“What they needed from me was not, first, right theology; they needed me to be their embodied imaginer of beauty, if you will, while their brains tried to catch up.” 

“The Soul of Desire” by Dr. Curt Thompson

Have you ever been in an unfamiliar situation where you did not know anyone? Maybe a place where you felt unseen or unwanted. And have you ever had someone see you in that place and reach out to you? Maybe it was a simple introduction or a basic conversation. How did you feel? Hopefully, if this has happened to you, at least some part of you felt good. That is because this goes back to that desire we have from the moment we are born. We are looking for someone who is looking for us, and when someone reaches out to us in that unfamiliar, uncomfortable setting, we feel seen by them. This is the first step towards security.

Feeling Seen

Back in 2017, I had just moved to Arizona from California to attend GCU and pursue a career in ministry. As I was looking for a new church home, a friend, Charis, invited a few of us to attend the church she grew up in. The service was fine, and altogether uneventful. After the service, I must have misheard her, because I remember her saying something about a lunch at her parents’ house right across the street. So I invited myself over and tagged along. I walked in the front door with Charis and another friend, and to my surprise, there was no lunch. However, standing at the end of the dining area was her dad. 

He introduced himself as Michael, and asked all the basic questions you ask young college students. “What’s your name? Where are you from? What are you studying?” After learning that I wanted to enter into the world of ministry, he told me that he had been in ministry for 19 years and was discipling young men who wanted to be pastors. He then offered to get together over coffee and start discipling me. 

I felt… intimidated. Here I was, in my first months in a new state, trying to figure out life, standing in the front door of this man’s house, and rather than being upset with me for just waltzing in, he saw me and welcomed me in—not only to his house, but into his life. I had no idea what discipleship was. I took down his phone number, but I walked away thinking I’d never hear or see him again. 

I spent the next few months asking Charis and her brother Jeremy, the life leader in my dorm, about discipleship. What was it and what did it mean to be discipled by Michael.

After several months, I finally reached out to Michael and took him up on his offer. Thus began a life changing experience that began because one man saw another and met him where he was at. This is what God does for us. He sees us where we’re at and invites us into a relationship with Him. Many people, like me, might be intimidated by a lack of understanding of what that truly means and entails.

Feeling Soothed

As Michael and I began this discipleship journey, I began to share my story, my hurts, and my frustrations with him. I shared how my parents had divorced just a year prior and how I had a lot of pent up hurt and frustration towards my dad. While our discipleship was just beginning, I simultaneously started dating a girl, and the relationship quickly turned sour. We were fighting all the time, and even the smallest things would turn into arguments that lasted days, sometimes even weeks. Michael sat and listened and counseled me through all of it. By doing so, he soothed some of my deepest wounds. And while he had not yet read any of Dr. Thompson’s work, Michael recognized what I needed. It was as if he realized, “What Elijah needs from me is not, first, right theology; he needs me to be his embodied imaginer of beauty, if you will, while his brain tries to catch up.”

One day in particular, we met and talked as we usually would. However, this time Michael said something that shook my worldview. He stopped me while I was complaining yet again about how my girlfriend and I were fighting, and he said, “You know, you don’t always have to fight in a relationship.” 

I laughed and said, “What do you mean? Of course you do.” 

“Mmm. No. You don’t. Have you and I ever fought?” 

“That’s different”, I said. “You’re not my girlfriend.”

“So? We don’t fight. So, why do you have to fight with her?” asked Michael. 

“Because that’s what people do” I said. 

At this point, I was growing frustrated and was starting to really push back and yell.

“That’s what you do” Michael said. 

“No. That’s what people do in a relationship. That’s what marriage is about. Finding the person you’re going to fight with for the rest of your life” I insisted. 

Now, tears were streaming down my face. I was yelling, and I may have thrown in a few choice words. Michael sat there with me for a moment before finally saying, “It doesn’t have to be this way.” I didn’t believe him. I didn’t think he knew what he was talking about. I mean how could he? He was not the model of parents that I grew up with –  married for 24 years with 4 kids, constant fighting, various affairs, and divorced. Except here’s the thing; he had been married for 20 years with 6 kids, no affairs, and no divorce. He knew a thing or two more about marriage than I did. 

Michael could have walked away. He could have stopped discipling me. I was a foolish 19 year old kid who was projecting the pain from my parents’ story onto him, and I was still deeply wounded. But he stayed and sat there with me in that pain. He saw me where I was. In that moment, Michael soothed the hurt I was feeling as the physical, tangible love of God washed over me, and he brought me to the foot of the cross to lay that burden down. He did not, at that moment, teach me right theology. He listened to my heart and became my embodied imaginer of beauty. He helped me see a world where I do not have to constantly fight with my wife. I could not see it for myself, and he helped open my eyes to that possibility.

Feeling Safe

I felt safe in front of him. Safe to laugh at this seemingly foolish and impossible truth. Safe to challenge the idea. Safe to cry. Safe to hurt. Safe to process. Safe to heal. It didn’t happen overnight. It was the fact that Michael consistently showed up for me and allowed me to be safe. To feel and voice my emotions in front of him, just as I am safe to feel my emotions in front of God, without judgement or condemnation.