Prequel: archived guest post #1
The Pastor Chronicles continues…don’t worry, I’ll write my two cents after I’ve posted all the chapters. Because like he wrote…he’s far from harmless.
Chapter 2
How do you deal with something like that? It wasn’t just that she rejected me, but I had pictured my entire future with her. Now all of a sudden everything seemed so cloudy. On top of that, I still had a full load of work to do at the church. I knew I was in no condition to do anything let alone run a church. We had our big seasonal event the next day, our winter retreat. So somehow I mustered the strength to keep the program going. But in between sessions in during the free times, I went to my room and slept. I informed others of my current condition, and luckily they were quite understanding.
Somehow I saw my way through the whole week, but I was still a mess. I was on the verge of breaking down at any moment. I had never reached a point like this in my life. My dating history was brief. Not counting high school (because nothing that you do in high school should ever count against you), I have had 3 girlfriends in my life. My first real girlfriend was my freshman year in college. We spent 3 straight weeks with each other, before class, after class, studying, hanging out; we were everywhere together. But as the story goes on, we of course hit our tough times, and on Valentine’s day my freshman year, we broke up. After that I was shocked at the way I had handled my relationship with her. I had abandoned everything and made her my highest priority. I decided that I was not ready to pursue another relationship indefinitely. Many offers came my way, but I never thought anything of them.
My senior year in college, I started out my first ministry position. Of course the issue of marriage is huge in every pastor’s mind, and my mind was no different. However at 21 years of age, I figured I had plenty of time to figure that out. I was just a young youth pastor; I needed to focus on God and my work and all the other things would work out in the end. 6 years passed by quickly and there was nothing. Finally, I was set up through a friend to this pretty pharmacist. Ah pharmacy, an ideal job for a pastor’s wife, flexible hours and good pay. Once again, we started off fast. But a number of differences affected the direction we were going. She was not enthused to meet my siblings when they came to town. She refused to tell me what her parents did because it was personal. She refused to allow me to pick her up from her house because of past “bad” experiences with guys. (side note, does every LA girl have “bad” experiences with guys. It seems like every girl I meet here has a story). Soon the differences in culture and worldview made it unbearable, and we broke up on, you guessed it, valentine’s day, exactly 7 years after my break up with my first real girlfriend.
I feel like I get back on the horse really quickly, and the manner in which I do so is in many ways, a little questionable, especially for a pastor. I get an urge to flirt with every attractive girl that I see. That’s exactly what happened when I talked to Ana for the first time. And this is where our story really begins. Boy meets girl. We met online. It’s funny cause initially I was talking to her about my ex. When we first started talking, I hadn’t completely broken up with her. Sure, the writing was on the wall, but it was not official. It was only not official because my ex avoided my calls and avoided me for about a week.
During that week I started talking to Ana. I sought her advice, what to do with my relationship. A few harmless texts back and forth, and then came the big step. Then I asked her if I could call her. She replied and asked me for my phone number. She soon called my cell with a blocked caller ID. Soon in our conversation, I started to sense a connection and started to develop feelings for her. I also sensed that she felt similarly to me. I made my feelings to clear to her. She was unsure about this especially since, I was still not officially broken up with my previous girlfriend. She turned down my advances numerous times. I had to do much work and labor to convince her that I wanted to be with her. Finally, my ex took my phone call and we were officially broken up. Yeah, the timing was messed up. How can you control when you meet for someone and when you fall for them? This is something that hung over our heads throughout the beginning of our blossoming relationship. Later she told me that the only reason why she gave me the time of day was because she knew that I was a pastor, and since I was a pastor, therefore, completely harmless. Unfortunately, that was about as far from the truth as she would soon learn.
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