If I Forget to Tell You…

October 1, 2012, is a day I’ll never forget.

I was the main speaker for our morning church service. Our annual convention, the Feast of Tabernacles, was kicking off and it was the first day. For the membership, this event was a high point of our year. People had gathered from surrounding states. The mood was upbeat, and people were overjoyed to have congregated together. 

Yet, as I started my sermon, I had a panic attack. 

It was one of the scariest moments of my life. I was on stage in front of hundreds of people. And I was suddenly gripped in a series of feelings that I had never felt before. 

Admittedly, I had no idea what I was experiencing at the time. There was an occasion or two before where I experienced some of this, but not to this level. 

It was 10 years ago, and I remember it as if it was yesterday. I had no idea it was going to happen. I had spoken in front of large audiences many times before. It came on suddenly and out of the blue. 

What I Was Feeling

My heart was beating out of my chest. I felt clammy. I began to sweat. 

It’s hard to describe but there was a feeling of pressing, impending doom. A suffocating tightness in my chest. It was like my world and the room were closing in. 

It literally crossed my mind that I had to walk off the stage. I wanted to run. But I couldn’t. Here I was in front of 200+ people. 

Could people tell? I asked myself, as I simultaneously tried to keep delivering my message. Surely, they can tell. 

Ninety grueling minutes. The structure of my sermon helped. Knowing that I just had to follow the outline. Get to the next series of scriptures. 

Waves would come back throughout the message. But I kept going. 

An hour and a half later, I got through it. I was exhausted and defeated. Yet I survived. 

The Ripple Effects

As I walked off that stage around 12:30 pm that day, I felt relieved and scared. Relieved I made it through. Scared because I had no idea where this came from or what it was. 

It shook my world. I had no idea what to do with it.

It undermined me in many ways. When would this happen again, I thought? It’s like it became some sort of lurking monster in the closet. 

I never spoke to anybody about it. Not my closest friends (didn’t have many, to be honest). Not even my wife. 

No Way Out

As I look back, a fair question is: Why didn’t I address this, then or later? Why didn’t I walk off the stage and deal with this?

I am sure there are many reasons, but I was in survival mode. I did not want to be humiliated. The concept of walking off the stage in the middle of a sermon would have been catastrophic, or that’s what I believed at the time. It would have been the talk of the Feast site. Frankly, it would have been the talk of the whole church. Since I was a “senior minister,” whatever that meant in hindsight, a PR campaign of some sort would surround my wife and my family.  

There was no clean way out of this. So, in the end, I concluded I had to work through it, and by work through it, I knew that meant ignore it, bury it, lock it away. Survival mode. 

For years, I didn’t even feel I could speak to my wife about this. Not that she wouldn’t have been supportive. It’s that you didn’t talk about things like this because they didn’t happen to God’s people, spiritual people, normal people…so if it happened to me, then I must not be those things. 

The Ecclesiastical Climate 

To provide some context, from a church culture perspective, talking about anxiety or having a panic attack or even emotional health in general, was not acceptable. It just “wasn’t done.” To be open about one’s mental health, or worse, emotional struggles, would never happen.

See, God’s spirit is one of a “sound mind.” And, if you don’t have a sound mind, well, then you are in trouble. You’re weak. You are not close enough to God. 

Then there was the additional level of being in the “ministry.” There was this pressure to be perfect. Granted, we would all admit or say the words that nobody was perfect and that everyone fell short, including ministers. But, when ministers actually did fall short, or need help, it really wasn’t accepted or supported, and it was seen as weakness and shortcoming, plain and simple. 

So, what did you do with any weaknesses you had? You covered them. You buried them. As deep as you could. 

You didn’t address them. You sent them as far down as possible, and you piled as much stuff on top as you could, hoping they wouldn’t surface too often. 

The Chronological Context

In 2012, I had been absolutely run ragged. A campus (or,  more properly, a compound) was being built. 

The church had received large sums of money due to new teachings from the leader. In 2008, the infamous “Clarion Call” sermons were produced. This essentially laid out a timeline that led brethren to believe they should give all their money before Jesus returned. (Incidentally, the range of time given at that time explained that it was impossible for Jesus to return after 2021. He would most certainly arrive before 2021. That, evidently, didn’t happen.) But by 2011, the “Common” doctrine was instituted. An even more disgusting and onerous financial doctrine was yoked upon the necks of church membership. It was now doctrine for the Church’s apostle to tell people to sell all and send it to him. And many did, perhaps most did. 

By 2011, the Church had bought land. By 2012, construction had begun. It was an incredibly stressful time. My youngest son was born in July of that year, and instead of looking back with joy at that time, I instead don’t remember much of his birth or first few months. It was marred by stress and constant turmoil and worry. Within that same timeframe, I was present during an instance that occurred to my brother, in a roomful of grown men, that I will never forget and for which I wish I had said something. It is and will always be one of my most vivid and awful life memories. (Perhaps that’s content for another time.)

It got even worse in the years ahead, but that, too, is a topic for another chapter.

The simple point? It was an incredibly stressful time. 

The Mask

Ironically, I have pictures of this very event when I had this panic attack (included here). It’s fascinating for me now to try to look at them as an outsider and see if anything was going on. I don’t believe you can tell in the photo how close to meltdown I really was.

Like at no other point in my life, I had to keep the mask on. I had to play the part I was required to play. 

See, this was all part of something I was thrust into in my 20s. I was told I was going to be a minister really early on. I had to step up. Be mature beyond my years!

I was always pushed to be somebody I wasn’t. I was too young-looking, I had to look older. I had to part and comb my hair a certain way. I had to stop wearing shorts around the lay members (mature men don’t show their legs!). I had to wear fuller dress pants, whatever that meant. I had to remove “youngish” ways of speaking. Etc. Etc. 

Put on the mask, Kevin.  

I did.

And it almost ruined me. 

Authenticity Will Not Remain Buried

This panic attack was my mind trying to break out of the inauthentic existence it had found itself in. Cognitive dissonance was raging through my mind like an out-of-control wildfire. I just hadn’t learned to identify it yet.

It took me several more years to figure this out, but I did. On some level, as I write about this for the first time, I am still figuring it out now. 

I would pay a lot of money to travel back in time to this event. I would talk to myself and explain what was happening. I would give myself permission to accept what was going on and guide myself in making steps to improve my situation. I may have even tried to convince myself to tell the brethren in that moment exactly what was going on. Despite the shock and the gasps, I’d be willing to bet that many in the room could have related. I would tell myself to open up to my wife about it afterward and receive her support, to not go it alone.

When you are in a bad place in life, your body and mind will respond. 

The authenticity of you will not remain buried. And although I buried my true self so very, very deep, I am slowly uncovering each layer and getting back to the real me.

A few weeks ago now feels like a world away. Before time gets too distant, I want to express my feelings on paper and document some lessons.  

I had a rough few days. My mental health, over the course of a week, got progressively worse each day.

Even though life was fine, actually life was damn good, it didn’t help. It’s hard to even explain my feelings, but I felt bad. Unsettled at my core.

To be honest, it was scary. I felt like I was losing control. And that’s really frightening.

I don’t know all the exact terms for some of the things I went through. Was it anxiety? Was it a panic attack? Nor do I know exactly why it happened. Why now? What is causing this and where is it coming from?

I didn’t have many good answers.

As I worked through this dark period (with my wife so wonderfully supportive by my side), we talked a lot about mental health. It seems like mental health is still a bad word in our society. We don’t like to talk about it. We don’t like to admit we have struggles. As a society, we are far more likely to applaud the physical health fitness that a person achieves.

The feelings that come to mind when admitting mental health challenges are shame, embarrassment, and weakness.

We have to change the way we view mental health. And it starts with ourselves. It starts with me.

It’s hard for me to accept this, but I have to say, it’s okay that I sometimes have mental health challenges.

Fitness is a widely understood concept today. We generally want to be physically fit, right? But the truth is we go through periods in our life where we have less fitness. We eat too much garbage, we pull back on our exercise, we cheat on our sleep, etc.

We have a whole box of tools when it comes to our physical fitness. When are using all the tools, we’re on. We feel great about ourselves and we know we are on track. We have every tool coming out of the box to be used to keep our physical bodies in shape. We’re fit.

Mental fitness is no different. It, too, has a whole box of tools that can be used. However, we have less of an awareness of what these tools are.

When you don’t know how to use a box of tools to fix something, what do you do? Heck, you may not even know what most of the tools are even called, or how they even work. What do you do?

Ask for help.

Many years ago, I was in a place where talking about or admitting any of these things was looked down upon. And I mean in a big way. As I look back, my biggest struggle with mental health was during that period. I was going through some significant trauma. And I had no idea that it was manifesting itself in mental ill-health. Much more could be said about this, perhaps in a later post.

The good news is I have come a long way from that period in my life. Life is good, and I am grateful for that. I am even grateful for that period a few weeks ago.

Though dark, it helped me realize I am ready for more light. Though helpless, I am now asking for help.

And it’s working.    

My son, if I forget to tell you, one day, hell, it’s going to be more than one day, you will have some mental health hurdles. It’s okay. You’re human like the rest of us.

There’s no shame. You don’t need to feel embarrassed. You are not weak.

In fact, it’s courageous. Be humble and brave, my boy. Ask for help. You’ll get it.

It’s hard to know where to begin in the middle of a global pandemic. What can I say? 2020 has been one hell of a year. Time has slowed down. Time has sped up. Life has been crazy.

It’s interesting, however. I haven’t really wanted to write, and I am not sure why. If I can step back and analyze the reasons, it’s probably because we were all thrust into a marathon we didn’t want to run. Life has an element right now of just surviving. Putting one foot in front of the other, day after day. It’s not really fun. But after 9 months of this unwanted marathon, it’s time to put some observations into words.

The biggest takeaway I have is to maintain perspective. When times get tough, and they will at some point, try to keep your perspective. 

The truth is it’s really easy to lose perspective in life. 

Headlines can cause you to lose perspective. They are written in a way to get your attention, to illicit some sort of emotional reaction. All through this year, I have struggled with the news. Digging deeper often allowed me to regain perspective. On the other hand, at times it was best to not read anything. 

Emotions are a big factor, for sure. The worst emotion is probably fear. Our fears almost never come to fruition but they can easily drive us to lose perspective. Earlier this year, we emptied our grocery store shelves. Why? No real tangible reason. Collectively, we were driven by irrational fear. 

When I saw myself doing something like getting more toilet paper, or going to the grocery store at the break of dawn to stock up on food, I was suddenly doing something I had never done before in my life. It was embarrassing, frankly. My irrational fears exposed me. What the hell was I doing? Losing perspective.

Losing perspective is dangerous. Perspective is generally our reality. So when we lose perspective we are losing our grasp on reality. 

Perspective can be defined as “the appearance to the eye of objects in respect to their relative distance and positions.” As human beings, we have the special proclivity to screw up our relative distance to things. We also screw up our position, thinking it more important than everyone else’s.

Several times through this pandemic, I have had to hit reset. I have had to step back and try to gain a better and fuller perspective. One way I did this was to write a long list of all the things I was grateful for. That helped a lot. Another way was to write down a plan and execute it. Staying busy and productive is huge. 

Gratitude and productivity.  

I certainly didn’t do it perfectly. I apologize to you for the times I lost perspective during the pandemic of 2020. You probably saw it when I lost my temper or lost my patience. I’m not proud of that, but I think I have learned through it. One day, I’m sure you will do the same.   

So, if I forget to tell you, if you are going through a global pandemic, or any other negative event in your life, don’t lose perspective. But believe me, you will lose it, just be ready to gain it back.

Jennifer just had a procedure. It was a pretty straightforward surgery, so there wasn’t too much to be concerned about. But it’s time like these that cause a person to think. The standard surface worries and stresses of daily life fade away and we find ourselves plunging deep into much more serious “what ifs?” and fears. Even if but for brief moments.

These exploratory walks into our psyche are as enriching as they are scary. They allow us to ponder, take stock. We gain a little perspective on life.

So many of us (me included, like, all the time) get caught up in day-to-day life. We labor under proverbial yokes of the modern age coined in phrases such as “the days are long and the years are short.” We don’t like Mondays, we yearn for the weekend. Rinse, wash, repeat….

Why?? Why do we get stuck ticked off at the mud around our shoes and not look up at the horizon? Why can’t we zoom out on our lives, as if it was Google Earth, and see the big picture?

The takeaway for me as I have a few extra quiet moments is: Love who you love. I know this may be pretty simple and obvious. And it is. But I think when we get caught up with our lives, we let that slip. I know I do. I know I can do better.

We all have people that we love. When asked, or prompted, we will readily state we love an individual. We may readily say “I love you,” even though that may sadly wane in some of our relationships. This is all the second part of the phrase, love who you love.

The first part of the phrase is the hard part. We don’t have time for that, you see. We have work to do. Activities to get to. Food to cook. Laundry to fold. Social media to swipe at. Our world is swallowed by money, career, relationship needs and worries.

But I must admit: If I spent more time on this one point, I would be a better and happier human being. Don’t get me wrong. I am happy. But I can be happier. And of course I can be better. We need to stop and remind ourselves that we are surrounded by people who we love. We just need to love them!

Go out of your way to stop the noise in your life and show affection to those you consider close to you. Put aside the daily grind to show your loved ones exactly what they mean to you.

My sons, whom I dearly love, I pledge to do better, to love you more. And if I ever forget to tell you, love who you love.

June 17, 2016. D-Day in the life of Jennifer and Kevin Denee. It was a turning point, the biggest single moment in our lives. A day where we were saying goodbye to our jobs, but also our careers, to our friends, but also our family, to our community and even our church. Really, we were departing from everything we had ever known. We jumped off the cliff into the abyss, and hoped for the best.

Though we had our nerves, June 17 was not as difficult as we had expected. By that point, all the machinery was moving, the snowball was rolling down the hill and gaining speed. We walked out that door, walked off the compound and never looked back.

How did we do it? What gave us the strength to make such a dramatic change in our lives?

At first, we were afraid. It was scary to think about changing almost every aspect of our lives. We had worries. Man, we had worries. Not only were our own lives at stake, but also our three children.

But we soon found courage. Early in our process of preparation we came across the following quote : “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear–not absence of fear” (Mark Twain).

That hit me like a ton of bricks. The fear, worry and unknown were all there. We weren’t going to get rid of it. How could we? We had to master the fear. it was a process that took time. And it didn’t happen overnight. Courage is something to be grown and developed over time. It’s not a one-time event. Ours started small, but grew into a titan.

Two big factors helped us develop the courage we needed.

First, our convictions were the foundation. The “courage of our convictions” is a real thing. We knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that we were in a wrong place. It was false, and had proven itself so, over and over again. Nothing was going to shake us from that fact. Having that conviction fueled tremendous courage deep inside our souls.

When we develop strong convictions, the courage becomes voracious.It’s like a fire that can’t be quenched. We had no choice. We knew what we had to do. We had to win the war against Germany. And if that meant developing a D-Day type plan, we would do exactly that.

That leads me to the second factor that gave us courage. That was an all-hands-on-deck focus and development of a plan. It wasn’t some sort of simple linear plan. It had many facets, many fronts. If there was anything that could prepare us or strengthen our position, we did it. However small or insignificant it may have been, if we thought it would help the success of our mission, we did it.

Furthermore, we analyzed every possible scenario, playing out plans A, B, C and D. Worst case scenarios were also assessed and prepared for. In most cases, those scenarios, by their nature, were fairly unrealistic. The odds are they wouldn’t happen. But when we prepared for the worst, all the other scenarios become easier.

We looked at our plan operationally, but also strategically and tactically. We got granular. As small parts of our plan fell into place, that strengthened us to take on other aspects. Small preparatory wins, led to tremendous courage.

We can do this, we thought.

So the day came, and we stormed the beach. The strength of our convictions was our flag. Our feet were prepared for the mission.

Two and a half years later, we look back on that huge turning point in our lives. No doubt the changes were as big as we thought they were going to be. Hundreds of people have asked how did we do it.

Courage, fueled by convictions and strengthened by developing a detailed plan.

Son, there may come a time in your life when you have to make a huge change. Don’t worry, you will be afraid. It will be scary. But remember, have mastery over the fear. That can be done through courage. Fuel your courage with strong convictions. Strengthen your courage with an all-out preparation for your D-day.

Son, if I forget to tell you, storm the beach, win your war.