A Personal Note From Dennis Diehl

First of all I would like to thank the many kind and supportive comments sent along by those who find my articles and insights with my own experience as a minister in WCG helpful.  I have to say it gives me a bit more sense of purpose in this life than just having to figure out what to do with the rest of my life now that the "wonder years" are long past.

I would like you all to know that writing is how I have processed my own experience as a man who really really wanted to be a part of the right church and teach the true Bible truth.  I had been accepted to a Methodist Seminary at the same time I was accepted at AC and obviously made the "wrong" choice.  I have no illusions about the fact that I believe that no matter where I had ended up learning someone's denominational truth,  I would have had just about the same kind of crisis there too.

It is not my purpose to anger to challenge anyone's beliefs.  Perhaps I just wish to open up our minds to the fact that there are bigger boxes to be looked in that when we first believed.  Having been a WCG pastor, I know how we were "trained" and it was not well.  You cannot understand origins and the history of the Bible by reading booklets written by in house wondermen or just by reading the text and commenting on what it seems to mean.  An educated Pastor has a formidable education in the right place and often cannot bring all he "knows" to a congregation being about 50 years ahead of their ability to  understand it.  It is why pastors who fall out of favor with the company line usually end up teaching it if they have the initial credentials to keep on.  In the WCG a minister did not and is why I now rub people the right way along with helping them with anything from headaches to injuries.  I always had a medical side to me.

I have made some rather large mistakes since having to move on from those days.  Actually I made some large ones during those days too.  I have had to wrestle with the anxiety of separation from everything familiar and I caused it in some cases.  My tone in some writings is a bit cheeky because it is my anger turned sideways which seems to be the definition of sarcasm.  As a pastor in WCG one never expressed anger or that was it for you.  I also grew up where "we don't say that," was a mantra to be obeyed.  Thus one ends up a bit repressed an unable to express one's self when needed for good mental health.

I have had to find counselors through out this post WCG time and actually I had a few in the midst of it all.  It is the sign of a wise person who has a counselor in this nutso world so I don't apologize for it.  I am suspicious of having a "disorder" that briefly came up once in counseling as a possible explanation of feelings, thoughts and behaviors along the way that were  and still are annoying, but I spare you.  It's kinda like when I teach pathology for massage students.  After awhile, if not careful, one begins to feel they have all the symptoms of all those diseases!!!  So I'll do some homework on the disorder as it helps me but try not to buy into it too much.  I have to say, I do have most of the symptoms so it can be a bit of a relief to at least know I didn't invent it.

Thank you for your support.  I only wish to share so that we see the actions and reactions are normal for such life experiences as losing faith or at least having to move on to better perspectives.  Most do, some struggle and a few have been lost in the shuffle along the way.

Be kind to each other.  Be patient with yourself and remember...."How do we know the experience we are having is the experience we are supposed to be having? ........Because you are having it!"  .....or so they say.
Amen