By Joshua Encinias
Published on January 8, 2008
For the last eight months I have been attending Harvest Church, Pensacola. Ten years in, the church branched from meeting at the Silver Screen to its own building on Herman Street. Ivan swept through and totaled the building, forcing the church to relocate in Brownsville. In April 2007, Pastor Bobby Lepinay jumped at the chance to drag his crew back to the movies. The Rave Motion Pictures on Bayou has been housing a second service ever since.
The church holds and sponsors classes for all kinds of addiction recovery. With the opening of the Rave location, the church body has seen a spike in “unchurched” or “overly-churched-and-burned-out” members. Some of them are alcoholics, drug addicts and/or mentally disabled. Of the new members, there’s one guy who particularly comes to mind.
For privacy issues I’ll call him Hensley.
Hensley introduced himself to me last fall. He lives in the Brownsville area with his mother. Hensley’s body is rigid, but his voice barrels out from the pit of his stomach, and his face and personality welcome everyone he meets. Currently Hensley is in a career training class. As of Sunday, it sounded like he’s been recruited for a job that fits his expectations.
One time I took Hensley home from an addiction meeting. I’ve never asked about his ailments, nor do I have a clue into his background. But, I know that his problems have allowed him to deviate into unhealthy addictions. I think his rigidness comes as a side effect of the abuse.
Hensley is finally learning to handle his problems in a healthy way, with people who are willing to see him over to the winning side of addiction.
But on Sunday I overheard a conversation between Hensley and a Harvest member that stirred latent feelings inside me.
Hensley said hello to this member and the conversation turned from Christmas, to babies and landed on Hensley’s work in reprogramming his life.
Chatting by the coffee bar, Hensley began railing against his therapist’s advice from their last session. Hensley was saying that only God can rule his life, no one else.
Hensley’s persistence to get away from the therapist’s discerning view into his life is to be expected. They’re galvanizing a problem he’s never addressed.
As he told the story, Hensley became agitated. The other member looked concerned, because she was tending to a child while trying to take in everything Hensley spouted. Once he cooled off, they were in agreement that no one can rule another’s life.
But this can all too easily be taken as a free pass to stop working towards change.
Instances like this between Hensley and the member end up being the basis of some people’s rallying against the church when that person becomes lazy, expecting a God-sent-cure-all.
While Hensley needs to be at that place in his life, I fear that he is not. It seems like he misunderstands what the therapist is trying to do for him. His confidence has been built to one day make the right decisions without a therapist and group counseling, but that day is not today.
This may be a misunderstanding on my part, but watching their conversation threw me back into times where I’ve voiced similar words.
I’ve half-explained many situations with the facts skewed in my favor to garner support needed to continue self defeating behavior. My laziness put me through a four-year slump that I’ve been working myself out of since Jan. 6, 2006; the most important day of my life.
The baggage I carried was figurative and literal.
At the time I was 400 pounds and everything about me was stagnant. I’m still working on myself, two years into changing from boy to man. Over time I’ve taken my weight to 200 pounds. It’s had little to do with inspiration and everything to do with growing up.
Growing up began when I decided to. The physical transformation from boy to man comes naturally, but the mind requires effort.
Trust took sight and faith grew. Redemptive energy began purging ignorance about my true self and the world out of my system through willingness to look at my life, stop deceiving myself and stagger on. I’d rather stagger in truth than stand upright in lies.
I hope Hensley will stagger on.
