Chiseled: By the Master's Hand

By W.P. Matisko

Many people struggle with their own mental health while providing for the needs of others on a daily basis. Follow W.P. Matisko through his spiritual journey as he reflects and provides insights into the experiences that God used to shape him and mold him into the man that he is today. Matisko builds upon "Chiseled" by providing a support network via "The Chiseled Podcast" for pastors and caregivers to interact and grow with each other. The Chiseled path is one that provides advocacy for the self-care of those who regularly pour out their lives for others.

• Language: English
• Publisher: W.P. Matisko
• Release date: Dec 18, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005895457

W.P. Matisko

W.P. Matisko is a former pastor and has a heart for encouraging and teaching current pastors to avoid the stumbling blocks in the road that often tear away at the mental health and well-being of those who have given their lives to serving others.

Book preview

Chiseled

By the Master’s Hand

By. W. P. Matisko

Table of Contents

Unplanned Shaping

With Chisel in Hand

Shaping the Future

Deep Cuts Surface

Crumbling

A New Design

A New Creation

Making Sense of it All

An Excruciating Blow

Primary Chiselers

Foreword

It’s getting late as you sit alone on a Saturday night. Oh, it is isn’t that no one is around, necessarily. It’s just that you are wrapped up in your own thoughts and feelings in that moment. The anticipation, and dread, of the approaching day creates a sinking feeling deep within. Tomorrow is game on. The rush of performing mixes with the pressure that consumes you. It is essential that you play the role, put on the smile, act like everything is alright. The turmoil inside will make it hard to sleep, but sleep is necessary to be fresh when the time comes to preach. No one knows the struggle. They think you have your act together. Oh, if they knew. But how could they know? You don’t even know – it is difficult to sort out the truth for yourself. You pray, but answers – and God – seem to be distant.

The pressure and demands are unending. Everyone looks to you for direction, for Truth, for understanding. But something isn’t right. There’s building the church and maintaining that growth; the image you have created; the identity that thrives within you; the requirements that necessitate you working more and more hours. You have bought into the social media life – presenting a face that looks for likes and shares and comments. It’s all superficial. It’s all to impress. It’s all so unfulfilling. Where did you go wrong? How can you withstand the struggle? Juggling so many balls at the same time means you are going to drop them at some time. Then, what? People will be surprised – disappointed – then someone will move in and take your place; and people will wonder what happened to you. All the while, they are living similar lives, and putting on the same smiles, and living for the same applause. We have built that culture where it is impossible to be real, to be honest, to be vulnerable. But,

How many tears have to be shed;

How many prayers have to be said;

How many lies have to be fed;

How much blood has to be bled;

Before we face what’s in our head?

What you are about to read is a true story. It is about a man that went through something similar to what you are. It tells of his journey, how God used that to chisel him into the man he became – and is becoming. It shares some of what God used to reach him and start that process. Names have been changed to protect real people.

As you read the book, understand others have gone before you. It doesn’t have to be the way you are experiencing it. There is hope; there is an answer. It requires honesty, vulnerability, openness – between you and God. Healing, wholeness, and a transformed life are available. You may feel alone where you are right now. You can be assured, though, God is consistently, persistently, relentlessly pursuing you. He wants an intimate relationship with you. He knows how to speak your language. He knows everything there is about you. He knows where you are and what you are facing. He has been going through it with you. What is God saying to you right this minute? What is He saying to you as you read the book? Listen, and you will hear His voice.

Introduction

In the late 1990’s, I had a vivid dream of a place I called The Morgan Center. It was a consulting business that was thoroughly thought through and designed with a distinctive result in mind. I shared my dream with others and they later told me they could see it in their mind’s eye, too. It was a living, breathing entity that never took place.

In this vision, I saw the first day of our Orientation for new employees. At a preplanned time, the leader was to stand before the new hires with a slab of marble at one side and ask the question, Does anyone know what this is? Of course, it wouldn’t take long before someone gave the obvious answer. The presenter then was to ask, What do you think it represents? The expectation was that no one would successfully guess that. The explanation was to follow.

"This slab of marble represents you when you were born. Before long, people in your life began chiseling on you, helping to shape you into the person you were to become. Your parents, your siblings, your relatives, people at your religious gatherings, teachers, students, and more chiseled on you, giving shape to that unique individual you were to be. Some strokes cut deep while others may just made a mark. At some point in life, you were handed a chisel to contribute to the effort. Now, I realize some people just lie down and give their chisel to someone else and become victims, but most people are active in the chiseling that takes place on them.

You should realize that we are looking forward to you being here and that we intend to chisel on you, too. In fact, it is nearly impossible to have contact with anyone without them chiseling on you in one fashion or another, even if it is a brief encounter or if the chiseling is of little effect.

Some additional instruction was to be given, then the participants were to be asked to take about 15 minutes to write out what they wanted to look like by the time they came to the end of their life. It was never expected they would finish recording their answer within the fifteen minutes. It was an exercise that would get them started on the project and to start our part of chiseling on them. The intent was to impact their thinking at a level that would propel them in a direction that would serve them in life rather than them just existing and surviving until they came to an end haphazardly.

This book, in a sense, is the opposite of that. At this writing, I am 70 years old. This is a look back over the trail I have traveled and explores the people who have chiseled on me to shape me into the person I am – for better or for worse. I am writing this book in attempt to get real. This requires me to be honest, vulnerable, and true to the facts. Those who know me may be shocked at some of what they read here. Some may be disappointed. That is okay with me. At seventy, it does not really matter a whole lot. If God is going to use this, I owe it to Him and to the person picking up a copy to tell it as it was and is. This is not pretty at times, but life is not. I trust you will bear with me as I retell my story in part over the following pages. This is not meant to expose other people for wrongdoing. It is not written to shame or to blame. It is meant to explain what went into the making of Warren Paul Matisko.

Unplanned Shaping

I was born in Gallipolis, Ohio on April 15, 1950. Awaiting my arrival was an older sister who already had two years on me. My parents were excited to meet their new arrival and the new dimension the family was about to take. The added expense to a family facing financial stress was a small price to pay to get the expected joy they would have in growing their family.

My dad was especially proud when I made my way into the world. He had a son to carry on the family name and to preserve our legacy. He anticipated the days ahead, but that did not last long.

I was a sickly child. Several issues contributed to my struggles, including asthma and chronic ear infections. To be able to sleep, my crib had to be propped up at an angle and I had to be laid on my belly. One result of my problems was that I cried a lot. This was not what my dad expected. He withdrew from me. The general perspective that men had back then of the man’s role in the family was compounded by the constant cries from his son. He wanted little or nothing to do with me. I was a disappointment. He communicated that rejection in every way possible, even to the point I was convinced I was adopted.

The spirit of the Matisko lot (the branch from which I come) is one of negativism and criticism. Finding fault is a skill that is honed and developed over time. It is so much easier to tear someone down than build them up. It does not take much effort to discover what someone does that falls short of our expectations. Of course, being fickle as we are as human beings means that we create a moving target no one can hit, which translates into never being accepted.

I was the recipient of this criticism from my earliest days. I was, also, a witness to the attacks on others, especially on my mother, regularly. The blows from that chisel cut deep and still affects me as a person today. The powerful influence of the constant hammering to cut me down to size has impacted every area of my life. It interferes with my relationship with others, especially with my parents. What is particularly troubling is the fact that it impacted my perspective of God…I saw Him in the same light as my dad. He was just as harsh, just as demanding, just as critical as my dad. I was destined to fail somewhere along the line.

Others participated in the shaping of the negative image I had of myself in my early years. Mom tended to give me contradicting messages. On the one hand she told me how smart I was. On the other, she said things like, You don’t have enough sense to come in out of the rain, or You don’t have enough sense to pour pee out of a boot. She helped me with homework, times that ended with her yelling at me and me ending up in tears. The pressure was intense anytime she told me we were going to do my homework as I anticipated the onslaught that was to come. My mind shut down as we covered the most basic things I knew but I was unable to recall them to repeat to her. I detested studying with her but knew of no way out. I was trapped to go through the barrage regularly.

On top of this trauma, I had an uncle who conveyed a similar message. He told me I would never amount to anything. He said that I was book-smart. He explained that, if something was in a book, I could grasp it, but if it wasn’t, I was as dumb as they come. A common theme from him was that I didn’t have a lick of sense.

The stress I was under revealed itself through stomach cramps. There were times when I was in so much pain that it doubled me over and I could not get comfortable. I lay on the couch in a fetal position to try to relieve the pain. Dad told Mom I was lying about my condition and just wanted to stay home from school. It is hard to believe he thought that as I loved school. Learning drew me like a magnet, and I wanted to soak in everything I could from day one. On top of that, it allowed me an escape from the tension at home. Many times, I walked to the bus stop in a stooped position trying to make the trip. One of the most difficult things I had to do was climb up the steps into the bus with the stabbing pain in my gut. It is amazing that, in the 12 years of school, I only missed one-and-a-half days.

Once I made it to school, I still wasn’t safe from the side effects from what I experienced at home. Normally, I was okay until lunchtime. Occasionally, while eating lunch, my stomach went wild and the food I had eaten found its way out and onto the floor. I could feel the oncoming tumult, but never made it to the bathroom safely. Usually, I never made it out of the cafeteria before I threw up everything I had enjoyed just moments before. Some poor janitor had to clean up my mess and I was taken to the nurse’s station to recuperate. It was a routine I despised.

Another way the rejection, fear, and stress were evidenced is the fact that I couldn’t get enough to eat. I devoured my lunch as a youngster and wanted more. While in first grade, I returned home daily and told my mom I was still hungry after eating my lunch. She made a bigger lunch the following day. I came home, again, and declared my impoverished state. The next day provided a bigger lunch. This continued until Mom packed a large grocery bag for me to carry. My dad ended the routine by telling Mom it had to stop and that I had to go on a diet. I am sure no one ever associated what I was exhibiting to the turmoil that confronted me on a continual basis.

Dad constantly suspected me of lying. It didn’t matter how big or small the subject was, I was guilty before any facts were known. It didn’t take long before I decided in my little heart that, if I was going to be accused of lying, I was going to start lying and see it I could outsmart the adults. I honed my skill learning from mistakes and revising my efforts. That caused a lot of problems for me, but I didn’t care at the time. It was evident that my dad didn’t like me, didn’t want anything to do with me, and that I didn’t stand a chance of measuring up in his eyes.

One message that came through his words and actions was I will love you if you do A, B, and C. I did A, B, and C to discover his response was, I meant you had to do D, F, G. I did D, F, G, only to have the target moved again. I finally gave up even trying. Why fight a losing battle?

I, also, believe the people that beat me up so much were just repeating what had been done and told to them as they grew up. It wasn’t that they were bad people. They had been chiseled on and they were just doing what they thought they should do. I understand a lot of it was reaction to the situation at the time, but life is not a vacuum. A history flowed into the moments of pain and rejection that affected me as they did. The same thing happening to another person might result in something totally different than I am. The shape of my being was a result, in part, of the slab of marble on which they were working.

With this being said, I don’t want to paint a totally negative picture of my youth. My older sister went to school, then came back and taught me what she had learned. I knew