The following is a great comment from blog reader Jeff Dahl:
Dear Friends,
I am writing from a heart that has been transformed from twenty years of bitterness that I have finally shed towards Frank Damazio and at some great cost indeed.
My name is Jeff Dahl and I used to attend PBC back in 1981-82. Recently my wife of 20 years has divorced me and my life has been turned on it's head. After now being separated 9.5 months and divorced 4.5, I came to the realization that my bitterness towards Pastor Frank, (who married us) was a key element in the destruction of my marriage.
I know i am off topic here and apologize for that, yet I must share my story one way or the other. Compared to the offendedness I felt towards Frank, it became a literal drop in the bucket compared to my new separated status. I contacted pastor Frank and I called him and asked him to forgive me for harboring such ill will towards him for decades. God enabled me to forgive him and I truly have been set free from this cancerous condition I was in and didn't even realize it. I thought justified in my anger and protective to the others I felt he hurt. I felt it was godly anger and justifyable. How wrong was I. My life has disintegrated and I can now see that what I modelled was later modelled towards me directly. I had reaped the fruit of my unforgiveness.
I want everyone to know that I am sorry for being resentful and God has set my heart free. Like Ebenezer Scrooge was set free. I am now trying to extend forgiveness to a far more severe situation with my wife, or ex wife now actually. We have four kids from 5 to 18 and i would ask all of you who believe in the power of prayer and the blood of Christ that is sufficient for all things, to pray in faith and believe that somehow, someway that this stinking,decaying Lazarus situation can be restored.
I invite anyone to write to me @ jeff@tahtinen.org and feel free to forward this to anyone. I want to spread the message of MY FORGIVENESS experience. I have been stuck for so long. Many of us that god makes sensitive and creative fall into this pit, this clay, this manure. Lord Jesus cleanse each and every one of us that have ever been hurt and grace us with the ability to do as you do and lay your life down for us while we are yet in sin (and loving every minute of it). May you further your kingdom and let your power and glory be evident in your temple…..US!
Sincerely to all believers,
Jeff Dahl
Thank you Jeff for your honesty and openness. Bitterness is a real killer and we must always be on guard to watch that our hearts do not become consumed by it.
Dear Jeff,
May God bless as you shed your bitterness towards this person. I know a lot of people like to rage against what they believe to be lies but one must offer truth in its place. Thank you for offering some truth in a world that only wants to complain and rage against what they don’t understand.
I will pray for you and believe that God will restore your marriage.
I also have faith for restoration for you and your family. You have bared your soul before the Lord and confessed before your brothers. God honors those who humble themselves. It may take time, but He is more than able to return to you everything that the enemy of your soul has devoured.
Jeff,
Thanks for your openness and honesty! Thank you for sharing some of your life with us here and using your real name to do so. I have posted an article on the blog as a response to you. I hope you don’t mind, but I feel that your comments raised some pertinent points of interest to all of us.
I’m so sorry to hear of your break-up. I know from my own experience some of the suffering that you are experiencing. What can one really say at a time like this in your life? So much would probably sound just trite and full of clichés.
What really helped me when I was going through times like this was finding some mature Christian friends who had also been through divorces; they helped me to walk through it. If you don’t mind me saying this, the fact that you posted your email address on the web probably tells me that you need contact with others who will empathize with you in your pain and believe with you for God to restore your marriage. Keep reaching out and you will find just the ones to help you walk through this tragic time in your life.
Every Christian goes through times of special neediness and professional Christian therapists can also be of great help. God’s love and healing to you, my friend!
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Your acknowledgement of my situation is a blessing to me. Truly God is on the throne and is in charge. May we all stop playing church and focus on the one who is high above all, Jesus and as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness that all would be saved let us lift Jesus up to a lost and dying world and focus on the real problem. I desire to be used by God and by starting to address my sin of unforgiveness to many I am free. Set free to worship. My dad, Stuart Dahl used to say to me, ” Son, you can either get bitter, or better” as for me I want to become better. Anyone who walks this planet, saved or unsaved is made in the image of God and is a canditate for God’s purposes and my friendship. Jeff Dahl
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Thankyou for your faith. If the same spirit that raised Christ from the dead dwell in you, he shall quicken your mortal bodies. I truly do believe it is the possible/impossibility yet I cannot control her of course and HAVE TO entrust this entire situation to the Lord. I grieve the loss of my marriage and family and hope my story of forgiveness can cause others to see that they need to stop their bitter root from spreading to others including their loved ones. MFI is not the enemy, Satan is !!!!! My ex wife is not the enemy, Satan is !!! Frank is not the enemy, Satan is. God bless all of them and help us all to see a little bit better thru this glass we glimpse thru oh so dimly. Let us focus on the author and the finisher of our faith, him who sits upon the circle of the earth yet cares about every sparrow that falls to the ground. One note of praise to mention too is that Wendell and Gini Smith have been wonderful to my sister, Shelley and Steve Kaylor in Japan and have been a huge blessing to them over the years. I have nothing but thanks and praise for how god has used them to strenghten and help my relatives. The youth ministry in Seattle (yes, Judah Smith) has helped my neice come out of rebellion and re find her maker. Hallelujah! I am grateful for all God is doing.
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Dear David,
You have always been a good friend and former instructor as well. I appreciated what you said about your inbalance of expectation due to the fact that your own upbringing fostered that need for validation.
I haven’t been in touch with you for you for years and would welcome a call. My cell number is 541 510 7338. God has given me a boldness during this time of my life and I felt compelled to tell my story hopefully for the glory of God this time. I have been a self seeking, name dropper over the years and wanting some of the glory for myself as I have been overshadowed myself by a very gifted father who was a pastor,musician,missionary and two older brothers, Roger and Steve.
My sister heads up the music @ Eugene Christian Fellowship in Eugene, namely Lori Harpham. The spirit of my father who passed at age 51 in the Philippines, still lives on in that church thru my sister who is also a gifted pianist. Her husband is the church administrator, Mark. My other sister is a missionary in Tokyo, Japan with her husband. Our family was a big part of the pilot team that helped start Eugene Christian Fellowship. For years my dad or my sis would play piano, my brother would play drums, other brother on bass guitar and i’d play trumpet or guitar. Those early years were rich in worship and God moved powerfully. I really appreciated that time.
My mention of my siblings is to point out that my family has benefitted directly from the ministry of Dick Iverson and Frank Damazio. I still remember the old “theatre days” on Glisan st. Powerful services in that place and we’d drive from Eugene just to see what God was doing. I grew up in youth camp and benefited from Wendell and Gini’s FUN youth camps and Mike Herron did the music even.
I have been immersed in the wonderful ministries of the Bible Temple fruit. Thankyou to all of those wonderful people who blessed my life. I learned to waterski behind Neil Iversons Glastron with a 40 hp outboard. Camp Davidson, and Mayfield Lake, wonderful and powerful camps. I memorized the twenty kings of Judah there and will never forget the wonderful worship and the “snooper” reports from Wendell who was a total crack up and made camp fun. Thanks Wendell.
I am a worshipper of the most high God and I plan to make a music CD in the future to express what is inside of me. I have born and bred to worship and to lead others into more of that. Like I said before, many of us that God has made creative and sensitive and musical tend to get offended and hurt more easily than others. SO BE CAREFUL!!!
I grew up seeing my dad playing piano in our old church Santa Clara Assembly of God (pastored by Judson Cornwall) and he would have tears of praise flowing down his face and modelled for us Dahl kids what it was to praise and worship. My mom too, especially, is a holy spirit junkie. She cannot get enough of God. She will fly anywhere, buy zillions of tapes and cd’s, drive, walk to touch the hem of our Lord’s garment. Her name is Betty Dewhirst and she is now helping with the prayer lines for the Jim Bakker tv show. I have felt myself as very disqualified to ever do much for the Lord but all my life she has told me over and over and over and over that God has a special plan for my life. I recognize her as a prophetess of God even though she is my mother. She also received a word about the church in Eugene and actually was the one to invite Frank and Sharon to come to Eugene in the first place. He had thought of two other places, and said he had thought about a university town and hadn’t really considered Eugene yet.
She has spoken words over me that I have seen come to pass. Twenty five years before I had an autistic child my mom said to me that ” The Lord will lead you down a painful path, but someday you will see it will be for a reason.”
My daughter Melissa has taught our entire family about what it is to be patient and I for one have cleaned BM off the walls of her room four times that she decided to use as the fingerpainting medium. For the first three years she was alive I felt cursed, but now without a doubt, she is my favorite. I have told many that my other kids are Chocolate, Strawberry, and Vanilla and Melissa is Spumoni.
God has created her in such a way that causes me to see a slice of heaven as she could care less what others think, is very tender and creative and utterly beautiful inside and out. She has always told us to stop singing continuously but the other day I heard her for the first time begin to sing and the sound was that of a heavenly hum, unclouded by the junk of this world. My spirit lept. Oh that men would praise the Lord, glory hallelujah, praise the Lord.
It is God that sits upon the circle of the earth, it is he that is the one who is worthy to open the book, it is he who loves us and adopts us into his family, it is he who IS wisdom and the dispenser of life when we feel this life is insanely hard and makes little sense both naturally and spiritually.
Thankyou to so many of you for your encouraging words to me.
God bless you as you discover him.
Jeff Dahl
Jeff – 1, Thanks for giving me your cell number as well as your email address; I will try either to email you or call you sometime.
Jeff-2, I rejoice with you in your new found freedom. I am sure that many people will be blessed as well as challenged by what Jesus has done in your heart.
I want to suggest at the same time that I believe that God wants to remove from your heart your feelings of being “disqualified” (as you said) from his purposes – probably because of the way that you might compare yourself to your very godly family and even your two older brothers.
The Lord wants to make us congruent and unique. By congruent, I mean that he gives us the grace to put all of the areas of our lives together as a whole, secure package – everything in our life works together to do the Father’s will.
By unique I mean that each individual is going to be different from everyone else. I want to encourage you to allow the Holy Spirit – during this time of breaking down and stripping away – to expose/reveal as well as to bring together the various parts of yourself and make you congruent – even a new person out of it all.
I want to encourage you to increase your awareness of how different you are from your family and older brothers – not in a bad way but in a good way. I found in my own life that as the local church environment saw the anointing on my life and tried to squeeze me into its narrow, local church centered mold, I did not totally fit, and so they did not know what to do except to ask me to leave the system that they were building. You are unique and different than your parents and your brothers. Discover and embrace your uniqueness; and as you do, you will come into a new sense of wholeness and healthy self-confidence, less dependent on the approval, definition or appreciation of others.
If you will allow me to say this for what it’s worth:
Wives want their husbands to know and find who they really are. They don’t like them trying to be someone else – to be emotionally tethered to someone else and not know who God has made them or where God is taking them. When a man is not comfortable “in his own skin” – as it were – it makes his wife feel insecure. Why is this? In my view, when two people are truly themselves in marriage, and can learn to be emotionally close in this way, both partners (esp. wives?) experience a depth of intimacy that nothing else can provide.
Jeff! I hope you’ll get this very tardy message. I’m so sorry to hear of your travails. I too was divorced, and that and subsequent events were the drivers for me to leave BT. Not the forum to go into all that, but only to say that my heart hurts for you.
I remember you fondly, and a joy to hear you mention Sean T, the Kaylors (Joyce was a great friend whom I tormented unmercifully!) and the Harphams.
You are in my prayers!
Your Friend in the Faith,
Dave Mundt
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Dave,
It has been soooo long. Thanks for your kind words and sorry for the pain of your divorce as well. Just have a mental picture of what you “used” to look like. Ions ago. 1981 actually. Why does that sound like 1881?
Anyhow may God bless and keep you and help others come to the realization that its not biblical to look down our noses at the dis avowed divorced of the body of Christ (like I used to) and secondly to forgive those as Jesus modelled for us.
He prepares a table for me in the presence of mine enemies, he anointeth my head with oil, my cup runneth over, surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Amen.
Just gotta believe that each day and may God richly bless all the poor victims of divorce, our kids. This has been a long 14 months so far since my separation April of 07. It is NOT easy, but God is good, just slow.
Much love to you,
Jeff Dahl
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Thankyou for your consideration. This would truly be like the red sea parting if it were to happen.
Jeff
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Kicking against the pricks is what I could hear my folks say.
At some point if the walls need rebuilding, then we better just do that. (Paraphrase from Nehemiah) Ha.
I wanted to forgive Pastor Frank and tried to for so long. Since I have figured that out (the hard way) I have also forgiven a friend in Medford that we had a nine year offense with. We were like Jacob and Esau and since then we have comforted and strengthened eachother. Truly a miracle and a gift when reconciliation happens, I call it forgiveness times two. Its the best.
Sincerely,
Jeff Dahl
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You know one thing that i have discovered in Job is that the “curse God and die” wife was the same wife after Job had his blessing. If I am wrong about this I welcome correction. Too often another wife is part of the blessing, but not so in the case with Job.
I do appreciate the strength and encouragement I have received from my fellow christians regarding this leprous situation (divorce).
It is the lonliest road I have discovered so far.
Jeff Dahl
Dear Jeff,
I appreciate your insightful comments. I was searching the web for information about your grandfather Reuben Dahl when I ran across your blog. Reuben’s sister Freda was my grandmother. The search was inspired by a phone conversation tonite with my youngest son Charles about the origins of the Swedish Covenant and Evangelical Free churches. Charles was named after our great grandfather Charles G. Dahl. My mom lived at her grandfather’s farm near Willmar for her first ten years along with her aunt Emma. Freda had died shortly after childbirth.
What struck me forcefully as I read your deep spiritual comments, full of passion, transparency, and a deep abiding love for Jesus was the promise that He is faithful from generation to generation. I have been reading some of the old letters from Reuben to Freda, from Reuben to Adla, Reuben to Emma, C.G. Dahl to Freda etc. that I found in my parents attic. Part of each letter describes the passionate faith in Christ that guided the lives of our ancestors and continues to influence those of us in succeeding generations. My Charles, like your dad, is a worship leader, pianist, singer, and song writer. I even found a tape of your dad playing the piano in the old farmhouse where I grew up near Princeton, Minnesota.
In one of the letters(dated 1920) from my grandfather Harry (Freda’s husband) to the Dahls in Kerkoven he shares about the loneliness and pain of having been separated from his wife by death at age 28.
Although there is no way for me to know your pain, Jeff, it is such a comfort to know that the faith of our ancestors has not returned void. In you and me and all the others of the Dahl seed who have placed all of our trust and faith in our wonderful Lord and Savior, the thread goes on. God bless you my cousin.
Denny Thompsom
Denny,
I was in tears upon reading your letter and feel so blessed by it. Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou. Knowing where some of the other Dahl heritage is blesses me. I have a picture at my shop of Great Grandpa Charles and Rosalie and the seven kids. It makes me to feel as though I come from good stock. Strong people who never shyed away from working hard and loving God. I wish to speak to you more and my email directly is jeff (at) tahtinen.org or jeffrey1963 (ag) gmail.com So nice to hear from you and many blessings upon you this holiday (holy day) season.
I would love to share with you and learn more about our family heritage. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Amen.
Jeff Dahl
Ps- Was the ancient swedish surname Johnson? Where in Sweden did we come from and are there others still there to go see??? Dying to know that.
Catalyst, At first I thought you were writing a sarcastic response (which was hilarious)…but then I realized it was really Jeff and not you.
Would have been funny to hear you had been moved to tears though.
Ha, ha…Pope I thought the same thing! I was like WOW Cat has gotten really cynical…ha ha ha. I find it really funny I was not the only one.
Don’t mean to be too pompous or critical; I have a sarcastic side that surfaces from time to time too but what would be hilarious about responding sarcastically to the pain of a baby girl losing her mother at two weeks of age and a husband losing his wife to the 1920 flu at 28 years of age? My mother was the baby girl. She was taken in, loved, raised, and sacrificed for by a loving single Aunt. That demonstrated love of Jesus that continued on in the life of my mom has canceled out any failings of the organized church that I have encountered over the years.
PS Jeff – Thanks for your moving reply. I’ll send you a family tree and some other info via your private email[Comment ID #35982 Will Be Quoted Here]
Denny, there is nothing hilarious about it…unless of course you are a completely insensitive a-hole who has spent the last few years running this blog solely so that you can laugh at anything and everything.
I’ll admit, I was laughing at the fact that Catalyst could be so insensitive…which it turns out he wasn’t…but maybe I am.
Who knows.
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Reformed Pope – Sorry for being too serious! Yesterday was my first exposure to this site and I didn’t have time to get a sense of it’s flavor. I guess we rednecks in the north woods are just slow to understand your double entendres. I’ve got to go put some more wood in the fireplace before the carbon monoxide gets too low. Thanks for an honest, refreshing site. Really. Denny
Due to the way some people receive comments from this blog, Jeff responded to Denny’s comment via email, since that was how he read the comment. Unfortunately, when people do this the only person who gets the comment is me. 99% of the time, I just delete the comment/email. But I thought since Jeff was trying to get in touch Denny, I would just post the comment under my own name. So they could just email eachother.
That said, it is funny to think of me writing a comment that starts with the phrase “I was in tears upon reading your letter and feel so blessed by it.” I am definitely going to use that in the future. “It’s gold, Jerry, gold.”