Pain is Not His Nature

I was conversing with a friend of mine and it sparked a discussion between us that I have mulled over ever since.  There is a concept in most Christian circles that pain is something God uses to teach us something or to make us something greater than what we are.  The concepts of ‘growth requires stretching’ and ‘being tried by fire’ are sometimes applied in ways that I do not think are biblically sound.  So I started considering.

People have said to me, in so many words, “God has us go through terrible things so that someday we’ll be able to minister to other people who are suffering the same kind of pain.”  The other concept that has been widely promoted among Christian circles (Happily, no one has offered this sage advice to me….yet…) is the idea that tragedy and suffering are God’s way of ‘getting our attention’ so that we can address hidden sin in our life.  That is the very idea that one of Job’s so-called friends, Elihu, promoted in Chapter 36 of the book of Job:  “But by means of their suffering, [God] rescues those who suffer.  For He gets their attention through adversity.”  Job 36:15 (NLT) I’m afraid I may myself have said similar things trying to bring some reason, some justification or explanation as to why suffering is a part of the life of a believer.  But is this concept of God – that Elihu and many modern-day Christians support – a realistic portrayal of WHO He Is?  Now standing on the other side of the equation, I realize that kind of thinking is not only unhelpful – it is also untrue.  I cannot deny that God has already placed opportunities in my life to minister to people who are suffering the effects from similar tragedies as my own.  But the idea that God had a hand in my suffering is so contrary to His nature that I find it now utterly repulsive.

Some people may have a picture of God as a distant, cold, unyielding judge.  But my understanding of God the Father is in great part shaped by my earthly father.  My daddy did not teach my brother and I through pain.  I don’t think I can ever remember a time my father raised his hand to me.  He would have done anything in his power to keep us both from having any kind of hurt or pain.  If we were hurting, his heart ached for us.  I know he would have taken our place willingly a thousand times over to spare us any kind of hurt.  That’s just who he was.  But I do remember times when he showed me how things that hurt me were temporary and sometimes he even showed me how I could come out stronger on the other side of a painful period in my life.  But he would not be the cause of those things.  God did not want my father to die.  I believe there was a cacophony of cries in the spirit realm as the Host of Heaven…indeed, the Father Himself, pleaded with my Daddy’s sick and broken spirit man not to take his own life – not to snuff out the gift so graciously given.  The free will given to humanity was God’s greatest gamble.  Without it, we could not love Him truly.  With it, we could hurt Him most deeply.  Death is not meant to teach us anything.  It was never a part of His plan.  “When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned.”  Romans 5:12 (NLT)

So all that said, I come to this conclusion; rather than saying, “God has us go through terrible things…” I should instead say, “When we go through terrible things, God shows us how we can use our pain to help others.”  This is His goodness, His amazing compassion for us:  that He sees what is horrible and nightmarish in our life and slowly heals us from it.  And within that restoration, He allows us to be instruments of healing for others.  This concurs with the nature of my Abba Father and I take comfort in this.

What the Word tells me of God’s role in my grief is this:  I see in James 5:11 (NLT) that God honors ^“…those who endure under suffering. For instance, you know about Job, a man of great endurance. You can see how the Lord was kind to him at the end, for the Lord is full of tenderness and mercy.”    I know from the Psalms that God sees my “…trouble and grief; [and He considers] it to take it in hand.  The victim commits himself to [Him]; [He is] the helper of the fatherless….[The Lord hears] the desire of the afflicted; [He] encourages them, and [He] listens to their cry…”Psalm 10:14, 17 (NIV)  Perhaps what brings me the most solace is when He says, “…I know their sorrows…”  Exodus 3:7b (NKJV).

In Isaiah 35:10 (NLT) tells us that “Those who have been ransomed by the Lord will return.  They will enter Jerusalem singing, crowned with everlasting joy.  Sorrow and mourning will disappear, and they will be filled with joy and gladness.”  Revelation 21:4 (NLT) gives us a picture of heaven as a place that suffering has no place:  “He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.”

Perhaps in modern life I had become so consumed with the hear-and-now that I had lost sight of why I should long for that “Glorious Day” of His appearing.  Now I have renewed vision as to why I should not be satisfied “here below” as the old song writers put it.  God did not put me here in this place of sorrow, but He will bring me out of it.

I Am Not Okay

Some of you may begin to grow tired of these melancholy rants of mine.  I apologize for that.  But maybe someone else is going through grief too.  So maybe they just need to hear someone else say what they are feeling.  Last night one of the youth shared with David and I about a family member of theirs that had committed suicide.  I looked at that teenager and said, “It’s like a walking nightmare, isn’t it?”  His eyes locked with mine and he exhaled suddenly.  “That’s exactly what it’s like.”  No one really had been able to understand the place he was in – but I did.  I was there.  So maybe somewhere in the blogosphere someone needs to read something I have to say.  So I press on…

I was reading a blog at Rediscovering Church today and it was the title that really struck me:  “I am NOT OK.”  So I’ve purloined it for myself, because it utterly encapsulated the way I have been feeling for one month exactly as of today.

There is something about the inane question, “How are you doing?” that makes me want to go off every time someone asks it.  Don’t get me wrong.  I understand it is just a part of our culture to ask that question at every meeting.  I even understand that there are a fraction of you out there who actually care about my answer – the same small niche of people who actually mean it when they say “If there’s anything I can do to help, just let me know.”  But frankly, 75% or more of the people who as me that question really don’t want to hear the true answer.  It’s like it’s some kind of obligatory tagging of base they do with me.  I can see it in their eyes…Here, let’s check on Dacia and make sure she’s not losing it completely…she’s probably just fine, but I should ask anyway. They don’t want me to really answer with the gut wrenching anguish I keep firmly pressed in my diaphragm like a ball of acid.  Those folks receive the equally inane answer of, “I’m doing okay.”  And they press their lips together in a tight smile and nod their head in a business-like way, relieved I think that they did their duty, braved the cloud of my sorrow, and spoke to meI.  Most don’t notice that I didn’t say “I’m good” – the pat answer to “How are you?” no matter where you are or even what language you speak.  I didn’t even say “I’m fine” (unless I’m at the drive-through, and I think I’m just on autopilot in moments like that anyway).  But I tell a myriad of people that I’m okay…when I’m not.

My sarcastic impulse is to say, “You got an hour or two?” or “Compared to what?”   The part of my heart that is filled with questions and not a little bit of anger wants to say, “Are you kidding me?  Are you even asking such a stupid question?”  But mostly I just want to say, “I don’t know.”  I don’t really know how I’m doing.  I guess some people walk around saying I’m handling this all really well.  Being strong…coping….moving on…  It doesn’t feel very much like that, let me just tell you.  More like treading water in glue.  Am I doing better than my brother…my mother?  I don’t know.  Am I getting through this ‘grieving process’ (starting to hate that phrase too) as I should?  I don’t know.  I told my friend at lunch yesterday that the phrase ‘I don’t know’ was starting to be the tag line at the end of every sentence I spoke.  My whole world has been turned upside down – it’s like being told that from now on red will be green and up will be down.  I just can’t process the change…I don’t know anything anymore.

So, the answer is “I am not okay.”  I am hurting and confused and angry and exhausted and struggling.  Does that bother you?  Or can you bear to walk with me awhile down the path of pain I’m forced to travel?  If not, I’m not upset at you.  Not everyone can be an Aaron or Hur (Exodus 17:12).  We’ll get reacquainted when I’m on the other side of this.  But please, don’t ask me how I am doing.

There Are No Rules to Grief

Something about humanity makes us look for the rules.  I guess it’s a divinely appointed thing; after all one of the first things God did with Adam and Eve in the garden was lay down the rules.  You would have though with only one rule to follow, Eve could have handled that one.  But I digress.

We look for the rules of how to handle things that are thrown at us in life.  We look to rules of etiquette to know how to deal with formal dinners and other nonsensical occasions that tend to be nerve wracking and pretentious.  There are rules of combat and war to make sure the way we kill each other off is done in a civilized way.  There are rules of religion that tell us what is acceptable and unacceptable behavior in our houses of worship, despite the fact that many of those rules can make the Holy Spirit just as unwelcome.

Then there is grief.  When someone we love passes away, we look about for rules again.  How long are we supposed to stay out of work?  How much should we cry?  How emotional is too emotional?  When should I weep and when should I hold it in?  How do we behave around other people?  How many flowers are we supposed to buy?  Who gets thank you notes?  Who rides in the ‘family car’ on the way to the funeral?  Is it okay to be angry?  Is it okay to laugh?  And on and on… But there is no rule book.  No book of etiquette to tell us what is right and wrong.  And no previous experience with loss ever really prepares you for the next one.  There are traditions that seem hollow and meaningless.  There is contradictory advice given from all quarters.

People say the most unbelievable things.  “God won’t give you more than you can bear,” and “Well, at least he’s with Jesus now,” rank up there as the most inane in my book.  Like my brother said, the best thing people could say was “I don’t know what to say.”  People try to make themselves more comfortable I think when surrounded by deep sorrow.  They try to make comparisons to their own loss and let you know how long it took them to “move on” and in an almost brisk and business-like way reassure you that ‘this too will pass’.  While one group is encouraging you to just “break down” and let it all out, another group is praising you for being so strong, while a third makes you somehow feel guilty for ‘coping so well’.

So my conclusion is simple:  there are no rules to grief.  It simply is.  It cannot be put on a timetable.  It cannot be explained away with cliches or philosophy.  It cannot be compared to anyone else’s experience, no matter how similar the circumstances.  My brother and I both lost the same father and our ways of dealing with it are completely different.  And that’s just fine.  No one can tell me how to grieve and how not to grieve.  And that’s just fine too.

I Want to Remember

I want to remember the way his hand felt when it would squeeze mine…hard and quick with his thumb rubbing across the top of my hand.

I want to remember the way he would say “Hey fella!” whenever David came in the house.

I want to remember the way he would raise his eyebrow at you and say, “Thaaat’s right…thaaat’s right…” in that easy drawl that meant ‘it’s about time you saw it my way.’

I want to remember him pressing a $20 bill in my hand every time we parted so I could ‘get some gas’.

I want to remember the way he would drive the lawnmower past my bedroom window to wake me up on Saturday mornings….I want to remember him laughing about doing it.

I want to remember the way he showed me how to make a free throw with a basketball.

I want to remember the games of chase we would play together in the backyard….around and around the house as fast as we both could run.

I want to remember playing skeetball and putt putt together at Myrtle Beach.  He always was trying to improve my form.

I want to remember the way he would always order something different at the mexican restaurant when I always ordered the same thing.

I want to remember him playing with Petra, using that falsetto voice to talk for a stuffed animal or clown or doll. Pretending to be startled when she would jump out at him from behind his armchair.

I want to remember all the stories he would tell about being an M.P. in the army.  Most of them had to do with practical jokes he would play on other soldiers.  I want to rememberr his sense of humor.

I want to remember how easily he could strike up a conversation with any stranger…on a plane, waiting in line, anywhere.

I want to remember the times he told me he was proud of me.

I want to remember the way he would say “Keep your guard up.”

I want to remember the way he would grin at you when he was cheating at checkers, and the funny expressions on his face when grandma beat him at Uno.

I want to remember him watching me march in the marching band all six years I was in the band – high school and college.  He watched through rain, sleet, and snow – sometimes with binoculars.  I want to remember that silly Indian tomahawk motion (and the song that went with it) he would make toward the other team we were playing against and the way he would pretend to shoot imaginary arrows at the other team’s players.  I want to remember how that made my mama laugh.

I want to remember the way he would scratch his back on the door frame.

I want to remember our trips home from college when he would pick me up for the weekend or a break.  I would talk to him nonstop; he would always listen.  We would always stop at Krispie Kreme for ‘coffee’ and would end up bringing home a dozen doughnuts…minus two or three.

I want to remember the way he would tear up when he read a birthday or father’s day card from me.

I want to remember that he always cheated at checkers…and we didn’t really mind.  Much…

I want to remember the tears he wiped from his eyes when he gave me away on my wedding day.  It’s the only time I ever remember seeing him cry.

I want to remember all the people who came and told us how much he had influenced their life for the better – I wish he had known how much.

I don’t know that I can type any more today…I’m sure I’m going to keep adding to this list. But I’ve broken the scab off the wound already….I need time to let it weep…to let me weep.

Friendship….it’s complicated.

Friendship + ministry = complicated.

That’s the short version of my take on friendships in my life.  As a child you choose your friends and they choose you and it’s all based on simple things like being in the same class at school, or being in the same girl scout troop, or having the same interests.  I don’t think I really understood how complicated friendship could really be until I was married and graduated from college.

Being in full-time ministry as David and I have been our entire married life makes having long-term friendships very difficult.  Moving from town to town while most people live their entire lives in one place makes friendship – deeper ones anyway – much more difficult.  I remember when my best friend in college told me once when I suggested that I hoped we would always have the kind of friendship we did then:  “That sounds nice, but in my experience, you let a few miles and a few years get between you, and no matter how good your intentions, you won’t be as close as you used to be.”  Oh, I argued with him at the time, pretty vehemently if I recall correctly.  But I soon found his words were true.  No matter how much you want a friendship to last long-distance, it is very hard to maintain in practice. Maybe that’s just because of my personality.  I hate talking on the phone – always have.  The only exception to this rule I married, so that tells you all you need to know about that.  Email and more recently Facebook have helped in the occasional bridging of the broken connections….but it just isn’t the same.  I need friends I can go out to eat or shopping with, people I can hug on a weekly basis.  I want  them know where my glasses are in my cabinets without having to ask.  I want Petra to talk to them without hiding and David to actually feel like he can be himself and not have to put on the ‘Pastoral Front’ that he has to wear with so many people who do not equate the words “minister” with “human being”.

I think that’s the other factor in my lack of long-term friendships.  Pastoral ministry can create such a false reality between the congregation and the ministry family.  I mean, here we are, regular people who just happen to have a calling on our lives to something much greater than ourselves; we uproot ourselves from our own biological families and the support system they offer, head out into the wilderness of an unknown community and who do we interact with night and day?  The church people…so that should be where we draw from to form friendships, right?  I’ve lost count of how many minister’s retreats and seminars have warned against that concept.  “Keep your distance from your congregation.”  “You are their shepherd, not their buddy.”  “Don’t get to close.”  “Don’t trust too much.”  These same seminars suggest we should form friendships with our fellow ministers – the people we get to see….well….once or twice a year at these seminars.  Don’t get me wrong.  There are two or three ministry couples that David and I only see once in a blue moon, but when we do get together, it’s like we’ve never been apart.  We laugh and talk and enjoy each other’s company every moment we get….almost desperately, knowing how long it will be again before we have such kindred spirits to commune with.  So 360 days of the year my friendships are with…whom?  If I break the conventional wisdom (as I have done many times over – I just refuse to be an island) and form friendships among the congregation, what then?  How do you keep the other church from feeling slighted or from feeling like you have ‘favorites’ or a ‘clique’?  How do you stay impartial?  What happens to those friendships when an unforeseen move has to occur?  I’ve seen a gambit of reactions – everything from hysteria, to depression, to denial, to anger, to downright hatred.  Only in a few rare cases do I see the individuals I became close to at a church really get it, not take the decision to move on personally, and actually pray for God’s blessings upon us as we move on to other things.  And then of course, there is the unspoken taboo of trying to maintain any contact with your former congregation.  If you do, you are encroaching on the new guy/girl.  If you don’t, you must have never really cared about those people in the first place to drop them so easily.  It makes you gun-shy.  David is even more wary than I am, partly from his own introverted nature, partly from being hurt one too many times.

So here we are again…really getting settled finally in a new community.  We know our way around town (mostly) and know where all the good restaurants are.  Most of our boxes are unpacked, though I still haven’t gotten my address changed on my driver’s license….really need to DO that!  And I’m wading out into those sometimes shark filled waters of friendship finding again.  Got some good prospects…maybe this time we’ll be here just a little bit longer….maybe this time those friendships can get just a little bit deeper.  I need that.

Teaching Again

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”  The famous question asked by adults to kids world wide….and my answer as a child was as varied as my passing moods.  Mostly I wanted to be a veterinarian – that is until I found out about vets having to euthanize animals.  Scrap that plan.  Then I went through my ‘Star Trek’ phase where I wanted to be an astronaut.  Later, my love of books made me really want to be an author…that dream is still floating around somewhere waiting for retirement or some other miraculous intervention to make it a reality.  I didn’t really even consider teaching until I was in junior high school.  A couple of authoritarian teachers in elementary school had really turned me off of that career as a possibility.  My first grade teacher had paddled me once for not eating all the food on my plate at lunch time.  Needless to say my mom’s reaction was pretty knee-jerk on that one.  The same teacher accused me of lying when I would claim to have read books she assigned us in one night.  She didn’t realize (or care apparently) that I had been reading since before kindergarten and ‘Dick and Jane’ wasn’t really cutting it for me.

So I respected my teachers, and never was a problem kid (minus the refusal to eat sausage patties), but I didn’t want to be like them.  It was in my 8th grade band class that changed all that.  Ms. Kathy Weir was our new band director, after Mr. Wilkins moved over to the high school. He too would become a mentor and role model for me, but it was Ms. Weir who showed me the power of being a teacher.

I was really petite as a child – small all over.  You would think when picking a band instrument I would have considered this fact in my choice making.  Not so much.  I decided to play the trombone.  Little did I know that my eclectic choice would be a bit more difficult than I first imagined.  My arm was barely long enough to reach seventh position at the end of the slide, and my lungs just never seemed to have enough air to really project through that huge brass bell. I sat seventh chair in band and didn’t really expect to get much better. But Ms. Weir immediately took an interest in me, and began challenging me to be better. She pushed me to play with confidence, and to expect great things of myself. She also showed me how to become a stronger, more confident young woman. I became more outgoing that school year. I began to make more friends, and develop the personality that would characterize who I am today.

Even at such a young age, I realized what an amazing transformation this one person had in my life. I wanted to be that kind of catalyst in the life of someone else. And so I began a track to become a teacher, with every intent to become a band director just like the two most influential teachers in my life.  I followed their footsteps to Appalachian State where a semester as a music major was a proverbial slap to the face and made me rethink my direction.  Music theory and aural training was making me hate the thing I had always loved.  Rather than let that happen I decided to change majors.  I don’t think it was a profound revelation of God that made me decide to change my major from Music Ed. to History Ed. – more like a “what else am I good at?” kind of questioning.  But God was in it.  With all the moves David and I have undergone in our ministry career I realize now that it was a lot easier to find a history teacher job wherever we went than it would have been to find a new music teacher job in each new county. Another area where I can see God’s hand in my choice is the way I’ve been able to teach the kids that no one wanted to teach – the troublemakers…the “lower level” students.  I asked for them.  I learned early on that I had no tolerance for the A.P./Honors Students (even though I had been one of them).  Whining over a 97 on a test simply nauseated me and the “helicopter parents” who hovered over their kids just waiting to pounce on you as the culprit for keeping their kid out of Harvard was more than I could take.  If I’d become a band director I probably would have just taught a whole bunch of kids like me, and never had the ministry I have been able to have right there in a public school classroom.  I’ve had to break up my share of fights…had a baby shower or two…but more than anything I’ve had a lot of heart to heart talks with kids the system had written off.  When I occasionally see them now years later and they have good jobs and kids, they often come up and hug me and thank me for being ‘the best teacher they ever had’.  There’s nothing amazing about my teaching style compared to anyone elses.  I know WHO gets the credit for that.  And I feel a sense of awe that God allowed me to be a little piece of that transformation.

In my eight years of teaching, I have taught every subject in the high school Social Studies curriculum.  Every thing from Psychology to World Geography to African-American History.  But my favorite has been US History.  I was so privileged to get to go back to my old high school and teach US History for three years.  Teaching side by side with teachers that had taught me was a humbling, eye-opening, and rewarding experience (though I never could bring myself to call them by their first names).  I could teach US History every day of my life with absolute glee.  I love it.  I love when I take the kids who on the first day say they “hate history” and by the end of the year, my class is their favorite class.

I’m teaching again.  After a nearly four-year hiatus I’m back in the classroom, but it’s very different now than it was then.  Now I’m a part-time transition teacher for students at a Children’s Home.  I teach kids who are only going to be at the home thirty days or less, which makes them ineligible for regular school enrollment.  Basically I’m trying to keep them from getting behind in their studies while Social Services, the court system, and whoever else has these students’ lives hanging in the balance, try to figure out what they are going to do with them.  It’s not easy.  They carry mountains of emotional baggage and often were already behind in school because of whatever home issues were going on that got them to the children’s home in the first place.  Many have learning disabilities; most are below their grade level in reading and math.  It’s a far different place than the safe, predictable environment of my old US History classroom.  I used to teach the same lesson 3 periods a day.  Now I have to help my students do work in multiple subject areas – sometimes in multiple grade levels.  But I see God’s hand in this job so clearly.  I am able to be home with Petra the better part of the day.  I still have a lot of time for ministry and all the great school calendar holidays to enjoy with my family and friends.  Most importantly, I know God put me here because He gave me a heart for hurting teenagers.  He knew these kids needed to see Him in the midst of their storm, and if I can give them a little normalcy, a little stability, a little empathy and genuine caring, then I am allowing Jesus to be seen through me, and that is all that matters.

Just Like Her

“You look look just like your mom!”

“You two could be sisters!”

“Well, you don’t have to tell me…that has to be your mom!”

“You’re Debbie’s daughter, aren’t you?  You look just like her!”

These are the comments I have heard nearly my entire adult life.  And it’s true other than the difference in our hair color, we could be sisters.  My mom and I look alike, sometimes talk alike, often think alike.  So much of who I am is directly realted to who she is.  So as I begin this new blog with the initaial question of “who am I?”, I have to look at the role I have had the longest:  daughter.

From my mother I developed a strong devotion and love of family.  Mom often says, “When everyone else leaves you, its your family that will always be behind you in the end.”  That value is something she believes in and practices fiercely and I immulate her example.  There is no doubt in my mind that until the day she dies she will be there for me and my brother in every way she possibly can.  If there’s an emergency, there is no question, no hesitation in her mind…she drops whatever she’s doing…leaves work….and gets in the car to get to where we are.  She would give us every dime she had, any possession she owned.  She loves us completely and unconditionally.  I can’t imagine ever living life without that rock solid security that she provides me with.  (Even so come Lord Jesus!)

All of my life we have had a close relationship.  Wherever I was, she was there with me.  She stayed home with both me and my brother when we were infants and toddlers.  She said she tried to go back to work after I was born, but after only a few days apart she couldn’t stand it and quit.  I’m so glad she did.  Mom always picked us up from school; we never rode the bus.  Every day after school, we went to Grandma’s house after school to play with our cousins while mom and her sisters engaged in a little “coffee therapy” around the old round wooden table in Grandma’s kitchen.  My cousins and I grew up more like sisters and brothers than cousins because we saw each other nearly every day.  I miss them now.  I wish Petra could be in that kind of environment too.  From that daily saturation in family I came to realize, even when I was very young, that nothing was more important to my mother than her family and time with them was priceless to her.

I said my mother was with me all the time and she really was.  When I went to elementary school, she became a parent volunteer.  She was the leader of my girl scout troop back then too.  So every field trip, every camp out – every outing period – Mama was there.  When I went to junior high, she became a substitute teacher.  We started attending church during this period of my life and, of course, she was right there, on the youth staff.  We went to Winterfest together, and Christian concerts together.  She was a clown on Hallellujah Night and one of the only parents to stay through the whole lock-in.  When I went to high school she started working a little bit, part time, but she was still there every afternoon to pick me up from school.  She was in the band boosters and went to every practice, every game, every competition.  She knew my positions on the field as well as I did and could tell me when I got out of step.  She cheered for me while sitting on ice covered metal bleachers while sleet poured down on us all during a Saturday night marching band competition.  She drove 4 hours through the mountains in the fog following a charter bus to make sure she saw me march.  If any of my friends came to competition or a game without any money, “Dacia’s Mom” could always be relied upon to make sure they got something to eat.  Even when I went to college, she and my dad drove up for every single home football game and watched half-time through binoculars so they could see their favorite trombone player march across Appalachian State’s astroturf.  From this I learned the most valuable lesson:  always be there.  No matter what…excuses don’t make memories.  Be there.

Now that I am married with a child of my own, my relationship with my mother is even deeper.  We don’t see each other every day, and some days I don’t even get to call her on the phone.  But we have a deepening friendship that comes from the growing realization that she was right all along on SO many things.  She’s still there for me whenever I need her – to babysit, help clean my house, or give me advice when I need it.  And I’ve begun to experience the joy of being able to be there for her sometimes too….be her sounding board when she struggles with pressures at work and the changes in her life as she and daddy grow older.  One of the most amazing moments happened just a few weeks ago when I called her at work and we just talked.  She was going through some tough stuff but as we talked through it I was able to make her laugh about it all with a mixture of that dry wit and sarcasm she passed on to me too.  By the end of the conversation, she said, “I am so glad you called.  I really needed this.”  That was a big revelation for me.  That all my mother had poured into me, could be poured back when she needed it…  amazing.

That’s the kind of mother I want to be to Petra.

Why Not?

I have a blog.  An often neglected, not posted upon for months blog.  Do I really need another one?  I guess since I’ve  been reading the blog posts of my friend Sarah I’ve come to realize that just writing about my daughter only gives a small window into my life….my identity is more than just Petra’s Mommy.  I am a lot more than that.  So today I think I will begin a blog about all the other hats I wear.  Oh I’m sure Petra will creep into it from time to time – she is my one and only after all.  But I have a lot to say and it isn’t all about toddlerhood.  And just maybe….what I have to say is actually valuable.

So let’s start with my most public role:  wife to a full-time Youth and Evangelism pastor.

How do you define a youth pastor’s wife?  There isn’t really a title that even comes close to describing what the wives (or husbands I suppose) of ‘that youth guy’ (or gal) actually do. Secretary…treasurer…artist… ..cook…..janitor….professional chair and table set up person…PowerPoint guru….counselor…musician… …organizer…therapist…van driver…nurse…wife…mother…and the list goes on and on..

My husband David, and I have been in full time youth ministry for 12 years.  When we got married, we determined that we would have a ministry of marriage.  From start to finish, we would be a united front transforming the lives of people by the power of the Holy Spirit for the upbuilding of HIS kingdom.  Never would I be a woman who sat on the sidelines, oblivious to the warfare my husband was raging in the spirit realm.  No, I would be at his side, holding up his arms when he needed me to and doing my own warfare with all the passion and strength a handmaiden of the Lord can bring to the battle.  We agreed that he would not protect me from the messy side of ministry – if something bad went down, he didn’t shield me from it like I hear a lot of modern ministers suggesting husbands should do with their spouses.  We faced it head on, as a team.  The end result of that?  I’m probably a little more cynical and a lot more realistic about church work than some minister’s wives I know.  My priorities are a little different because my perspective is different.  And my husband knows without a shadow of a doubt that if the whole world was to turn their back on him, I’d be standing right beside him, because nothing has been hidden, and I’ve never walked away.

Being a youth pastor’s wife is easier than being a pastor’s wife, I’ll say that right up front.  I’ve worn both hats, and I definitely prefer the former to the latter.  The stereotypes and the expectations for the Senior Pastor’s wife are so unbending and so unrealistic at times it makes me wonder how any woman in the role keeps her sanity.  Everything about her from her wardrobe to her mannerisms to her facial expressions to her very personality is scrutinized and compared to every previous model who came before her.  It’s not fun and it takes a lot of self-confidence not to be defined by people’s expectations, especially when they are so loudly and unabashedly expressed.

I think the hardest stereotype for the youth pastor’s wife to overcome is the stigma of youth and inexperience.  You are married to ‘that youth guy’ who everyone looks at like he’s 20 (even if he’s 34 and has been doing this for 17 years) and you can’t possibly know what you’re talking about.  You are so young (even if you don’t feel like it) you can’t have ever dealt with anything like this before.  The powerful try to snowball you, the manipulative try to manipulate you, and the kinder ones just humor you.

Being a youth pastor’s wife isn’t just fraught with challenges though – it is full of those amazing ‘God’ moments when He does things that completely blow your mind and mess up your whole paradigm of ‘church the way we know it’.  Teenagers are such complicated creatures; full of potential and angst, energy and laziness, passion and apathy all at the same time.  One minute they can say something so profound or minister in such a tender way that it leaves tears in your eyes, and the next minute you are ready to strangle them for their wishy-washy attitudes and worldliness.  I love them.  They make me laugh until it hurts.  When they worship unashamedly I weep for joy.  They jump in eyes closed, arms wide open, into the deep end of ministry with you and are just happy to go along for the ride, where ever Jesus takes us.  That astonishes me.  I have an unending passion for teenagers and probably will be in some kind of youth ministry when I have a walker and have to take my hearing aids out to stand the music at the concerts I go with them to see. 

I am glad Petra already knows what human videos are and wants to be in the drama team when she gets bigger.  I am thankful for the half dozen texts I get a day from my teens because they love me and want me connected to their life.  I treasure every hug, every heart-to-heart talk, every tear shed on my shoulder.  I praise God for every soul saved, every teen filled with the Spirit and every young man and woman called to the service of the King.  I even look back fondly to the all night lock-ins and hour long road trips – for all the hours of sleep I lost can’t be replaced but neither can the hours of one-on-one ministry tranformation that occured in those times.

I have it pretty good, I must say.