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Showing posts from April, 2015

Surviving the Dark Night of the Soul

A mystic named John of the cross coined the phrase- "the dark night of the soul" a long time ago. He said it was the moments before the light- when the dark seems darkest as we fight through painful suffering to grow & mature in our faith. If you've been alive longer than a few years, you've probably encountered one of these seasons- when things aren't working, nothing is going right, and everything seems stacked against you.  It's painful- and for those of us in ministry, it's all too often inflicted by the very church we serve. I vividly remember a conversation with a personnel committee in my early days of ministry, I'd been given a "growth plan" to work through and thought I was doing well.  But, in that meeting, I was told I wasn't growing fast enough- that led to a discussion about options and led to me being asked to tender my resignation.  It hurt- and I'll be honest- it led me to a dark place: questioning my faith, ques