just a bit of where i am at

A piece of my testimony is that through all this I have learned to admit that I am broken.  As I spent time evaluating who I am and the things I do, all while trying to save my marriage, I realized I needed help and that is what drove me to Seattle with Dr Hawkins.  I wanted a course of action to take and the result of those actions to be the outcome I wanted.  It was there that I left with an understanding of who I was, why I was that way, and with an idea of who I could be instead of a course of action.  I also left with a freedom to fail.

I am still learning how deep my brokenness is within me, and am starting with a counselor here in Muskegon to help sort more of me out.

So when I use a word like intimidated to describe myself, it is part of my brokenness that draws that out.  Even though I gained a freedom to fail in my counseling intensive, it is a freedom I only allow myself in certain parts of my life.  I judge myself constantly, and many times act within those judging thoughts because I am fearful of what people will think of me.  It is as if I was trying to augment the person known as Rob Peoples with my actions instead of my physical appearance.  I look at myself and see a person who has failed in his marriage, is often late to work, doesn’t spend enough time alone with his boys, has no degree, and on and on and then compare it to people who are successful like my "neighbors" in North Muskegon and such.  Even then, there are people in my life who don’t have worldly successes but have a close family, whom they love and cherish and compare it to the brokenness I have, not just quirkiness and other character flaws, but something that I can only describe as disunity.  It is almost if we were not blood relatives that we would not talk to each other.

The ways I am broken is why finding my identity in Christ is so important and my largest struggle is to lay down my perceptions of how things should be.

God means all this for good though, and I believe that as I embrace and learn from this brokenness, and work through these hurts, not just the ones created by Kim’s absence in my life, that the joy and ministry that will happen on the other side of this is going to be awesome.  I have to remember that a masterpiece is not made in one stroke of a paint brush and that each stroke is made with precision and that a masterpiece is what God is making with me.

(there are so many people that have prayed, helped, encouraged, and listened as i am working through thoughts similar to these that i feel ashamed to admit I still struggle.  there is a great hope that i have in the promises of God and i know there are days coming, and coming soon, where we will be able to look back and continually praise the Giver of life for what he has brought from "all of this" please continue by me.)