Alan Clark - Fitted: The Christian Checklist

FITTED

The Christian Checklist

Put on the full armor of God

Ephesians 6:11

Alan Clark

Copyright 2015 Alan Clark.

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ISBN: 978-1-5127-0452-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-0454-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-0453-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015911643

WestBow Press rev. date: 07/24/2015

Contents

This book is dedicated to the four ladies who own my heart: Kim, Kristina, Anastasia, and Tasha. I couldnt imagine life without you.

I would like to thank my family, friends, and the people of Gateway Community Church for their support and love. Thanks to my readers (Kim, Leslie, Joanie, and Deb) who gave me great advice and to Jennifer Gingerich and Kim Clark for their awesome editing silks.

In the summer of 2010, I declared bankruptcy. I was not financially ruined, but I had nothing left in my emotional and spiritual banks. There were too many battlefields and I was not equipped to fight on more than one front at a time. As the pressures of family, work, and life converged, the perfect storm provided the perfect opportunity for my wife Kim and me to learn about the armor of God. We were in battles that were bigger than our abilities. The battles were also larger than the physical struggles we were engaged in. The battles were for our faith. We were fighting doubt and unholy attitudes. We were fighting internal battles. The spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms took advantage of our weaknesses during this time.

In May of 2010, we received a call from God. It was the call to adopt three little girlssistersfrom Siberia, Russia. We had been married for 24 years and spent the last year saving for our twenty-fifth anniversary celebration. We had quite a pot of money because we had two great jobs, only a mortgage for debt, and we did not have any children. We learned early in our marriage that we could not conceive. For years, we mourned the fact that we would never have a big family and we would never have babies. As we moved into our thirties and forties, we adjusted to life without children. I was able throw myself into ministry without the guilt of leaving my kids at night. Kim was able to produce musical productions on a grand scale, which culminated in her conducting a concert in Carnegie Hall. We traveled to Europe with teenagers every other year and led quite a charmed life. We even had the band picked out for our twenty-fifth anniversary party, and we were looking forward to jamming with our friends with the sounds of Chicago and the Commodores in the background.

We no longer had the itch to be parents, when God reminded us of a promise He made to Kim when she was a young bride. Years later, as she sat in a worship service listening to a missionary speaker from Siberia, Kim saw a picture of a little girl in an orphanage, and God told Kim that this was her daughter. Later we found out that this little girl had two sisters in the orphanage. God opened my wifes eyes to see that these were our daughters. She did not share this with me for a couple of days, but started having long conversations with God and spending long nights on the Internet researching Russian adoptions. Our comfortable life was about to be turned upside down.

By the time Kim shared the plan with me, she had worked out most of the details. She laid out pictures of three beautiful young girls, ages six, eight, and ten. This is kind of the way she talked me into the whole marriage thing, so I was willing to listen. She explained the process of Russian adoption, the costs of international travel, and the fact that these were our children. We could either adopt them or move to Siberia to raise them. We went on a weekend trip to Austin, Texas, to consider our options and to pray. Everything pointed to yes. We even went to see a childrens movie to get a feel for being parents. Despicable Me was playing. The movie was about a man who adopted three little girls. I saw myself as Gru when he fell in love with his children. As I watched the movie and talked to Kim over that weekend, I was quickly falling in love with the idea of being a dad. By the end of our vacation in Texas, we had said yes to Gods calling.

In the middle of the excitement of being expectant parents, my mom became sick and was diagnosed with colon cancer. We had recently lost Kims mom to cancer and the reports on my mom were looking grim. Russian adoptions also took a turn for the worse during the summer of 2010. A number of abuse cases involving Russian children accompanied by the story of a mom who sent her adopted son unaccompanied on a plane back to Russia, put a tremendous strain on Russian/American relationships. Kim spent the summer researching Russian adoptions and trying to find an agency that would take our case. Every door was closed and no one wanted to get involved. Adoption agencies did not have the resources to reach into the far depths of Siberia where our children were living. They were not willing to risk their reputations on an adoption like this onetoo big, too far, and too expensive.

Epic Fail

The perfect storm happened in August. We received a call from my parents to meet them at the doctors office. My moms doctor had some news and felt that the family needed to be there. On my way to the doctors office, I received a phone call from our last hope. An agency that had some influence in Siberia called to let me know that there was no way they could do this adoption. They offered to send pictures of other Russian children who were adoptable in other cities. After that phone call, I walked into an office and listened as a doctor explained the options of fighting colon cancer. My mom sat bravely and listened to the prognosis. Meanwhile, I was fighting two battles at the same time. We had lost our babies and this one phone call had opened up wounds that had been closed since I was 30 years old. I was also losing my mom. I was not equipped to fight these two battles at the same time. I did not have the emotional or spiritual depth needed to carry on and continue to pastor other people with deep spiritual and emotional needs. I was bankrupt.