I felt like an entertainer spinning a series of plates on top of long and limber sticks, hoping to keep the plates spinning so they wouldn’t fall and shatter on the stage below. I believed the lie that God had sentenced me to a life of performing for His love. I lived in constant fear that if at any moment one of the plates (family and ministry responsibilities) were to come crashing down, I would not only be at fault but would have to pay God back for the broken plate before buying a new one to start my routine all over again. Life was a never-ending performance for an audience of one who, according to my misguided heart, could at any moment leave the venue, heckling me and demanding a full refund.
The ugliest moment of this curse came during a phone call with my wife as I boarded a plane to Chicago to teach at a conference on healthy urban churches. Elicia and I were arguing over my being a resident but not present at home. The core of her argument highlighted my zombie-like state of mind when I was at home, not on the road traveling or at work. During these times I lacked meaningful engagement with her and our two daughters. Elicia brought up this blind spot so much that I had grown inoculated to it. So when she started talking about it before I boarded the plane, I grew irritated beyond words. In this moment of frustration I chose to do what no husband should ever do: I interrupted Elicia mid-sentence and told her I needed to get off the phone. With a fearful tremble in her voice she uttered two words that still give me chills: “I’m done.” When I asked her what she meant, she hung up the phone.
When Elicia said, “I’m done,” she meant she couldn’t keep up with the insane rhythm of life I was forcing on our entire family. Everything I was doing—working a full-time job, being a full-time seminary student, traveling to preach and perform gospel rap concerts, all while planting a church in the city—had run my marriage into the ground. At first I thought she was out of line, and immediately I pushed aside her feelings, rehearsing my cross-examination and rebuttal and deciding I would lay out the facts for her when I called her from Chicago. But as the plane took off, something happened. I began to hear Elicia’s voice replay in my mind. My first instinct was to ignore it and stay focused on the task at hand; however, as her voice grew louder, I became sensitive to the hurt and pain packed into every word. As her words began to take root, nervousness began to fill the pit of my stomach. My heart started beating as fast as our rhythm of life. Then the unthinkable happened. Tears began to pour out of my eyes.