Anne Jackson’s second book, Permission to Speak Freely – Essays and Art on Fear, Confession and Grace releases today. Anne decided to share seven essays of which one of them is below. To read the rest of the essays, check out the links at the end.
Anne is also giving away a copy of her book to two commenters, chosenat random, on Friday. So check out the question at the end and leave a comment to be entered to win.
You can pick up a copy of the book here.
Essay #4 – Finding Love (In All the Wrong Places) by Anne Jackson
Most teenagers believe they’re more mature than they really are. Iknow I did. So when this youth pastor in his mid-twenties asked me over to see a movie, I didn’t think twice about it. In fact, I was flattered that an older guy was interested in me, an all-grown-up sixteen-year-old girl.
And he was a youth pastor. Maybe he could help me rediscover my faith.There was a part of me that missed it.
Now, something I never had growing up was a curfew. My parents trustedme enough not to worry about where I was or who I was with. The twounspoken rules I had to live by were “Don’t get put in Juvie” and“Don’t get pregnant.” As long as they never got a call from the police or the hospital, I was pretty much free to do whatever I wanted.
A basic “to a friend’s house to watch a movie” appeased my parents as I walked out the door. Taking my mom’s car to his apartment, I was more worried about driving in the Dallas traffic than I was about watching a movie with him.
I knocked on the door to his apartment, and he let me in. From the beginning, even as naïve as I was, it was obvious what was on his mind. The lights were dimmed, and blankets and pillows were laid out on the floor to make the movie watching more . . . comfortable.
The details of that night aren’t relevant, but it’s safe to say I don’t remember what movie we watched. The one thing I do remember is that as scary as this new experience was, a huge void in my heart had been filled, and for the first time in several months I felt loved and accepted and worthy.
And I felt beautiful.
The youth pastor and I dated for a couple of months, and then he quietly slipped away. I was upset but decided to move on. The wounds on my heart caused by the pain from uprooting had started to open up again. I felt lonely, and I needed to find someone else to make the pain go away.
I went on a few dates with a couple of guys, but my heart still longed for this youth pastor. I’d given him so much of myself; how could it not be?
After the holidays, the youth pastor called me, and we started dating again. He had moved to another part of Dallas and had a roommate now, so we’d meet in a park close to his new house. A few more months went by, and I had fallen back in love, head over heels.
Just before I graduated high school while we were out one afternoon, he told me he was getting married. He had proposed to someone he knew from his past and said he could never see me again.
The youth pastor and this other woman had been dating via a long-distance relationship the entire time he and I had been seeing each other. She didn’t know about me. And from the way I couldn’t catch my breath and started seeing double, I obviously didn’t know about her either.
My heart broke. I was so naive and lonely I actually had believed he loved me.
And he was a pastor. How could he have lied to me?
Oh, right, the logical side of my brain told me. It’s because he is a pastor.
This experience became another piece of evidence that people who say they’re close to God can’t be trusted. And as far as I was concerned, God couldn’t be trusted either.
There was a sharp pain in my chest where my heart once lived. It hurt so badly my mind would scream at my heart and tell it to stop.
“Will you ever stop hurting? I can’t take it anymore.”
I had to do something to medicate this pain. I had to escape it as if life itself depended on it.
And so I ran.
Again.
Have you ever placed your hope in a pastor or spiritual leader to help you find God or faith? What
happened?
——
For the first essay, visit Don Miller’s blog here and follow the
chain…
For the next essay, visit the XXXChurch.com blog here.
I can’t say that I have, but I will pray for those who do.
While I wouldn’t say I depended on them to find God, a pastor I looked up to once fell into sin in a pretty bad way. That was hard to deal with because he seemed so solid. It made it easy to think that if he could lie to us, anyone could be.
I did for a short time before realizing that pastors were not any better than me- they sin, they stumble and they make mistakes. It is a harsh reality to realize when you look up to a pastor as a voice of God or some other omnipotent position. Many ministers or pastors have “let me down” but then I have to realize that they are just human.
You don’t think I’m better than you Jessica????
I never really placed my hope in them, but I looked up to them. I had one that was REALLY great, still influences my life. Then I had one that, from most people’s point of view, was excellent. He lead a dynamic ministry, huge numbers, but to me he failed to connect.
Now, almost 20 years later, I find myself a youth pastor. Ironic? Sure. I think my experiences give me perspective.
I haven’t been a Christian long enough to have seen all the ugliness you have; I’ve known a few pastors and have yet to be really hurt by any. I know this is written in retrospect, buy I’m rooting for you to make it out of this
Not on topic …
but did you know that WithoutWax is in the top 100 blogs according to churchspeak?
http://www.churchspeak.com/top-100-blogs
Not a surprise!
Not so much in a leader or pastor, but in the body of the church itself.
When my 1st marriage ended in divorce back during a time when divorce was rare and scandalous, I returned to the church I grew up in, was baptized and married in and was shunned by everyone. My fairy princess, knight in shining amour, happily every after live had been torn to shreds and I so needed the comfort of the church and God. I was looked at as that divorcee who would be wildly looking to steal your husband and the people I had known all my life turned away from me instead of showing support and love.
It took 30 years to return to God’s good graces, after the death of my 2nd husband and finding Cross Point. I like the fact that the leadership doesn’t stand above the body of the church, but with them. I like the fact that they freely admit they have sinned as well and that the sinners are the ones who need to be welcomed with open arms. That just because you show up to church every time it’s open and know the bible by heart doesn’t make you a better Christian. It is sad that many churches turn away those in need, making them feel unworthy instead of welcoming them and supporting them.
Hooray for the whole Cross Point leadership in doing church the way it was intended!!!!
Pain caused by a pastor…check
Pastors are in a position of spiritual leadership and authority. While like other people, they sin, there is a greater responsibility there…there just is. As a teenager…a young teenager…I felt called by God to serve him in a specific way. The calling was strong, stronger than I have ever in my life experienced before or could even describe now. I went to my youth pastor. I was a great guy. He cared. I wanted to talk about this calling with him, I wanted to flesh it out and understand. He listened and then calmly explained that I had not been called by God and I had misunderstood. My calling was infact to be a wife. I was crushed. I doubted myself, my calling, and God.
There have always been pastors I’ve looked up to and I can’t honestly say I’ve ever been betrayed or hurt by one personally. Unfortunately though, I do have friends who have been hurt by pastors.
All I can say – not as a pastor but as a person – that my heart breaks for those of you who have been hurt, betrayed, or taken advantage of by a pastor. At the same time though, there is an anger that builds within me because of those pastors who abuse the trust that people so readily place in them simply because they are pastors.
My parents certainly did – the church I grew up in had an adult Sunday School class taught by our pastor that my parents attended. He came in late one morning with some worksheets, proceeded to throw them on the table, and tell everyone, “Here is some crap for you to work on today.” It was the beginning of the end of our attendence at that church.
We found a great church family after that with a pastor who taught from the Word of God and does his best to live his life by it too.
such a great post.
OH. I have got to get this book!
I bought Anne’s last book, and it didn’t really apply to me. This one (for better or worse) sounds so much more right up my alley.
Off to the next blog!
For sure…and I was disappointed greatly when he was exposed for having multiple affairs with women…from my church. I was on his staff, and looked up to him greatly…it was painful and the church suffered much from the whole situation. He was given gifts from the Lord that he decided to use to his advantage…which is very sad when you’re the leader of 700+ people. I pray for pastor’s all the time, because I know it is easy for them to fall into these things…there is not much accountability there, and they need it!
I guess the closest I have come to this was my cousin who helped lead me to Christ. But I never really depending on them to help me. I went to church and listened and prayed and Christ found me in the midst of everything around me.
dj
Ouch. I’ve never had this experience, but a friend of mine has, and I don’t know what you do with it. There’s a point where the “pastors are only human” argument stops standing up anymore, because the people who are teaching and mentoring us are supposed to be better, supposed to be examples to us.
I love Anne’s tone, and her honesty. Maybe that’s what she was looking for – and she found some shadow of the love that she needed in this guy. But all that does is build up a skewed picture of the love of God. How do we start negotiating through the skewed pictures of love and of what the people of God look like to a truer picture of things?
Do we need these experiences of counterfeit love and intimacy so we can know the real thing when we find it?
It’s a constant struggle for me. I’ll be struggling with something and think, “If I can just find a good Christian book about this, or hear the right sermon, all my problems will be solved.” I’m looking for the person who can explain things so that I’ll understand and become a better person. But really, I just need to go back to the Bible, and back to Jesus. Only He can help me.
Sure. I think we all look to or hope in spiritual leaders to help us find God or guide us when our faith wains. The beauty and risk in this dynamic is that there is power to both wound deeply and to be used to help heal and restore. I have been on both sides both as one being led and as a leader. What I’ve learned…we are all jacked up in need of a whole heap of grace.
Seriously, Anne, gonna make me cry and love on my kids a bunch today. THANKS.
I have certainly been hurt and saddened whenever a pastor’s indiscretions have become public (often on a national level). I do believe though, that we can have spiritual role models. We just always need to keep in mind that humans are not God, and are sinful in nature. This story really makes me angry. We constantly need to pray for the pastors in our lives.
The first time I met Chrisanna, she prayed over me after youth service, and I knew that I had finally found a youth pastor that cared. Although she was just the youth pastor’s wife, that role is pivotal in young teen’s lives. As years went by she turned into someone I didn’t even recognize. Her husband began to make excuses for her and I saw our youth group turning into a materialist group of young teens who used shopping to cover the wounds. I feel like she changed everything! She began to place blame on people to distract her from why she was really hurting.
Now, she and her husband got their heart’s desire- a little boy- and are in a new position of leadership in a new place. They have come a long way since the time of hurt in my life!
I grew up in an environment where authority, spiritual or not, couldn’t be trusted, so I haven’t really put my faith in a person more than I have in God. Let’s just say it was really easy for me to accept the doctrine of the fallenness of man by the time I grew up to learn it in those terms- that was my worldview for a very long time.
Instead, my path took me to a place where I could not only trust other people, but also love them.
But unfortunately stories like Anene’s aren’t all that uncommon, and it just breaks my heart.
I do not know if I have placed my “faith” in a pastor, but I have had my faith deeply served and edified by placing my trust in a pastor to help me understand the Bible and the Gospel more deeply.
I grew up in a Catholic household. We moved around a lot so I never really got to have a close relationship with any of our church leaders until we moved overseas for 4 years. My mom was really involved in the church which of course meant the kids helped out at every church function possible. My Confirmation was right around the corner. (For those who don’t know what that is it’s when we as teenagers (usually) take responsibility for our own faiths and confirm our beliefs.) We spent quite a bit of time in our Confirmation class and on retreats with our priest. On Valentine’s Day that year my grandpa had a heart attack. A week later I was on one of these retreats. When my dad came to Mass on our final day, he pulled me aside beforehand and told me grandpa had passed away that morning. I of course was devastated and had to sneak into the service a little late. Afterwards our priest pulled me aside, asked why I had been late and told me that was no reason to be late into God’s house and that I should “think of a better excuse next time.” I went through with my Confirmation a week later and after that never stepped foot back into that church unless I was forced. My heart was broken. Someone who was supposed to be so close to God had shown no mercy, no grace, and actually kicked me while I was down. The same someone who was supposed to be my spiritual leader and show me how to treat others. I was already angry with God for taking my grandpa but my anger towards Him only grew with my priest’s words. It would be a couple years until I decided to go back to church and even then it wasn’t a Catholic one. That was a whole different battle. But yes, I completely understand the disappointment and hurt that can come from placing trust in those who are supposed to be leading. All we can do is forgive and move on, though.
I thought I was trusting God, but I also was placing trust in a man, one like all of us who has faults. He came from a strong church and was a known leader and speaker. I placed my hope and trust in him. I knew I was broken, hurting, disillusioned, and full of questions after having been abused in another church, but I wanted to pursue God more than anything. I trusted him to help me return to a healthy faith walk. As I opened up, he would shut me down. I was not released to share with others. I asked for prayer and Bible study, but was told that wasn’t the focus and model of where our church was going, so I just needed to study on my own. I asked for discipleship and was told I didn’t need to understand but only needed to submit and obey. I felt lost, alone, separated, depressed, and desperate. Life was out of control and I needed help.
I was confronted and told that I could not speak with others or share any of what was going on. I was told I did not understand faith and was walking in sin, but when I asked what sin nothing specific was shared other than lack of submission. I desperately wanted to understand, I wanted to change, I wanted to learn. I ended up in crisis but was not allowed to say anything to my church family. The pastor and elders offered no support or care. When I tried to reach out and communicate a few weeks later, I received an email excommunicating me from the church and telling me no one would speak with me again. I was told that I did not understand the Gospel and was not saved, and when I asked for help in understanding and being saved because nothing mattered more to me (even though I thought I had been saved for 25 years)…I was told it would take too much time and my heart was unteachable.
I love the pastor. He was a friend and family to me, but my faith in him was misplaced. My trust and hope for healing blinded me to some warning signs. Today I am in a great church and am strong and healthy in my spiritual walk. I continue to hope and pray for reconciliation and healing with those leaders, but so far they are unwilling to speak to me, and have told me that I am unrepentant and therefore forgiveness is not available to me. I am thankful that I have permission not only to speak freely and confess my needs, but to live without the condemnation, guilt, and shame of my failures. I don’t deserve what my Savior has given me, and only a life lived out in response can express the gratitude I feel. My faith failed, but I am now turning that into a life that is made new.
it’s pretty much got a 100% failure rate. from the pastor being unfaithful to his wife and family (causing me to doubt anything he had taught me) to being betrayed personally, faith in Jesus Christ alone is the only true “fail-safe”
I have placed hope in a pastor or a leader and every time I ended up disappointed. It took me years and years to learn that people will always disappoint me.
Once…well sort of.
She wasn’t a spiritual leader, but God truely called me to her. Things went well, then we didn’t talk for a few years, now we’re getting ready to be married!
I have to say this has never happened to me, but in my younger years I too was naive and my vision of someone in a pastoral position was that of faithfulness, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness – I know now that not all held those virtues.
I don’t think I have, but there is one youth pastor in particular that helped me find God. I don’t think I looked to him to find God, though because he was more of like a cool guy who would talk about God and Jesus every week. At least thats how I viewed it at the time.
No, mostly because I’ve only had one or two pastors actually make any sort of effort to get to know me. I’m also not really drawn to the leader types, since it is a two way street.
this has never happened to me, but that doesn’t mean i’m not strange: i’m 30-ish and have never even had a boyfriend.
i pray this experience has not hurt you…
I came to Christ after college and had a lot of deprogramming to go through. God blessed me with a wonderful pastor who saw my hunger for God and mentored me and challenged me in my faith. I am so grateful that he took me under his wing and he played a great part in who I am today.
Yes. When I first became a Christian, I went to a well known church in a neighboring city. I got to know the youth group leader fairly well in the first month of going to church, and then he left because “he felt lead to go to such-and-such a church.” My faith was rocked. How could he leave me after becoming my friend? Not even a year later, after growing so much in my faith, it was discovered that the senior pastor had been having an affair for the prior year. How could this man call himself a Christian and act like that? My faith was completely rocked and I walked away from church for over 5 years. I eventually came back to God, or He spoke loudly enough for me to hear, but it’s so tough when you need guidance, especially as a new Christian, and a staff member of a church lets you down. Thank you for the free essay, Pete and Anne!
Well kind of. I currently keep opening up to spiritual leaders in my church letting them know how broken I feel inside. How much it feels like God doesn’t really care about me, and things of that sort. So far the most I’ve gotten is someone telling me I should go on a retreat…which is definitely not an option for me since I 1)have no time and 2) hate retreats–they seem so phony even when I am in love with God. It seems I’ve been telling them my faith is fading and they don’t even care. They act like they really have seen that story many times (which although I am sure they have, it seems there should be a better response)
I put my trust in my youth pastor when i was in high school. he became a great father figure for me, considering mine was hardly ever around. we had a love/hate relationship, which is what, i assume, a real father-daughter relationship would be like. he helped me become stronger in my faith through weekly devotional meetings. but sadly he moved to a different church a few hours away once i was in college. It was heartbreaking having to lose another dad, but it was what was best for him and his family.
I’m married to a minister. It’s the same on both sides. Really.
I have a long history with church. I’ve been a member. I’ve been on staff. I’ve trusted lots of pastors and spiritual leaders over the years. Some of them have honored that trust and built good things into my life. Some of them have betrayed that trust and wounded me deeply. And it seems like a betrayal by a pastor hits some sort of deep place in the heart/spirit that other betrayals don’t. It’s not easy stuff, for sure.
I couldn’t put my faith in any spiritual leaders that I saw. To me, they were all the same.
My parents imparted faith to me more than anyone…they helped me connect with God personally pretty early on. I don’t think I rely on spiritual leaders to help me make that connection, which is good, because I think I would be inevitably let down.
I am only two and half years in my christian journey and I have several pastor’s at home and online (Pete being one of them) help guide me but ultimately I know it’s my dedication and discipline and commitment to my spiritual transfornation and will continue strengthing my relationship with Christ.
Yes… the first person to begin the destruction of my view of God, was my pastor/father… then, the second was a deacon many years later…I believed that God would hurt me if I didn’t do what He wanted, I believed men only wanted one thing from me, and that it really was all that I was good for and good at… BUT… though I struggle with many different things today, I was introduced to who God really is and that He loves me and wants the best for my life. People will always always let you down… some do it intentionally, some do it without realizing it, both ways hurt. Both ways can cause you to have a warped vision of God. Even so, He is still the only One who can take the hurt and pain away.
I’m sorry that happened. I know that me apologizing won’t fix anything, but it honestly hurts my heart to hear something like this.
For the most part, I’ve been blessed with wonderful pastors and ministers in my life. The time I was hurt, I was hurt deeply. I was in a leadership training program and my director hurt me deeper than I think I’ve ever been hurt before. He spoke so many untruths into my life, trying to “break me” so I could grow closer to the Lord. I thank God that He’s helped me to deal with all of this, and I honestly forgive my old director. He thought he was doing right–he was just going about it the completely wrong way.
Sure have… and I’ve had times where I received the help I needed, but also times where I’ve been disappointed. Now, I rarely go to my pastor, even though I do trust him. I have a small core of family and friends who are strong in their faith that I turn to. They’re still not perfect, of course, but I’m learning to cope with the unperfect followers of a perfect God.
I experienced the same. Only I was 21 and very naieve … and in love.
He was a pastor and the first one who ever took notice of me. He took me seriously, or so I thought.
We dated for about a year, I discovered he was married, we split up … and I became addicted to alcohol to numb the pain. And even more away from God than I already was, for I couldn’t believe He would ever forgive me for being so stupid.
Fast forward thirty years … I’m totally clean for fifteen years now, I’m a children’s pastor in my church and … no, I never got married. But God turned my life around big time!!! And yes, I do trust my current pastor.
Genial brief and this mail helped me alot in my college assignement. Gratefulness you as your information.
That is great that we can take the home loans moreover, it opens completely new chances.