A New Despair

The group of churches that our church was a part of - People of Destiny - had changed their name to Sovereign Grace Ministries. There was a large Sovereign Grace Ministries church in Charlotte that had been started by one of the main leaders some years before. His name was Brent Detweiler.

We had come to know and love Brent for his teaching over the years. Now he had started a new church-plant just north of Charlotte. George and his family and some other friends we had known previously were going there. So that’s where we decided to go. We enjoyed the more intimate, close-knit atmosphere that a church-plant offered. 

We found a house to rent in the same neighborhood where George lived, also north of Charlotte. We were just going to rent for at least a year until we saw how things went. The house was in a very nice new community with a big pool, clubhouse and sports area. Our new church members helped move us in.

Despite my family’s anguish at leaving Chesapeake, everything was looking rosy. George was very kind. As we were ramping up, it was difficult to let me take any time off. But after skipping a year, our family had made plans to do the Outer Banks vacation with the other two families again. George graciously let me go. It was only when I got back that the troubles began. 

George was under a lot of pressure to make this company successful. He put a lot of it on himself but he began to take it out on the other employees. He was very good at dispatching. He had an amazing way of figuring out the complicated puzzle that it was. And he expected every one else to do the same.

As he had warned me, he fired two of the other office staff. He would also tear into one of the other dispatchers when things didn’t go just right. As I was newer and a friend, I wasn’t the subject of his wrath…yet.

His behavior concerned me, especially as we were Christians and the other employees were not. It was certainly not a great witness to them of Christ-like behavior. I tried to figure out the best way to bring peace into the situation.

As time went on and I started taking over the dispatching…and making mistakes…the wrath turned on me. Work became like walking on eggshells. You never knew the next thing that would set him off. The dispatching was a huge stress in itself, taking over just about my every waking moment and even my nightmarish dreams. As I had first thought, the role and my personality did not match up. To have the anger on top of that made me completely miserable.

Along with that, I was also dealing with banks foreclosing on my properties. I still didn’t want to declare bankruptcy yet so that it would not adversely affect my partner but I knew I had to at some point.

As all of this weighed down on me, I began to despair once again. What I thought was a solution seemed to hold a brand new set of problems. The important thing was that the bills were being paid but I was despondent. I got to a point where I didn’t want to live anymore. I wouldn’t kill myself but I secretly hoped a truck would crash into me and kill me on my commute home. I had life insurance so I figured my family would be okay financially and they could move back to Chesapeake where they really wanted to be.

During this period, I called Eric Hughes (our friend and pastor back in Virginia) for some counsel. Later, I found out that Eric had been going through one of the worst things of his life at that time so when he told me what, he did he must have been preaching to himself too. It was very helpful. He said,

“All I can tell you is that God is bigger. He’s got all this in His hands and one day, you’ll be looking back on this. It will pass.”