MARITAL COUNSELING

[You're jumping into a story that began with the blog article, "SHE PACKED MY BAGS"]

After a few moments of through-the-door bargaining, I agreed that we would go for marriage counseling.  She let me in.

The next morning, I called a psychologist friend, Gareth Sweatman, who worked for the Youth Guidance Ministry in Pittsburgh;  he agreed to see us a couple of days later. 

I figured that he would straighten Debbie out, and everything would be okay.

However, to my surprise, he spent the whole first hour talking with me and leaving Debbie almost completely out of the session.  I was confused.  Inside, I was screaming, "Gareth, it's not me that's broken - it's her!"

But he didn't see it that way.  Our first session was two hours long;  he pounded me the whole time!  In our subsequent sessions he continued to keep the focus on me and my priorities.  Eventually, I was going to see him alone.

It was a valuable time for us;  for me, in particular.  In my first months in the full-time ministry, I was given the opportunity to learn about appropriate boundaries and priorities in ministry. 

I haven't kept my balance perfectly, but she's never put my bags on the porch again! 

SHE PACKED MY BAGS

I was twenty-four years old when I received my appointment to the Jeannette, PA Free Methodist Church.  Debbie and I had been married almost three years.  Travis was three-months old.

The congregation had just built a brand new facility on twelve acres of property outside of Harrison City - right in the middle of a new development of homes.  However, the congregation had divided over the building process and the pastor had left after preaching only a few times in the new building.

I had been pastor at a small, country church in the Hoosier Mountains of southern Indiana for a year-and-a-half.  I had a college degree and three years of seminary training.  I thought I knew it all!  I set out to grow the greatest church anyone had ever seen!

Evenelle Gess, a leading lay-woman, started taking me around to meet the members before our boxes were unpacked [we lived in a 70' mobile home behind the new church]. 

Since people were most likely to be home in the evenings, I was gone night-after-night visiting!  Days were spent at the church trying to prepare for Sundays and Wednesdays.  I was home very little.

I drove a 1974 Mustang II at the time.  One evening, returning home late, my lights flashed on the small, front porch - it looked like luggage sitting there.  When I approached the front door of our trailer-home, it was my luggage - packed with my clothes.  The door was locked.

I knocked.  Her angry voice from inside said, "What?"

I said, "Let me in."

She said, "No!"  Then, she lowered the boom:  "If you want to be married to the church, go live in the church!"

[More tomorrow]