and in my senior year I was accepted into one of the country’s top law schools.

But just underneath the thin veneer of success lurked the wounded psyche of an 8th grade kid who was sure that at some point he’d be revealed as a fraud.  In my mind I wasn’t really smart, I just tested well.  People didn’t really enjoy my friendship, I was just inoffensive.  Girls weren’t really interested in me, they were just afraid to say no.  My greatest fear was that I’d be unmasked, and the unmasking began in law school.

In law school, everyone was bright, so I no longer stood out.  Within my first semester I struggled academically and my college girlfriend, the one I was supposed to marry, dumped me.  I had borrowed a lot of money for school, and there wasn’t much left after tuition and rent for food, clothes, gas or entertainment.  Until a friend’s parents gave me a bed, I slept on the floor of an apartment where the previous tenants had animals.  I woke up each morning covered in flea bites. 

I stepped it up academically and finished well.  I even won a couple of awards.  But without connections and graduating into a struggling economy, I couldn’t find a job, at least one that I thought worth taking. 

With each obstacle and rejection, the “truth” was pounded into my head - “you are a failure”, “you are worthless”, “you are unloved.”  I knew that God loved me because he had to love me.  But I didn’t think he liked me very much.  I felt as though I were a disappointment to Him and to everyone else.  I was broke, deeply in debt, without prospects, and despite being blessed with some very good friends, I felt very alone.

About five months after graduation, I was increasingly discontent with being a professional interviewee, so I took the bull by the horns and started my own law firm with a similarly situated classmate.  For 3 1/2 years we managed to run a practice, win some cases, develop a bit of a reputation and even make a little money.  But it was hard, and I couldn’t shake the persistent stink of rejection and sense of worthlessness.  Ironically, it was during this low point that I met my wife.  She was, and is, absolutely beautiful.  But somehow, either out of foresight or naivety, she saw past my inadequacies and agreed to marry me. 

One story from our early married life is emblematic of the extraordinary things that happened during those early years.  About a year into our marriage, Toria was ready to start having kids.  I wasn’t.  Not because I didn’t want them, but because I didn’t think we could afford them.  Neither of us were making much money, we were both saddled with student loan debt and living in a small, one-bedroom apartment.  One day I was driving back to Atlanta after an out-of-town deposition, and I was struck with a thought - did I really believe that God provided for my needs?  If so, did I believe enough to have a child even though I couldn’t see where it would all work out?  My decision will seem reckless to some, but it was obvious to me.  I told Toria I was ready to start having kids.  Within a few weeks we were pregnant, my partner and I had both landed with a new firm that provided more pay and benefits, and Toria and I were making an offer on a house.   Eighteen months after my partner and I joined that small firm, it was acquired by one of the largest firms in the country and I had the job I’d always wanted but couldn’t ever get through my own efforts and initiative. 

Still, despite God’s hand obviously being on my life, I struggled with the unshakable sense that I was a fraud and that at any moment I’d be revealed for the phony I was.  This created extreme anxiety because I believed that my success was linked to my continuing ability to “fool” people by working harder.   With every mistake or perceived mistake I made, I spiraled downward into depression.  Despite all that had happened circumstantially, my core issue was not yet resolved.  I still believed that my identity consisted of the sum of my achievements and possessions.  I would never have verbalized that, but my every reaction and emotion proved that’s what I believed.  One evening I came home from work inconsolably stressed, and my long-suffering, exasperated wife said “I can’t live like this.”  That was my wake-up call.

Around that time a friend referred me to a mentor.  He’s not just any mentor, he’s a guy who writes books about mentoring.  His name is Dave Stoddard, and for a period of about a year I met with him regularly as he slowly directed me into a right pattern of thinking.  From the outset, he had me focus on Romans 6.  At first blush, the passage seemed completely irrelevant to my struggles, but after many weeks of reading and meditation, its relevance became clear.  The passage, and many others like it, emphasize the fact that I, as a believer in Christ, am identified with Christ in both his death and resurrection.  The theme is also contained in Jesus’ analogy of the vine in John 15:

I am the vine, and my father is the gardener…Remain in me and I will remain in you.  No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine.  Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me…As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you.  Now remain in my love…I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.

Many who read this will scratch their heads and wonder why these passages meant so much to me.  If you have similar stresses, and have given into the familiar lie that your worth is determined by your accomplishments, then I encourage you to meditate on these passages.  Not for an hour or a day or a week, but for a lifetime.  Memorize them, study them, and open yourself to their truths.  Truth brings freedom, and after my months of meditation I began to experience freedom from the oppression of my false self-concept. 

It’s been seven years since that profound period in my life, and I think everyone who knows me - from my wife to my colleagues, would agree that my life outlook has changed.  I am experiencing the great oxymoron of the Christian experience - already, but not yet.  Things have been fully accomplished in me that I have not yet fully experienced.  I am perfected in Christ, and yet God is continuing his perfecting work in me.   What I have learned is that my identity is in Christ, not in my flesh.  The pressure is off.  He has made me, He has saved me, He has promised to provide for me.  As the opening passage above attests - the very weakness that I so often resist is a weakness that I should embrace.  Because when I am weak, then He is strong to accomplish His purposes in and through me.  And his purposes, unlike the ones so dear to my flesh, will endure forever.  To abide in Christ and serve his kingdom is the epitome of significance, and the fruit of those efforts are the only things that will remain.

At times the lies still echo in my mind - “you’re worthless”, “you’re a failure”, “not even God wants you.”  But I know the truth that conquers the lie - I am a child of the king, and my inheritance is assured.  My worth does not vacillate depending on the quality or scope of my accomplishments, but is eternally secure because it resides in the one who made me.  My great and driving desire in life is that others may know Him, and that they will experience not only the great hope of life eternal, but also the abundant blessings that begin now.

And his voice shook the earth then, but now he has promised, saying, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth, but also the heaven.”  That expression, “Yet once more,” denotes the removing of those things which can be shaken, as of created things, so that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.  Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.  Hebrews 12:26-29.