My expectations of Jesus’ imminent appearing and a joyous eternity with Him are not simply things about which I enjoy writing; they are deeply personal to me. They provide an incentive to keep using my gifts to serve the Lord amidst disappointments, failures, and fierce opposition.
My hope of forever keeps my perspective balanced between now and forever by reminding me that eternal realities are so much more valuable than the fleeting things of this life. That, however, was a lesson I learned the hard way, through much affliction and suffering.
It took the Lord working through great pain and chaos in my life to change my earthbound outlook on life and through that to put me on the path of healing in my battle with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder).
I am not an expert on PTSD (far, far from it). I share my experiences so that I might help others who may also be struggling with lingering anxieties and deep wounds from their past.
My Nightmarish Experiences While a Pastor
I am not a veteran of war and I fully realize that survivors of combat experience much more severe PTSD symptoms than I can imagine. My struggles have deepened my empathy for those men and women who bravely served our country facing the nightmarish terrors of war and now suffer the consequences.
My long nightmare began during my second pastorate. Everything went well for a couple years and then everything changed as I encountered harsh criticism regarding my preaching and ministry. Although I tried to heed the advice my opponents gave to me, it seemed as though the harder I tried to please my critics, the more mistakes I made and the opposition became more aggressive.
One of the older women in the church voiced her disapproval of me with words that still ring in my ears decades later: “Your ministry is a joke!” She repeated this accusation many times after evening services making sure everyone heard her stinging words. Some defended me, but that did not deter her from loudly repeating this opinion before she eventually left the church. I talked with her on many occasions about this, but it did not stop her weekly verbal assaults.
The opposition at church added financial pressure to my predicament; some stopped giving at the insistence of those who believed I had failed as a pastor. This intensified the pressure I felt to make things happen (never a good motivation to say the least). The harder I tried to bring about the required church growth, the more I failed.
The financial woes at church added considerable stress to an already tense situation at home. At times, I felt like a ball in a pinball machine bouncing between angry assaults at home and hostility at the church. As the clanging of each bounce grew louder, I became increasingly fearful for my future. I sensed intense disapproval as I preached on Sundays and wondered how an out of work and perhaps divorced pastor could find work, or even survive.
As opposition to my ministry intensified, I resigned from the church and continued working at a factory, a job I had begun over a year earlier as attendance at the church had dwindled. I have several scars on my right hand from an accident one night at the factory.
Although I loved preaching about prophecy, I valued my success as a pastor over my life in eternity. As a result, I barely survived the trauma of being forced to leave the job I dearly loved.
The events behind this lengthy time of pain are far worse than anything I could ever put in writing, but I will include the key aspects of what happened.
One of the brighter aspects of my time at the church was a friend who came to my office at times to encourage me as the opposition toward me grew in the church. Our bond grew stronger as we worked on cars and attended sporting events together. I regarded him as a close friend and ally. I saw no reason to doubt the trust I had in him.
After I resigned from the church, my friend’s demeanor toward me changed; he became distant and appeared guilt-stricken when around me. Several weeks later I learned the reason for his behavior.
He and my wife had been romantically involved for the past three years.
This disclosure stunned me as nothing else could have done. I remember long walks crying out to the Lord, nights without sleep and full of tears, and deep piercing emotional pain I believed would never end.
Thoughts of suicide flooded my mind and became much more than a passing fancy. I believed the intense inner pain would never end and I wanted to escape from it. The Lord came to my rescue one night in the garage.
I wanted to run far, far away from God, the church, His people, and everything life seemed to be. Looking back, I realize it was my unwavering belief in Jesus’ resurrection that kept me from fleeing; I knew I had nowhere else to go. My deep despair, however, lingered as I tried to turn my life around in my own way.
A Respite from the Grief
As the shock of my betrayal wore off, I returned to school at the University of Iowa the following year to pursue an MBA degree. My emphasis in finance and accounting proved to be a good fit for me.
Through a series of promotions during the next several years, I moved up from a second shift data entry operator to a position as Senior Financial Analyst at the company at which I had begun working while in school. I found surprising enjoyment in being a number cruncher; I loved my new career of managing the finances for various government contracts.
I soon forgot about the ugliness of my past as I pursued success in the business world.
My walk with the Lord gradually deepened during this time. I continued to write adult Sunday school curriculum for David C. Cook, something I started during my final year as a pastor (and continued for 37 years). I also became active in leading a singles’ ministry at my church.
During this time of spiritual renewal, however, I remained unaware of the powerful fears that raged far below the surface of my consciousness waiting to ambush me at the worst possible moment.
Terrors in the Night
Many years later, I met a woman whom I thought was the answer to my loneliness. She was not. Our marriage got off to a rocky start and never recovered. My wife’s discontentment with me caused a renewal of past anxieties inside me that caused much conflict in our relationship.
My counselor diagnosed my symptoms as PTSD; he said my panic attacks stemmed from unresolved fears from long ago, especially during the tumultuous years of my second pastorate and conflict at home. Remarriage and the problems in my new relationship reopened and aggravated old wounds that had long been buried deep inside me.
It was the perfect storm. I came into the marriage with buried anxieties from my past and my wife entered with high expectations stemming from deep wounds in her previous marriage. My struggles shattered her trust in me; her angry response to my issues and non-stop verbal abuse inflamed my PTSD symptoms. She wanted what she had with her previous husband; something I could not give to her at the time.
She spoke repeatedly of her desire to leave me. For a year and a half I resisted her continual pleas for a separation. Eventually I realized I had no other choice but to go along with her plan that we sell our home and live separate lives. She gave me no other choice than to agree with her plan.
As the turmoil at home raged during my second marriage, my panic attacks intensified. At times, these assaults sprang up out of nowhere. I remember feeling completely peaceful one night as I fell asleep. Then, at 3 a.m., I woke up overwhelmed in a state of great terror. What was happening to me? How could I feel so fearful apart from any conscious worry or threat?
On this particular occasion, I battled the panic attack with Scripture and prayer for an hour before I again felt the Lord’s peace again in my heart. It was then that I began to recognize the devil’s role in these attacks as he sought to take advantage of my weakness and as such, I realized that I would need to fight him to get my life back.
A Song Restores My Eternal Focus
During this time, I attended a Steve Green concert. As I walked into the auditorium that evening, I felt my life was over. Thoughts of my failures as a pastor and husband plagued me night and day. I believed the Lord could never again use such a disgraced vessel; panic attacks and extreme loneliness would be my lot for the remainder of my life. How could it be any different?
I will never forget the way God spoke to me that night at the concert. As Steve Green introduced one of his songs, In Brokenness You Shine, I heard the Lord speak these words into my heart, “Jonathan, this is for you.” After that, it seemed as though the crowded auditorium became strangely vacant and Steve was singing only to me.
The lyrics pierced my soul that evening and ignited the process through which the Lord calmed my fears and healed the deep wounds of my heart. Jesus caused hope to come alive in my heart again just as the words to In Brokenness You Shine said He would do.
My renewed anticipation of a joyous forever seemed more than enough to get me through this life even if my circumstances never improved or perhaps got worse.
After the concert, I wrote about my hope of eternity, of reigning with Christ in the millennium, and how such an anticipation eclipsed my feelings of despair and fears regarding my earthly future, which seemed far worse than dismal at the time.
It was not that any of my beliefs regarding my future hope changed, they hadn’t. However, I learned to give eternal realities more weight than my troubles; something Paul wrote about in Romans 8:18. As I shifted my ultimate hopes to forever, the Lord opened my heart to His healing touch.
It took a long time for the Lord to heal the deep wounds of my past that continued to cause the middle of the night panic attacks. During this time I read a book written by John Eldredge entitled Wild at Heart. The Lord used the words of this book to give me a strategy for dealing with the devil’s assaults.
Rather than flee from the fears of my past, I learned to stand my ground asking the Lord for insight into the wounds causing the repeated panic attacks.
Rather than suppress my anxieties or fight off the demon-inspired attacks as I had done in the past, I allowed the Lord to use my nighttime terrors to bring healing relief to my soul. Instead of running from my feelings of panic, I stood my ground waiting for God to give me understanding of the fears that had remained buried and disguised for so long.
This pattern reached a climax one night when the Lord used a lengthy bout with my enemy to reveal the nature of my deepest wound, a deep and long-held inner conviction of being unlovable, unworthy of love, and undesirable to others. This deep lesion in my soul likely began with the brutal and intense bullying I endured all during high school and the wound later deepened with the rejection, abuse, and utter betrayal I experienced in both of my marriages.
This revelation came with many tears as Jesus took me deep into the wound behind my crippling anxieties that had plagued me for many years and led to so many poor decisions. This became a significant turning point in my battle with PTSD as my panic attacks diminished significantly in both frequency and intensity after that night.
A Touch of the Savior’s Love
In the lyrics to In Brokenness You Shine, Steve Green used the phrase “your love surrounds.” He sang of the Lord coming to us in our grief and lovingly staying with us regardless of what others might say about us or do to us.
These words came alive for me a few years after the Steve Green concert.
After work one day, I went for a long run listening to songs of praise on my iPad Shuffle. Later, I spent time alone with the Lord in my prayer closet. Because recent events had caused anxieties regarding my future to resurface, I began my time of prayer totally submitting my future anew to the Lord.
A few moments later I asked the Lord this question, “If you were seated right here next to me in this closet, what would you say to me?”
Before I finished the question I felt his response in my soul, “I love you!” Tears streamed down my face from both joy and amazement of His continued love for me despite the ugliness of my past.
The touch of my Savior’s love that night vanquished all the remaining effects of PTSD.
My Story
This is my story of how the Lord delivered me from PTSD. It’s not a pretty story but then again, my life shows how God can use the worst of times for His glory and bring joy out of great sorrow, many tears, feelings of hopelessness, and utter failure.
The Lord can shine His light on the ugliest of circumstances and make the shattered pieces of a badly broken life shine again. It took a very long time, but He did that for me.
As a young pastor, I could quickly recite 20 reasons why I believed in the pretribulation rapture; but sadly, I placed a greater worth on the success I could achieve in this life rather than on my hope of eternity. Once the Lord broke my fierce self-centered pride through failure, suffering, and great loss, I learned the importance of valuing my expectation of Jesus’ appearing and heaven over earthly success and accomplishments (see 2 Cor. 4:17-18).
I later experienced my Savior’s love in a remarkable way. After many additional years of singleness, the Lord brought Ruth into my life. In our relationship, I have found a degree of love and acceptance I had long believed were impossible in a marriage relationship. I could not have written my latest book, The Triumph of the Redeemed, without her loving support, encouragement, and honest feedback of my writing.
I would not have even considered remarriage had it not been for my pastor at the time. After a two-hour lunch together discussing marriage and all my past experiences he said, “I never want to hear that you have given up on marriage. There’s a kind woman out there just for you.”
I fully expected him to tell me that I should never consider remarriage. His counsel, along with similar advice from two other godly men that I trusted, gave me the courage to reconsider the prospect of remarriage after which Ruth came into my life.
I do not understand why the Lord has blessed me in such amazing ways! I certainly do not deserve the many blessings he continues to send my way. All I know is that Jesus is gracious and compassionate beyond all I could ever have imagined. He forgave my sins and restored my life in ways I once considered impossible. I wonder if I would even be alive today if not for Jesus’ presence with me and His strength.
I also know that all He accomplishes through me is in spite of me.
“More Than Conquerors”
I love the words Romans 8:35 and 37, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? … No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”
In Christ, regardless of our painful circumstances or the perilous times in which we live, we know that someday we will share in His triumph and reign with him during the millennium and then forevermore. Regardless of our past or current turmoil, “we are more than conquerors.”
Some mistakenly believe that the sharing of my story means I regard myself as a victim; this could not be any further from the truth. I only share a very small amount of my past turmoil to provide a basis for showing the greatness of the Lord’s deliverance and power in rescuing me. I share these things to bring encouragement to others who have suffered similar affliction and storms in their lives!!
Because of Jesus and only Him, I see myself as the “conqueror” the apostle Paul described in Romans 8:37.
Psalm 30:5 aptly sums up my life: “For his anger is but for a moment, and his favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes in the morning.” For me the weeping lasted for many, many years, but joy did come in the morning. The greatest joy for all who know the Savior, however, will come when He appears to take us to the place He’s preparing for us (John 14:1-3).
If you are in a place of despair and do not know the Lord as your Savior, please contact me for how you can possess a hope that transcends the perils of this life. I will be happy to explain how you can know for sure that your sins are forgiven and that you possess eternal life.
If you already know the Lord, please know that your hope of eternal joy must be more than head knowledge. I encourage you to spend time reading Revelation 20-22 and meditating on the joy ahead for you. The glory ahead for us outweighs all our grief on this earth (Rom. 8:18).
If you are in a place of great despair, recognize that although the Lord may take His time in restoring you, He will not fail you. I share this story so that those who face impossible circumstances of pain and rejection may have hope!!