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Showing posts from 2014

To: The Pastor Considering an Extramarital Affair. From: Me.

I read an interesting article yesterday entitled To the Pastor Considering an Extramarital Affair .  As someone who as the culprit has lived firsthand through this reality, I was interested in what Dr. Degler had to say.  Her perspective is spot-on for the most part.  Here are a few of the thoughts that stood out to me. 1. The real issue when it comes to sins like adultery is my own brokenness.  I can blame my former spouse and our unhealthy relationship on my choices (and those issues are not totally irrelevant) but in reality my own brokenness caused me to make the choices I did.  While my wife loves and understands me at a level that I have never experienced, it is only because of what God has done in our lives that I can make that statement.  What caused us to get involved with each other initially was rooted in our own selfish hearts and actions. 2. Your sin will be exposed. I can't describe the pressure of living with the realization that you are on the verge of getti

A Mistaken Mentor & A Wedding Ring

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"You will not make it three years! Your so-called marriage is destined for failure." The words leaped off the page at me. They hurt deeply. They angered me. This remark was just a small part of a long grace-less diatribe I received from one of former mentors.  I had reached out to him to seek his forgiveness after a year of silence.  Like many, he contacted me shortly after my sin was exposed and harshly informed me how wrong I was and how deeply disappointed he was in me.  And then I didn't hear from him again until I reached out to him a year later to seek his forgiveness and convey how God had been working in my life over the previous year. His response? A harangue on how unrepentant and narcissistic I was and how my second marriage was destined for failure. I guess I wasn't surprised. We tend to talk about grace more than we display it.  He really didn't know what steps of repentance, restoration, and healing I had taken so he didn't really know the s