Sitting with my husband discussing a negative situation in my life. He looks patiently at me as I talk. He answers slowly in his Southern Style and it goes like this:
“Susan what do you do when you’re walking along a path and you step in dog poop?”
“Ewww , I immediately get it off. It’s so irritating when people let their dogs run wherever and don’t clean up after them.”
“Exactly, you get that stuff off of you as quickly as possible and you never stop to smell it or dwell on it. This is the same reasoning you should use when faced with certain situations. You stepped in dog poop today so go get it off. It teaches you three things. One, it teaches you there was a dog in your path. Two it taught you that the dog is not where it is supposed to be and therefore out of order. Three it was sent there to take you off course and distract you. Stay focused.”
Proverbs 14:30 A sound heart is life to the body, But envy is rottenness to the bones. NKJ
Envy is, “I must be like you to be happy.”
People pleasing is, “I must be liked by you to be happy.”
Neither of these scenarios is appealing and yet we all look like both of these statements at one time or another. This week’s news was all about Kim Kardashian’s nude photos and whether they were photoshopped or real? Whether it was the right move for her career or not, but as my Daughter-In-Love Frances said, “I refuse to read anything about it, we landed on a comet this week! That’s news.”
I get to the office at 10 am the two days a week I spend there. One day this week I didn’t come in until 11 am. I was driving in when I received a phone call, hands free I answered the phone, my mom reads my blog so I thought I’d clarify the hands free part.The caller asked if I was at the office. I said I was just driving in. “Boy! It must be nice to be a Pastor and make your own hours. I wish I could just waltz in whenever I wanted. Some of us have to work.” I didn’t say anything. I’ve taken the Taylor Swift approach to my life, “Shake it off, shake it off”.
Here is what they don’t know. The night before I counseled a person until after midnight who was in a crisis. It may not be my life, but it certainly feels personal when you’re agonizing over someone’s pain, praying for God to give you words that help and heal and that you don’t just stammer along. After I got to bed, I tossed and turned for quite some time, shaking it off, before I was able to fall asleep.
And that’s kind of the point. We often envy what we don’t know anything about.
On the flip-side I watched a funny video recently about a woman who could not say no. She was bleary-eyed from exhaustion and still saying yes to everyone. Everyone that is except herself. When did we begin to measure ourselves by the opinion of others? When did it get so important to be liked not for our imperfect selves but what we bring to the table?
I tend to bite off more than I can chew. Just because I like Wonder Woman and wanted to grow to be her, doesn’t make it so, but sometimes I get mixed up. Sometimes I become a people pleaser. Something in me is causing me to reflect on envy and people pleasing and their correlation. They aren’t the same that’s true, but they are similar in nature because both have replaced my purpose with whomever is the focus in the scenario. I may not have what you have but if I can please you I can get close to what you have. I may not have what you have but if I can be better at tasks than you then I’ve one-upped you. Do you see the similarities? Both emotions want to take me off course from my business and make my life about you.
When you hear the words, The Pastor’s Wife, what does she conjure up for you mentally? For so many she is the object of perfection in the church. She has it all together, her children are perfect, her responses are wonderful, and her life is one to be admired and emulated. For others of you, she is a working woman, playing the piano, leading the women’s group, feeding the homeless, and running the children’s ministry seamlessly. Yet for others, she is the epitome of judgment. She glances at you head to toe and makes a sad determination. Sadly, you’d be right with all three versions because she exists in all of these forms.
Back in the day there was the thought process that the Pastor’s Wife was to be set apart. She was not to mingle with the commoners of the church and she was to be held in high regard. Only that doesn’t really fly in the face of scripture does it? Jesus says he is gentle and lowly in heart. Jesus says he is set apart by believing and obeying his Father. It wasn’t about being set apart from the people, it was about being among the people and being set apart in action.
The question that has been stirring in my heart as I see this attitude is what false hope it gives to women in the body. To think that any life is really that perfect and the average woman cannot attain it because it’s for an elite group is just not realistic. There are no scriptures to back this thought process up. There is no elite group of Navy Seal Christian Woman. There are women who achieve great things and who have applied godly principles of life to their everyday walk but no one’s life is pure perfection. There are Pastors Wives who silently suffer, and because they are supposed to have this perfect image, they can speak to absolutely no one about it. So they put their makeup on and hide behind a smile and because no one really looks at each other anymore they are able to pose.
The problem with that is that we are called to mentor and to love and to help. We can’t ever say we have a problem because then we have this perception that no one will think we are as perfect as we pretend to be and therefore leave the church. So we lift up this unattainable goal to woman in the church that they too can be a perfect woman in Christ and she flounders because she never can quite get there. She feels inadequate and that’s good for us because it makes us feel more powerful.
I will never forget a story I heard Ruth Graham tell. She was Billy Graham’s wife who has now gone on to be with Jesus. Because her husband was often traveling she raised her children primarily alone. She said her son Franklin Graham, who is now an evangelist himself, gave her fits on a regular basis. One day while out and about he was acting out so much that she threatened to put him in the trunk of the car if he continued his behavior. Of course Franklin continued and she pulled the car over and stuck him in the trunk and drove on. Yes, she admits not a crowning moment for her but instead a desperate mom moment. While none of us would advocate putting your kid in a trunk, we relate to the feeling.
I have learned a few things in my life as a Pastor’s wife over the years. I know that life happens to the Pastor’s Wife. She gets flat tires on the way to a meeting. She has bad hair days. She has arguments with her husband sometimes. She yells at her kids. She sometimes skips her devotional time in the morning. She blows it at work. She gets mad at people who cut her off in traffic. She has issues. Her life is just as full and as busy as the next woman. She has flaws and temptations and everything else going on in her life. She isn’t married to a calling or a church. She is married to a man and she has been called, just as any wife, to minister to her family and then the church. So pray for your Pastor’s Wife because she’s as human as every other woman but sometimes she can’t say it.
A person that simply cannot be happy for another person’s success. So rather than be happy they make a point of exposing a flaw in that person.
They say things like:
Where did they get the money for THAT?
She doesn’t deserve him.
I would never spend money on that.
I work so hard and I never get anything like that. Where is my promotion?
He only got the job because he knew someone.
They never have to work for anything because their parents give them everything.
With Social Media as prominent as it is in our culture it’s easy to see the blessings that others are given and begin to get jealous instead of being happy for our friends and acquaintances. I have been examining my aversion to “haters” as they are called. Those people in our lives who can’t be happy for others, who always have a negative, gossipy thing to say about someone else. Why does it bother me so much?
As I began to examine my feelings for shielding myself from their mindset, there are two things that stick out to me like big red flags.
1. There is this big looming unspoken question that arises in me.
Do they really think God has a shortage of blessings?
God is God and he has this overwhelming abundance of blessings at his disposal and the great part is that he will never run out of them. There is proof of great blessing for everyone reading this today. If you have a roof over your head, food on the table, are in decent health, and have a few really good friends you are blessed beyond measure. How much more does one need? To be jealous of someone who got a new home, or another dog, or a new friend, or a job promotion means we think our Father in heaven is short or at least is shorting us. Our Father lacks nothing and never will. Understanding his true sincere love for us will begin to free us from the chains of jealousy. Not being able to be happy for someone’s success really stems from a place where we don’t believe God for his provision. It’s that orphan spirit rising up that tells us our Father will do it for others but not for us. It’s simply not true. Being truly happy for someone’s success is easy when we take ourself out of the picture and see things for what they truly are. And there it is in a nutshell, we have yet to discover the Father’s love and we are still not living in the spirit. Which leads me to my second point.
2. I am afraid of having those comments get into my thought process and I don’t want to be the person who begins see people in a negative light or suspiciously. Do I get everything I think I deserve? Uh, no, truthfully. I often deserve some pretty hefty traffic fines but my Father in his infinite mercy gives me a fix-it ticket. I don’t want to begin to question blessings and get into a place where I think if someone gets something that I am the judge of whether they deserve it or not. That’s the elder brother syndrome (Luke 15:25-32) and I want to avoid it. I don’t want to spend time pouring over someone’s finances or resume to see how they are cheating me out of something I deserve. I just want to be happy for others when they succeed. I want to celebrate them and I want to celebrate my Father from whom that blessing flowed to them. Go Lord!
And that’s it! When I’m spending time hating I’m really saying is God is holding out on me. He’s selective. That is not a thought I want to entertain.
I guess I must have been pretty tired last night because I woke up to my husband bringing me a cup of coffee and letting me know it was time to wake up for church. I got up and began to get ready. Everything was going along just fine until I began to apply my eyeliner. There I was coffee on the bathroom vanity, face pressed close to the mirror, and I had a flashback.
I remembered back to when I was growing up and mornings with a working mom. My mom’s cigarette dangled on the bathroom sink, don’t judge, it was the 70’s and everybody’s mom smoked, her coffee cup on the vanity as she put her makeup on, giving orders for us to hurry up and get dressed and singing along with the radio.
As a little girl I could not wait to grow up and get dressed for work. I could not wait to have all the makeup and perfume and clothes and shoes and big hair. Suddenly here I was. All that I wanted as a little girl before me. Wishes come true and you don’t even realize it. Life gets in the way and you think there’s more, but when you go back to the memories of that small child you used to be you find out that life was pretty simple. At least it was for me.
I was with my mom last night at a awards dinner/dance. My parents were out on the dance floor, smiling and laughing and talking. She was among her family and friends and we were having a great time together. The music was cumbia for the most part and my parents hate that. They prefer big band stuff and anything that starts with a nasally male voice singing a doo wop thing. Doug leaned over and said to me, “Do you think when we’re old they’ll play Foo Fighters at these things?” I smiled and said, “Hopefully.”
My mom’s friends from as far back as elementary school came by and said, “THIS is your daughter? I remember when you were just a girl”, reminding me that it’s been too long since I’ve come back home for events. I smiled today at myself in the mirror and replied, “Yes, I remember being a little girl. It seemed so far away to the days of eyeliner but here we are.” As a mom you know everything you do messes your kid up in some way. You live with this chronic guilt of not getting it right. You live with a consistent regret of the things you failed at. Just as my mom showed me how to draw a strong steady straight line across my eyelid, not by what she told me to do, but by what I witnessed, I learned to draw a strong steady straight line not only across my eyelid but across my life. It took some practice and some redo’s but eventually, I had it down.
Each one has a different meaning and a different outcome. Which one do you use?
The Silent Treatment
Our first fight was one in which after trying to make a point and not feeling heard, I walked to the foyer, put my shoes on and prepared to take a walk. My then boyfriend looked at me and said incredulously,
“You’re actually leaving? You’re walking out?”
I replied, “If I stay, I will say something stupid. Yes, I’m coming back, but I need time to think and cool down.”
He responded, “Okay, anything can be fixed if we can discuss it.”
In that moment, I wanted to say, “Duh Einstein”, but I didn’t. I held my tongue and went for a walk to put together what I wanted to say and not what was swirling around in my mind to say. Once you say something, it can’t ever be taken back and it can cut so deeply. Better to take a moment.
This is considered a healthy time out and it’s not a punishment to the other person although I have to be honest and tell you that when it’s happening to you it feels like punishment because you have things to say and the person needs a time out. This silent treatment has a time limit. You aren’t talking days, you’re talking a few hours most often, and you’re not sending off all of these mad vibes, you’re just trying to come up with a solution. You aren’t unkind or completely silent, you explain. The person is assured you are coming back to the situation and that you are not dismissing the conversation, only that it’s become toxic to speak, it’s about the relationship and not about having your way.
THE SILENT TREATMENT
This is the one that is just emotionally abusive. I’ve done it, it didn’t work in my relationship. My husband didn’t notice I wasn’t talking, or he chose to ignore my attempt at manipulation, which is closer to the truth. In our home we discuss we don’t shut out. The silent treatment when used as punishment is nothing more than an attempt to control another person. It’s bullying at its best. The person who is being shut out becomes desperate to talk to the person giving the silent treatment and that person is punishing them determining when if ever the fight is over. The terms are strictly in their hand and they have power. This sort of behavior never works positively except for the bully who learns to get their way.
Then there’s
the silent treatment
This is the disconnect. This is when all attempts to have a mature discussion have failed. This is when another dinner to discuss the issues isn’t worth it. It’s the goodbye. You aren’t rude. You’re not mean. You just choose your life to be less dramatic. You don’t hate and in all honestly you don’t feel anything. You wish the person well, but you’re just not willing to play their games anymore. The cons outweigh the pros to this relationship. This is a sad place to be but sometimes it is what it is. You are polite, but you are no longer engaging. The person has become too much.
“I choose to believe that people can handle the truth.” ~ Dr. Laura
Today Dr. Laura Schlessinger told a story that stuck with me. Here is how it goes.
A woman took her car to a mechanic because of a noise it was making. The mechanic popped the hood, adjusted something and closed the hood and said, “That will be $100.”
The woman was outraged and said, “$100?! All you did was adjust some little part.”
The mechanic looked at her and said, “I didn’t charge you anything for the adjustment. I’m charging you $100 for the knowledge.”
I loved that story. We’re always so busy tip-toeing around the truth because we’re afraid of hurting someone’s feelings, but if they don’t know any better? What is that worth to them?
I loved the day when a beautiful friend, MaryLou Lerma, came up behind me at church and untucked some hair in the back of my head that was crunched under the headset microphone I was wearing and then adjusted my look. She’s a lioness. Lionesses will groom each other. She was making sure I didn’t embarrass the tribe. I love her for that. She didn’t worry about whether I’d be offended that I didn’t check myself before I got ready to go on the platform in front of a live audience and Internet. She did it for me, and for our team. This is her using her truth, her information, of a situation.
It’s quite a bit different from the woman who uses her truth to be mean. “That dress is hideous.” While it may be truth, it doesn’t need to be spoken. She is not a lioness as she is on the attack due to her jealousy and low self esteem. She uses her truth to wield a sword. Women such as these can dish it out but they can’t take it.
Now, could it be that there would be a time to give wardrobe advice? Of course! When you’ve developed a relationship and you don’t feel superior but know you can be at service and have the trust of the person you are speaking to. Quite a different scenario.
I choose to believe that people can handle the truth.
I choose to believe that not all truth needs to be spoken.
I choose to believe that one day as strong mature women, we’ll all figure out which is which and which is witch.
Rant – verb- speak or shout at length in a wild, impassioned way.
Rants seem so justified in the moment and that’s the problem with them. Afterwards, when you need to find a way back into fellowship with the person you just unleashed on, you have two choices; you can either pretend like nothing happened which is a lie, and more than likely not going to fly, or you can apologize, which is rather the grownup thing to do.
Rants are happening more and more with social media. It’s easy to hide behind a computer and spew, it’s quite another to go to the person you are angry with and have a conversation. It could be that the person has difficulty expressing anger. It happens, you get mad in a moment and you say something dumb. I’ve done it. You then have to go to the person and repent.
I’ve found that people who rant on a regular basis often have issues with their family and friends. Most of the time people say they rant to make them feel better but studies shows that rants don’t make you feel better, they make you feel worse. They make you dwell and they solve nothing. Sometimes they incite a reaction that is equal to the action making it worse. One study I read from the University of Wisconsin said that ranting is linked to fighting and that the person ranting generally has two physical or verbal fights per month. I actually think it may be more than that.
So why rant on social media? I talked to an acquaintance of mine who says she does it so that the rant gets back to the person. Another acquaintance says she does it to gain people who are on her side, still another one said she does it because you don’t have to look the person in the eye. And there’s the problem because if you aren’t willing to say it face to face, then you shouldn’t post it on social media. The passive aggressive verbal jab is to no effect, especially when it doesn’t make you feel any better.
Words produce action. The action you get from the rant about the carpool line or the political state of the union is so much a different thing than the rant you make about the people in your life. If you are constantly ranting, it shows to everyone that no one is really safe with you. You will throw anyone under the bus at any time. Why not face the issues? It’s a lot easier to work things out, if that’s the motive. If it isn’t and you enjoy the high drama of a fight, rant on, and be prepared for the consequences.
I was talking to a friend this week about an issue that were happening in our lives and I was left with a statement I made that made me think. I said, “You’re never going to have long term relationships outside of strong mature women.”
It made me realize how blessed I am to have my circle of friends. Do you ever just look around at those closest to you? I’m not talking about the 500 friends on Facebook, I’m talking about the five or maybe it’s one. The ones you call as soon as something great happens, and the ones you call as soon as something not so great happens. I recently called a friend after midnight:
“Did I wake you up?”
“You woke me and my whole house up. *$%&, hang on….. now the dog wants to go out.” (muffle, shuffle) “It’s okay, it’s Susan”, then she’s back “Are you okay?”
“Yes! I read your dramatic FB post, are you okay?”
(chuckle) “Yes, just an employee issue.”
“What made you post it?”
“Well it was rant or punch her. What do you think I should’ve done? Wait, never mind.”
“Are you sure? Why are you asleep at midnight?”
“I’m 52, sometimes, I get tired. What are you the sleep police?”
“And menopausal. Geez not looking forward to 52. Okay go back to sleep, I thought it was urgent. Next time don’t put your drama on FB, no one really cares.”
“Okay. HEY WAIT! Are you okay? Am I missing something in this sleep fog? Am I supposed to be hearing something in your voice?”
“I’m fine. Talk to you tomorrow. Don’t forget the dog is outside. love you bye.”
“love you bye”
Those friends? Those friends who you can say anything to and when there’s an offense you work it out privately? Those friends who love you even though they know why your hair is in ball cap? Or know you drink Oolong tea?
My friends are made up of strong independent women. They don’t have the same politics as I do, well, actually, most people don’t as I am a Libertarian, but hey, I hear more of you are coming around to independent free thinking, so the discussions can get profound and heated and both at the same time. They aren’t all Christians and so we respect our beliefs and discuss the intersections. They aren’t all married, don’t all have children, don’t all have stepchildren, and don’t all love high heels.
Here is who they all are:
Women who are happy with themselves (okay, well we have those issues but we aren’t obsessed).
Involved in their community, either through political affiliation, civic organizations, charitable works, or the local sports mom.
Caring and compassionate, they will actually pay for the coffee of the person in the line at Starbucks behind them.
They can hold a well rounded conversation, whether it the latest Liane Moriarity book, or what, if anything, we need to be doing about the Ukraine, and who is favored to win the Super Bowl this year?
Positive and impacting although sometimes you have to wait for it because the NOT OKAY you get at the moment you’re committing the bonehead decision doesn’t seem so positive.
I am blessed. I have very little time in my life but I can pick up a phone at midnight and wake up a friend to tell her I care. How about you? Are you blessed with your friendships? Are you present in the moment with your friends? Do you sometimes just look around and realize you have people in your life with whom you can be real with and who don’t judge you for your faults but love you through them? I really hope you do. It’s such an important part of life. I am honored by the company I keep. I hope it’s that way for you.
I was raised by parents who came of age in the 60’s. It was the tune in and turn on era, this generation expected us to think for ourselves.
By the time I was 15, I was putting together budgets on how to get my own place and be free of the tyranny of the parents. I had the teenage angst early on. I understood that if I were going to be really free, I would need a job of some sort, money filtering in, and a place to put my pillow at night. I was even looking in the local newspaper, yes before Craigslist or Internet, at the used furniture ads to see what it was going to cost me for a bed and a dresser. Oh, there were no expectations of taking my bedroom furniture with me. I don’t know why I didn’t think I could take the furniture. I don’t know how that was instilled, no one ever said it, I never felt like I was borrowing it, but I had this idea that one day I would leave for college and my room would remain as my parent’s shrine to me. I knew that they’d pay for college, but I also knew that I’d have to get a job for the extras.
There was nothing in my DNA that prepared me to live a life of slavery to a system not of my own choosing. I was free to be whatever I wanted to be as long as I could pay the price my style of freedom would offer. That was all before I realized about the cost of freedom.
We cry out for freedom but do we really understand the cost? The cost to true freedom isn’t free, it isn’t even cheap. The cost for freedom is high. Freedom requires self control. It is easier to be a slave than a free man. A free man is required to make decisions daily that each produce a consequence, some of them good and some of them bad. A free man must walk those decisions out daily whether he feels like it or not. A slave only needs to be told what he must do.
To be truly free we can’t blame anyone for where we are. The responsibility falls squarely on our shoulder. We can’t hold anyone accountable for funding our freedom, and although we will need help to get to where we are going, that help will be reciprocal and not one sided. To be truly free, we must yoke up carefully with like-minded people who aren’t heading in a direction that takes us off course. In fact, we must be careful about this because we may hear what we want to hear and fail to see what we need to see. We must do our homework to know what we believe and what we don’t. We can’t afford to be swayed by what is false. Freedom requires that some things are done not because we like to do them but because we need to do them to get to the finish line.
Freedom isn’t getting to do what we want whenever we want at any cost. That’s lawlessness. Freedom is doing the work first that then affords us the ability to walk out our path and it never ensures smooth sailing but it ensures that we have what it takes to make it one way or another.
Pastor Susan 