"...accepting hardship as a pathway to peace."

As a young man growing up in Georgia, all I could think about was graduating from high school, going to college to study music, and then living out the remainder of my life as a high school band director.  I was absolutely certain that was the way my life was going to play out.  I did graduate high school, and I did go to college, and I did study music.  It wasn't until my tuba professor at college, Dr. David Randolph, encouraged me to pursue performance and college teaching did I ever entertain the idea of doing anything else with my life.  Sure, I did investigate other career paths while I was a high school student (engineering, military science, and others) but nothing captivated my heart and spirit like music.   I knew I was good at it and I sincerely wanted to share that gift with others through teaching.  I had just assumed that high school teaching was the only avenue available to me.

Dr. Randolph convinced me otherwise.  He must have seen in me something I was unable or unwilling to see in myself at the time.  He was convinced that I had the talent and skill to become a successful college tuba teacher.  So I pursued that route.  I did teach high school band for three years and quickly realized that I would slowly go mad, or slowly die from the ill health effects of the stress and aggravation of secondary education.  Someone once told me that teaching would be the best job in the world if it wasn't for the students.  But to be honest, the students weren't the problem; it was the parents, the administrators, the community, and my colleagues that were the problem.  Band directing was a constant hassle and source of headaches, high blood pressure, sleepless nights, among other bad things.  This career was the calling of some people but certainly not for me.  I will always remember and thank Dr. Randolph for helping me to see that I could do something else.

The long and short of it is that I did become a college tuba professor (and band director) and I absolutely loved it!  I believed I had found my true calling in life.  For the first time in my life I was doing something every day that I enjoyed and I was getting paid for doing it.  I taught at a college up North for six years (three years part time while I was pursuing my doctorate degree, and three years full time).  I then moved back to the south to a state I thought I would never have opportunity to travel through much less live in, Arkansas.  A great career opportunity opened up there and I begin teaching tuba and band on the college level full time.  Something told me even those eleven years ago that I was at home.  I had my dream job: doing my first love which was band directing, but also doing private tuba teaching.  All of this was wrapped up in a neat and tidy job that I truly loved.  I was making a name for myself.  I got to know many of the music educators in the state, and I was making a lot of professional connections.  I was playing recitals, and serving on the campus and in the community.  I had a beautiful, loving wife who went with me everywhere I wanted to go professionally without complaining.  I dragged her literally around the globe kicking and screaming.  This was difficult for a woman who was born, raised, schooled, and lived out all of her life in the same middle Georgia town.  

Life was good, so I thought.  If you know any of my story, then you know that I was living a double life.  I had this horrible secret, so terrible that I dare not share it with anyone not even my wife, for fear of rejection or ridicule.  I struggle with same-sex lustful thoughts and sexual addiction.  I have often thought that if I could just get control of that part of my life, everything would be perfect.  I had the beautiful wife, a nice home, a great career, plenty of good food to eat, but I did not have peace.  I knew the only way to start to have a little peace was to share my struggle with someone else, but I just couldn't do it.  The shame and the guilt had a strangle hold on every aspect of my being.  I knew this struggle I had was not God's will for my life, but at the same time I didn't know how to stop and sometimes I did not want to stop.  I couldn't stop.  I do not know what it is like to be addicted to a chemical substance like alcohol or street drugs, but I can imagine what it is like if it is anything like a sexual addiction.  Whenever the pressures of life would become too much for me to handle, my mind would automatically go to lustful thoughts and I would want to act out in some way either alone or with someone else.  In some strange way, it was medicating to find release in that way.  I found comfort in that "drug".  I was able to escape for a time from reality and pretend that I had no problems or concerns.  In the back of my mind I knew I was going against God's will and He was not pleased with me.  I felt a tremendous amount of guilt and shame each and every time, but it did not stop me from doing it.  I felt trapped in a vicious cycle of sinning, shame, guilt, repentance, and then sinning again.  I acted out in this manner probably every day of my life as far back as I can remember, sometimes many times a day.

So what does this have to do with "...accepting hardship as a pathway to peace"?  My life came crashing down around me five years ago this month when I was out at a local park seeking my sexual "fix".  I was busted in a sting by local law enforcement for public indecency.  This had actually happened four times previously in different places I have lived.  I was able to hide it from everyone those other times, even my wife.  She knew something was amiss, she just didn't know what it was.  This most recent time though was the worse because it was made very public.  A series of hardships followed:   I thought I was going to lose my wife, my job and career, my home, and anything else I thought was important to me that I had spent years building.  I had no choice but to come clean about everything.  

I was not looking forward to opening up to my wife about all of this.  When I told her, she looked at me with compassion and grace, and I saw a picture of the love and grace of God in her.  She forgave me and said we were in this marriage relationship for better or for worse and that she would be by my side whatever happened.  Wow!  I have not ceased giving God thanks for my wife since that day.  We still have difficulties and battles we fight from time to time but by God's grace we love each other now more than we ever have before.  Our relationship is not one built on my lies and deception, but on God's love, grace, and acceptance and a true admiration, respect and love for each other.

It took over two months to find out what my job fate was.  I truly learned what living one day at a time really means.  At this point I had turned my life over to God and surrendered everything to him.  I had no choice.  My fate was in the justice system and my employers, but really in the hands of Almighty God.  I woke up each day and gave thanks to God for being sovereign in my life, and I lived each day having to trust God each moment in a very real way.  I did not know if I was going to have a job when school started again, but I was willing to do whatever He wanted me to do.  At some point, I think God reassured my heart that I still had my job, but that it was going to be different.  That ended up being the case.  I would no longer teach tuba and band, but now, general music classes.  I accepted this hardship reluctantly and I struggled for a long time with the reality that my career choice was no longer mine to make.  God was showing me something better and I did not even know it at the time.  My true gift of classroom teaching was being revealed as I began working on this new professional endeavor, and I found that I enjoyed it tremendously.  I now have administrative responsibilities as well, something I have always wondered if I would enjoy (and I do).  I am in a great place professionally now, a place I would never have discovered if I had continued trying to live life my own way.

The biggest hardship however is without doubt the constant suffering of temptation I experience on a daily basis.  Some days are better than others, but it is a daily battle I struggle with to date.  It seems strange even to me to say this, but I thank God for the struggle because God is using it keep me close to Him.  Just as I was acting out each day in my sexual addiction in an attempt to satisfy some perceived need, I now depend on God each and every day to supply those needs in His way.  Instead of acting on the impulses, I now resist them in the power of Jesus Christ.  Knowing I have a right relationship with God and I have fellowship with Him has given me more peace that I could have ever imagined possible.  I had to be brought to a place of neediness, powerlessness and surrender before God was able to give me His peace.  Life will continue to have hardships and difficulties, but I know that if I accept them as from the hand of Almighty God, I will experience His peace through them.