神沒有浪費那些年

我想先說我自己。Let me start with myself.

我有時候會看著自己走過的彎路、難走的路，心裡想：這些是不是都白費了？Sometimes I look at the detours and the hard roads I've walked and wonder: was any of it wasted?

這支影片，是 Jim Erickson——差派我的牧者——翻出一封很舊的郵件，我們的故事就是從那裡開始的。This video is Jim Erickson—the pastor who sent me out—pulling out a very old email; that's where our story began.

那是 2012 年，我寫給一位教過我的牧者（Andy Stanley）的信。Jim 把它印了出來，唸給我聽。It was 2012, a letter I had written to a pastor who taught me—Andy Stanley. Jim printed it out and read it back to me.

我自己都不記得寫過，但信裡有兩句，今天聽見還是會臉紅、也會被觸動：I didn't even remember writing it, but two lines still make me blush—and still move me—to hear:

「我在做一件美好的事，不能下來。」"I am doing something good and won't come down."

「我也是耶穌的泰迪熊。我們就是這麼親近。」"I am also Jesus' teddy bear. That is how close we are."

那封文法不通的信，輾轉到了 Jim 手上，他回信邀我去坐下來、講我的故事。我們就這樣遇見了。That broken-English letter found its way to Jim, and he wrote back, inviting me to come sit down and tell my story. That is how we met.

然後 Jim 做了一件我一直很好奇的事——他講了他自己的故事。Then Jim did something I had always been curious about—he told me his own story.

我一直想知道：他怎麼會這麼會看人？他怎麼知道該怎麼陪我走？I had always wanted to know: how did he come to read people so well? How did he know how to walk with me?

他說，他從小在教會長大，十歲信了主，可是他有過三次很難的教會經歷——有時是被請離開，有時是怎麼都做不順。He says he grew up in church and gave his life to the Lord at ten, but he had three hard church seasons—sometimes asked to leave, sometimes nothing would work.

接著是一段我沒想到的路：他離開教會，去油田做工；後來做起壁紙生意，一做就是十八年。Then came a stretch I never expected: he left the church and worked an oil field; later he ran a wallpaper business—for eighteen years.

他說：「神用了我生命裡那段時間。」He says: "God used that time in my life."

他甚至在貼壁紙的時候，和一群人一起做工，後來其中一個人去讀了神學院、成了牧者。Even in those wallpaper years he worked alongside a group of people—and one of them later went to seminary and became a pastor.

他被請離開過、失業過、害怕過養不起五個孩子。然後神用一連串他自己都解釋不來的事，把他帶回到服事裡。He had been let go, been out of work, been afraid he could not provide for five children. Then God, through a chain of things he still can't quite explain, brought him back into ministry.

他說起其中一段，像在講一個只有神寫得出來的劇本：兩個人的班機都被取消，被排到同一架飛機、剛好坐在一起；就在那段機上的對話裡，我的牧者被推薦進了那份後來改變我一生的工作。He told one piece of it like a script only God could write: two men's flights were both canceled, they were put on the same plane and happened to sit side by side; and in that conversation in the air, my pastor was recommended into the very job that would later change my life.

他最後說的那句，我抄了下來：The line he ended on, I wrote down:

「我覺得，我受過的傷、做過的那些『世俗』工作，全都拼在一起，成了我後來在事工裡做的事。我能看出一個人在哪裡、需要什麼——那是從我走過的那些經歷裡，長出來的。」"I feel like my experience of being hurt, and the secular work I did, all of it fit together for what I ended up doing in ministry. Being able to discern where a person is and what they need—that grew out of the experiences I'd had."

我讀到「長出來的」這三個字，停了很久。I stopped a long time on the words "grew out of."

原來那些他以為走偏了的年日，神一天都沒有浪費。油田、壁紙、被請離開的痛——後來都成了他看見我的那雙眼睛。So those years he thought had gone off-track—God wasted not one day of them. The oil field, the wallpaper, the ache of being asked to leave—they all became the eyes with which he later saw me.

這就是 me 到 us 到 WE：神先在一個人身上動了很深、很慢的工，再讓他成為看見我、保護我、把我交到下一站的人。This is me to us to WE: God first did a deep, slow work in one man, then made him the one who could see me, protect me, and hand me on to the next stop.

我走過的那些彎路，大概也不是白走的。The detours I've walked are probably not wasted either.