{"id":3025,"date":"2018-01-30T10:08:17","date_gmt":"2018-01-30T10:08:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theprodigalpig.com\/?p=3025"},"modified":"2017-06-30T21:36:44","modified_gmt":"2017-06-30T21:36:44","slug":"the-dismal-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.theprodigalpig.com\/?p=3025","title":{"rendered":"The Dismal Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Prodigal: \u00a0Howdy!<\/p>\n

Me: \u00a0Your friend looks like the cheese fell off his cracker.<\/p>\n

Prodigal: He is having a rough day, but maybe a story will help.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This is from the book The God Who Hung on the Cross by Dois Rosser Jr. and Ellen Vaughn<\/p>\n

In the first six years the church grew to a fellowship of about two hundred people and then plateaued, with no new growth for the next seven years. \u00a0Pastors are supposed to attract new people, build new buildings, and report huge growth. \u00a0But it wasn’t happening. \u00a0Dick felt like a failure.<\/p>\n

On the last day of 1968, Dick was on his way to visit a church member in the hospital when he heard a radio commentator speculate about what the New Year would bring: “Nineteen -sixty-nine looks more of the same,” he said. \u00a0“More of the same in Indo-China, more of the same in Europe, more of the same all over the world.”<\/p>\n

Those words chilled Dick’s heart, and he nearly crashed yet another car. \u00a0“Oh, no!” he cried out to God. \u00a0“Anything but that! \u00a0If You give me another year like the last one, I’ll quit!”<\/p>\n

That night Dick was busy preparing a New Year’s Eve communion service when God called a particular verse to his attention. \u00a0It was Jeremiah 33:3: \u00a0“Ask me and I will tell you some remarkable secrets about what is going to happen here”.<\/p>\n

Those fresh words gave Dick a sense of hope. \u00a0He desperately wanted something new to happen in his church, something remarkable to break into his numbing routine. \u00a0A “remarkable secret,” he thought to himself. \u00a0Maybe it will be a call to a big church….or speaking opportunities in new venues…<\/p>\n

What happened to Dick in 1969?<\/p>\n

Dick’s wife, Ginny, had to be hospitalized repeatedly for crippling, undiagnosed illnesses. \u00a0At the time, the Woodwards had five young children: \u00a0two in diapers, and three toddlers.<\/p>\n

Dick had never been particularly domestic. \u00a0Since Ginny had always managed the home front. \u00a0Dick had absolutely no idea how dirty diapers made the journey from the rank stew of the diaper pail to the drawer of the changing table, all fluffy, clean, and white. (Pampers had not yet been invented.)<\/p>\n

Now Dick learned the intricacies of soaking, washing, drying, folding, safety pins, and rubber pants. \u00a0Ginny, doubled over in pain, could only watch and wonder from afar. \u00a0The women of the church pitched in with meals, and somehow, everyone survived.<\/p>\n

After eleven months of domestic duties and church challenges, after trying harder and harder and getting behinder and behinder, Dick came to the end of his rope one Saturday night.<\/p>\n

He was in the midst of a double diaper change. \u00a0The phone rang. \u00a0Dick held his daughter down with an elbow, cradled the phone to his shoulder, and continued wiping and pinning.<\/p>\n

The person on the other end said she was in crisis, but as Dick listened, he realized she didn’t really want help. \u00a0She just wanted to talk. \u00a0And talk. Not only was Dick completely unprepared for his sermon the next morning, but his children were screaming, and this person-in spite of the howling in the Woodward home-seemed as if she would talk all night.<\/p>\n

Right then, Dick hit the wall.<\/p>\n

After managing to hang up, he finished the diaper change, crumpled to the floor of the nursery, and began sobbing uncontrollably.<\/p>\n

“I thought this was going to be a “remarkable” new year,” he cried. “This is not what I had in mind!” \u00a0All his frustrations and fears came tumbling out in a rush. \u00a0He sobbed out his fears, his failures, his feelings of inadequacy in his ministry.<\/p>\n

“God!” he cried out in desperation. \u00a0“I can’t! \u00a0I can’t!”<\/p>\n

And there, in a heap on the dusty floor of that little nursery, Dick felt God speak.<\/p>\n

I’ve been waiting thirteen years to hear you say that<\/em>, he seemed to hear God say. \u00a0Now let’s see if you can learn this: \u00a0I can!<\/em><\/p>\n

That diaper epiphany changed Dick’s life. \u00a0He realized it was okay to be inadequate. \u00a0Inadequate people, in fact, are the only people God has to work with: \u00a0“God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Isaiah 50:10<\/p>\n

Who among you fears the LORD and obeys the voice of his servant? \u00a0Let him who walks in darkness and has no light trust in the name of the LORD and rely on his God.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Jennifer Van Allen<\/p>\n

www.theprodigalpig.com<\/p>\n

www.faithincounseling.org<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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