Parasite- Nick Drake; 47-Sunny Day Real Estate
For the next couple of months I adjusted to my new life. I remember fantasizing about working at a grocery store when I was struggling to love my job as a pastor. King Soopers is my favorite place to shop for groceries. Working there might be as much fun as shopping there! I thought maybe less responsibility would mean less stress. In some ways that was true. In a more correct way stress and anxiety wasn’t about my situation at all, it was about me. I was in denial about a lot of my personal issues and really was consumed with self hate. When I left my old job I got to take me with me. Now I was in a new place where no one knew me or cared where I was going, they just wanted the shelves stocked as fast as possible.
I was told I would work day shifts, but found that people don’t tell truth a lot of the time. So, stocking shelves at 3 in the morning became my new life. I would get to work day shifts a couple times a week along with my 3am shifts, but having an inconsistent schedule isn’t necessarily better. It wasn’t bad at first, the change of scenery was refreshing and a new challenge was stimulating. I would get up at 2am and get ready, sometimes being super spiritual and reading my Bible. Sometimes I would get up and write my wife love letters. I have this really vivid memory of this one morning listening to the album ‘Pink Moon’ by Nick Drake and writing a note to my wife. The song ‘Parasite’ is particularly haunting and sticks with me as a memory stamp for that moment. The album is 10 songs of quiet melancholy that lasts for less than 30 minutes. For the months of November and December in 2016 I listened to it dozens and dozens of times. That is rare for me to listen to something all the way through repeatedly, but the music perfectly fit the scene in my life. Muted midnights sneaking out to a job without a future. When I listen to it today it doesn’t bring me feelings of despair but it does remind me I was once there.
I would frequently volley back and forth between feeling disheartened and being encouraged. I loved telling people that I used to be a pastor and I planned to be a pastor again someday. I had to be the most obviously insecure person you could be around. I feel bad that so many people were probably affected by my emotional unhealthiness, but in my heart I wanted to do good. If I woke up feeling emotionally vulnerable I would air my grievance with the modern day church to anyone who would listen. If I woke up in joy I would encourage the world around me. Either way I was bound to get to know many of my co workers and the customers that would come in. I made the decision before I started that if I was going to be out of full time ministry for a season that I was going to bring the Kingdom to King Soopers. Surely the Lord would see how hard I was working and would grant me favor in the new season. Even though I misunderstood how much I was already approved by God and that I didn’t need to work for His love, He still blessed that time. I love the full gospel message and I live out the full gospel. Healing is one of my favorite topics and it’s something I go after at every opportunity I get. My life went from teaching teenagers how to cooperate with the Holy Spirit and see healing, to practicing it everyday on strangers and acquaintances. It was extremely odd to love on people with the love of Jesus and a few minutes later be in total self loathing.
(The next bit of writing is soundtracked by the song 47 by Sunny Day Real Estate, another band I dove further into during this season. Sunny Day Real Estate are great.)
This season was so full of contradictions that I’m not sure how to feel about it other than to be thankful God brought me through it. We struggled financially, I was struggling with my mental health, and we didn’t have confidence about our future. The great paradox during this short time was how God used me in praying for the sick. I had nothing to lose and nothing to gain, there was a surplus of boldness and faith for God to move. If someone walked down an aisle I was stocking and they let me know anything that was wrong with them I would ask if I could pray. Only twice that I can remember people said no. I should have kept track because at this point I have no idea how many I prayed for. I would guess that as a pastor I have prayed with thousands of people over the years. I have seen the Lord do wonderful things, including bodies being healed on the spot. In my short time as a grocery store employee I prayed for a few hundred people and saw more healing miracles than I ever saw at my hands as a pastor. Most of the great things I had seen as a pastor happened to the teenagers we were training, but this was just me putting everything I taught into lifestyle practice. An elderly lady who had just had back surgery let me lay hands on her and pray for the pain. She came and found me two weeks later saying she received a miracle. A co-worker with terrible knee problems let me pray and her knee got hot and she told me she could feel God all over her body. A man with twisted legs let me pray and his legs felt better than they had for 10 years. A manager who had been in a car wreck had her back healed. Not everyone I prayed for got healed, but I built a relationship with so many that was based on the love of God. God uses imperfect and broken people in their imperfections and brokenness. He loved those people so much that He would use me to get through to them. I’m so glad that Jesus loved me enough to not just want to use me in my brokenness, but He wanted to make me whole. As I started to see less people get healed in my prayer ministry I would go to Him and ask what the deal was. I was doing the work, why wasn’t it working? It turns out the work was just beginning and I was the one who was going to be rebuilt.
thebearplane 
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