Thoughts on faith, life, and art.
2. But would she love me with an afro?
When I tell people I met my wife at church, and at a single’s event, it feels so obvious and anticlimactic. But let me tell you, it was anything but. For all practical purposes, without God’s divine intervention, I would have never been there to meet her in the first place. For most of college, and a good five years after, I was what you might call, “de-churched.” Not “un-churched,” no, no—I grew up in church. I was “de-churched.” I had been hurt, I had been wronged, and I had left without any intention of going back. I was angry at the church as an institution, and the church as a people. I wanted nothing to do with either of them.
I never really lost my faith, but one thing was certain. I thought church people were a bunch of judgy, backstabbing, self-righteous hypocrites. I hated them. All of them. Well, as the saying goes, “don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater.” That’s exactly what I had done. I had taken a handful of bad experiences, experiences that were legitimately bad, and I had let them color my perception of everything. I walked away from everything, pouring myself into performing with my rock band, and working my way through college. At least there I felt loved and accepted.
But here’s the thing about walking outside of God’s will. It’s a dark and lonely place. Even though I was surrounded by people and friends, I was desperately and miserably lonely. That was because no one knew the real me. The real me was angry. We’re talking hulk smash angry. Most people just saw the happy-go-lucky, fun-loving, goofy side of me. Not the road-raging, frothing at the mouth, having the police called on him because he was so scary, Daniel. I wasn’t just angry, I was also depressed.
Some of my closest friends knew I had a little depression, but no one knew that behind closed doors I was nearly catatonic. They only saw the bouncy, hyped up on energy drinks, carboholic Daniel. Also, no one knew my deepest and darkest secret that I swore I would take to the grave. My debilitating addiction to pornography. I was so addicted, that I couldn’t even sleep at night. No one had any idea. The Daniel everybody knew didn’t drink, didn’t smoke, didn’t do drugs, and didn’t have sex. How could he have a porn addiction?
This sad state of affairs was not the result of me “not going to church.” It was much deeper. After years of reflection, emotional healing, and God gently pursuing my heart, this is what I discovered. My anger stemmed from a lack of control in my life. I had lots of plans for how I wanted life to go, and at every juncture, those plans failed. In reality, I was angry at God (I just hadn’t admitted it to myself yet). Scripture says, “a man’s heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps” (Proverbs 16:9), and so far all my steps had been blocked. Whose fault was that, if not God's?
That was where the depression came in. There’s a certain hopelessness that comes from having your dreams crushed over, and over, and over. As for the porn—I’d been exposed to it the same year I had been molested as a kid. Even though I’d had no memory of those events until much later, they’d left their mark. When I re-discovered porn on the internet as a high schooler, it had an iron grip on my life in a way I couldn’t comprehend. I hated it with every fiber of my being, but no matter how I tried, I couldn’t stop. It became my primary coping mechanism. Was I angry? Porn. Depressed? Porn! Anxious, stressed, or fearful? Porn! Porn! Porn!
One day, at the height of my misery, a friend called and invited me to go to church with her. This was out of the blue, and I didn't want to go, but ultimately, I agreed to. First, because I was just happy to receive female attention—platonic or not. But second, because I felt so far from God at the time, that church felt like a good first step back to him. But still, I was hesitant and hard-hearted. I showed up in my rocker jacket, my dual-tone Ray-Ban’s, and an afro (technically it was a half-fro because of my receding hairline, ha!). Anyway I was fully ready to hate on everyone and everything, but the sermon that day caught me off guard. It seemed to have been tailor-made for my heart.
The pastor spoke on the importance of community, which he described as "doing life with people where you are fully known, and fully loved—warts and all." That was what my heart craved more than anything, but how could it be possible? How could anybody know me, the real me, and still love and accept me? It sounded too good to be true. By the end of the message, he'd told story after story of the life change that had come from people doing life together, while chasing hard after Jesus. The thought of living authentically and vulnerably was terrifying—I mean, what if church people hurt me like they did last time? My fear was strong, but the hunger awakened in me was stronger.
One week later, I was down in South Florida playing a music festival with my band. We had already finished playing, so the guys in my band left to go watch another band play on a different stage. I stayed behind to watch Natasha Bedingfield play. There she was singing, “feel the rain on your skin, no one else can feel it for you…”, and I was thinking about how good rain would actually feel on my lobster-red, sun-cooked skin. Then without warning, I saw something happen backstage that broke me. The thing itself was minor in comparison to my reaction, but the Lord used that event to peel the blinders off, and suddenly I could see clearly again.
I was confronted with the futility of my pursuits, and the emptiness of my lifestyle. I realized that I had been living as though I were the master of my life, without any regard as to what God might want for me. Maybe the reason everything I’d done had been a failure, was because I’d done it independently from God. What did I think was going to happen—that just because I professed belief in God, he was going to bless me in whatever endeavor I chose? I knew better than that! And yet here I was, angry at God, because he wasn't upholding his end of the bargain—a bargain he'd never made. In that moment, I knew I needed to do two things. I needed to quit the band, and I needed to do that community thing the pastor had been talking about at church.
I calmly left the stage, got in our van, and screamed and shouted into the sky. I was shaking my fist and letting out all the years of pent-up rage. I was also repenting of how far I had gotten from the Lord. I told God that I was done pursuing my own endeavors, and that I wouldn’t do anything else unless he literally dropped it in my lap. And that’s what I did. First thing when I got home, I quit the band. Then I called the church and said, “I don’t know what this community thing is, but put me in it.” The community director accepted, and told me he had some guys he wanted to introduce me to. But there was a catch—at least in my mind—he wanted me to meet him at a single’s event so he could introduce all of us.
Um, no. No, no, no, no, no, no. I don’t do single’s events. What did this guy think he was doing? I wasn’t trying to meet anybody! Didn't he know I was a trainwreck? I had no business being at a single's event! But, here I was in this new season of trusting the Lord, and I felt like this was some kind of a test. It's like God was saying, "how serious are you? Are you serious enough to go a little outside of your comfort zone? Or, are you going to turn back at the first obstacle?" Resolved to stick to my word, I went. And good thing I did! That night, he introduced me to a group of guys that more than a decade later, are still some of my closest friends.
These guys walked with me through my addiction, and through my anger and bitterness at the people from my past. They showed me what it really meant to be the hands and feet of Christ by loving me when I was the most unlovable. And not only did they have very similar struggles as me, but they were having victory over them in ways I didn't even know was possible. Suffice it to say, this small motley group of guys were the single most powerful tool the Lord used to change everything in my life—including my afro. Without their friendship, and the love and accountability that came with it, I would not be the man I am today, and I especially would not have been ready for a relationship.
The day I quit the band…
1 year into “doing life” with my community group.