Tempering…
Definition:
1. To mix clay with water or a modifier (grog) and knead
(wedge) to a uniformmixture.
2. To harden (as steel) by reheating and cooling in
oil.
I woke up in the middle of the night a few days ago with
this word on my mind. The examples I immediately thought of were
tempering steel and clay.
As I thought of the word, it became apparent that the last
13 years of my life had been an exercise in tempering, but the first two
definitions were not the most accurate me, the one that really fits is one of
the last definitions in the Merrian-Webster Dictionary, “ to make stronger or
more resilient through hardship, toughen.”
Starting in 1999, I entered full-time ministry with my
mother, first as part of a non-profit that provided food and clothing directly
to the poor and to other ministries in the Los Angeles area and then December
24, 2000, we started “Agape Love Fellowship International Church in south Los
Angeles and the ministry was extended to include street evangelism, a support
group, bible study and Sunday Worship services.
In the process of doing this we, my mother and I, lost
everything we own… a couple of times, but I remained faithful to the ministry
until December 24, 2006, when my mother fell ill and I began to realize that
many of the people we were ministering to, and our “home church” (and I use
that term loosely) really didn’t have our best interests at heart.
My mother fell ill with a viral infection after my former
pastor ordered her to leave the house we shared with another minister, knowing
we had no place else to go, and didn’t offer alternative lodging. We
stayed in our car the winter of 2006 and that’s when she became sick. She
went to the hospital and was prescribed an overdose of antibiotics, which in
turn caused Clostridium
difficile, also known
as C. diff, which is a severe inflammation of the colon,
often resulting from eradication of the normal gut flora by antibiotics.[3]
During her stay
in the hospital, several of the members of our home church paid a visit, but
our pastor never called or came by. My mother wasn’t even put on the
prayer list until she was released from the hospital 11 day later.
Considering my mother had served as a pastor, evangelist and intercessor at
that church for over 10 years, I believe that this was a travesty, and should
have been a signal to her to leave. Members were still calling and asking
her for prayer while she was in the hospital, too sick and too weak to walk,
and yet when she was in her hour of need, the church as a whole was no help to
her.
I tried my best
to get my mother to leave that place, but she chose not to and to this day is
still a member. She has continued to go through trial after trial and I
yet she remains, but this experience change me forever. I began to
realize it isn’t just the fact that you serve the Lord that’s important; it’s
the people you serve with. I had already severed all ties with that
church before my mother’s illness, but her refusal to separate herself from
that place after the illness caused me to sever ties from my mother’s church as
well. I knew it was time to go my own way.
When I moved to
Chicago in the summer of 2007, I was in need of a change and completely
disillusioned. I needed to be in a place that wasn’t so hostile…
where I could feel the love of family… where I could heal. I needed “home”…
but can you really ever go “home” again?
Well, suffice it to say that “home” wasn’t exactly the way I
envisioned it, but it was a real education.
I’ve written about some of my experiences there in earlier blog posts…
being hit by a car while walking across the street… the estrangement with my
father and other members of my family…
my experience teaching… it wasn’t exactly the welcome I was hoping for,
but I did learn how to manage myself. I
developed “equipoise”, a much needed state of equilibrium that taught me how to
counter the extremes of that city, the experiences I’d had in the last 13 years
of my life and the extremes in my faith… the differences between what the word
of God says and the what I had experienced in today’s “New and Improved”
Christianity. In this very hostile
environment, I found MY faith… my very own tried and true faith that has
sustained me and has indeed, made me stronger.
At the beginning of this post, I defined “tempering” as, “to
make stronger or more resilient through hardship, toughen.” I can see with all certainty that I have been
tempered. What did not kill me, has
indeed made me stronger and I will “I press toward the mark for the prize
of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:14)
