The Pastor’s Wife

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October is the month we have Pastor’s Appreciation Month and I know it’s April, but actually, we need to be praying for our pastors all the time because they have a tough job. While not being physically exhausting most days, it’s mentally challenging and emotionally charged. And while you’re there, pray for his wife too. That’d be me.

Today I woke up with the burden of the Pastor’s wife on my heart. She is in a unique position. She watches her husband from a vantage point that no one else really gets to see. She watches as he walks the line that is unpopular in our culture. She watches as people from the outside presume to know what he is about. She watches as his critics swim like sharks who see chum in the water. Most days, she’s able to pray and walk forward with her day. Other days, she is exhausted at the prospect before the day even gets started. She shares her life with a man who has a calling on his life. It’s not like a job where he can go home and let it go. It follows him everywhere. She watches as he paces the floor in prayer and wonders what the stress is doing to his body.

Yet her life is blessed as she stands secure in the fact that her husband follows the One true desire of her heart, Jesus. She has that in common with him as they move the Kingdom forward. She loves her church family with her whole heart. She rests in knowing that they have placed their trust where she has and that is a big obligation he carries. She understands that although her church needs her, her first duty is to her husband. She knows she must keep him healthy, keep him loved, keep him in her prayers and undergird his desires.

Recently someone said to me that I didn’t understand what she and other women had to go through.  They have been hurt, they had been stabbed in the back and that they have had words spoken over them that they didn’t feel they deserved. I smiled and offered to pray. Inwardly, I wondered what makes her think I don’t go through this stuff? Some of the things a Pastor’s wife is told would make your hair curl. The criticism thrown at her, her children, and her husband would be laughable it it weren’t so painful. Just because she isn’t publicly bleeding doesn’t mean she isn’t wounded. She chooses to suck it up and move forward because the One she follows had a lot of heartache too, but recognized a short time frame when he saw one. Unfortunately, I’ve seen my share of wives get off the ride and decide to do something else because of the stress and pressure on her marriage and her family.

So today, my hat is off to all of you who are married to a Pastor. It’s a blessing to know you. It’s a blessing to pray for you. More importantly, it’s a blessing to be counted among you. I truly love each and everyone of you. May God continue to fashion you into His leading lady.

 

Stay In Your Own Movie

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Drama.

Some people are magnets for it. For the rest of us, we have enough drama in our own lives that we don’t need to go looking for more. I mean honestly, if you wanted a Emmy winning Lifetime movie you could look no further than my own life and I’m sure yours too. We’d have these nail-biting scenes where we wonder if I’ll ever get back into those jeans or not,  these amazing dramatic love scenes, break-ups and tears, and love and passion, then treacherous relationship that would make most soap operas look like amateur hour, and of course those scenes that look like blooper reels. Our own movies would be blockbuster hits!

So what makes us steer our car over to the drama of others and insert ourselves into their scenes? What makes us think we can do better?

EGO

We think somehow their drama is fixable, not like ours of course, because we are professionals. We think if we just share what we know, we can make it all better. Only let’s be real, what is it that we really know?

I love how Oprah does her famous question dramatically, “What’s the one thing you know for sure?” Then her guest look like they didn’t know the question was coming and they have to think about it. Trust me, if I were interviewed by Oprah, I’d know this question is coming up so I already have an answer. Are you ready?

“The one thing I know for sure, is the longer I live, the more I don’t know anything at all.”

But I guess that’s why I probably won’t be interviewed by Oprah. So her guests answer her question with pretty much a version of, “Well, Oprah the one thing I know for sure is that there is a force within us and we will return to that force one day.” And yeah, well I believe that too. Only I call my force Jesus.

EGO- I learned from a Wayne Dyer book that EGO can be an acronym for Edging God Out. In other words, when we come into the scene in rescue mode, often times we play God and none of us is fit to fill that position. Sorry to break it to you, when we act from a place of the mind, what we know, instead of spirit, what we don’t really know but discern from God,  we Edge God Out. I can hear some of you screaming “BUT WHAT IF”. My response is, “Even if”.  Stay in your own movie. Don’t go photo bombing someone else’s scene. Smile, close the door and know that if they will access Jesus they will work out a solution. Give advice when asked but please stay in your own movie.

 

IRS and Scarlett O’Hara

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I am going to brag, brag, brag!! My accounting/financial mentor taught me a hundred years ago that the IRS is NOT my savings account. You don’t over pay to get a refund to go on vacation. You try to pay just what you owe and sock the rest in savings and investments that then pay for your vacation with interest. Why pay the IRS interest to hold your money? Be responsible! Be disciplined! Make your money work for you. That’s what the experts say. Anyway, she told me I wanted to be within $500 of the bottom line. In other words, if I owed $500 or less or was due a refund of $500 or less, I was in good shape. So each year I would work towards that. This year, I changed our deductions twice, I know, I know, it’s work, but this year we are owed $21.00 for federal AND state. This is the closest I have ever been to being even.

I know most of you are rolling your eyes but to me this is huge news. I’m a goal setter so it makes me happy, happy, happy!! It’s the little things that are big! And of course, now the pressures on to get better for next year. Only…….

 

I can’t think about that right now. If I do, I’ll go crazy. I’ll think about that tomorrow. For tomorrow is another day!

Heaven, Hell and the Suicide Debate

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This question was raised again in my life this week: “How can someone who commits suicide go to heaven?”

What is the difference between a diabetic saint who through poor diet and a refusal of a  lifestyle change, begins to lose limbs and eventually dies, the overweight saint with high cholesterol who eats one more burger to a massive heart attack  which kills them, the careless saint who reads the warning not to step on the top of the ladder and does and falls to her death, or the saint who suffers from major depression? Did they not all take their own life?

We tend to have degrees of suicide or rather, forgivable suicides and unforgivable suicides. Does God have mercy on the obese but not the depressed? Or can we determine that his measuring stick is not ours and that he ultimately decides what he forgives and what he doesn’t?

 

Two Ends of The Spectrum

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Two weeks ago I finished Amy Chua’s Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. The book was contrasted by articles I’d been reading about the narcissistic engulfing mom in Danu Morrigan’s book, and the raising of her children.

While the tiger mom is obsessed with raising brilliant children who can rule the world, the narcissistic mom is obsessed with making sure her children will forever need her. The tiger mom insists on perfection in every aspect of her children, the narcissistic mom tells her children they can’t do anything right without her.

The tiger mom and narcissistic mom both think they have their children’s best interest at heart, but both want to control on opposite ends of the spectrum. While the tiger mom is teaching her children that fear can actually motivate you to move forward, the narcissistic mom is telling her children that danger lies around every corner and what lucky children they are to have her as their mother who will forever protect them. There is no childhood in a tiger mom’s mindset and there is infantalization in a narcissistic mom’s mindset.

I have to be honest and tell you I cringed with both mothers. With the tiger mom because I could relate to much of it. I was focused on making my children prepared to take on the world and make something of themselves. I wasn’t as compassionate as I should have been as I was busy raising leaders.

With the narcissistic mom I cringed because she is raising children to be afraid to leave her. She makes sure to tell them that they aren’t smart enough to leave and the world is a super scary dangerous place without your mom. If they do happen to escape, she has a need to know everything about their life and she takes it in as if it is happening to her. This plays on my fear of my children marrying someone like this and being trapped by a mother-in-law who is hell bent on control. I have seen mothers who know every last detail of her adult children’s marriage and who interject their opinion and speak for their adult children. The person married to their child lives a hellish reality of being married to someone’s mother. ICK.

With Amy Chua’s book, she has a revelation and acknowledges her errors, although the media crucified her, I had deep sympathy and love for her (I know what you’re thinking, it’s okay). With the narcissistic mom, she believes she is  right and you won’t convince her otherwise.

Makes me grateful for my mom! Thanks mom, for always trying to mind your own business, well for the most part, and for letting me grow up to be who I wanted to be.

Something About Absence and A Heart

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I stopped writing at the end of November. Not just here on the blog but on my book as well.

Not that I had nothing to say. Only because life got in the way. 

Familiar kid problems and a medical issue and having to face some reality moments sent me to dig deep and rather than fight it out with my words this time, I decided to take it private and pray.

Because sometimes it’s just you and God.

The stillness is a good thing.

I stopped writing and I got off of social media because sometimes things have to change and you have to get focused on the change and create new habits and ideals.

I’m back online and of course I have tons of opinions about a lot of things because, well, I just wouldn’t be me if I didn’t. So check back on Monday I’m going to tell you about what’s been going on!

The Bee and Jupiter

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A BEE from Mount Hymettus, the queen of the hive, ascended to Olympus to present Jupiter some honey fresh from her combs. Jupiter, delighted with the offering of honey, promised to give whatever she should ask.

She therefore besought him, saying, “Give me, I pray thee, a sting, that if any mortal shall approach to take my honey, I may kill him.” Jupiter was much displeased, for he loved the race of man, but could not refuse the request because of his promise.

He thus answered the Bee: “You shall have your request, but it will be at the peril of your own life. For if you use your sting, it shall remain in the wound you make, and then you will die from the loss of it.”

 

Evil wishes, like chickens, come home to roost.

Aesop’s Fable

With Every Head Bowed

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In churches across this nation there will be a time in the service on Sunday morning when the Pastor will say something like this:

“With every head bowed and every eye closed, if you came here today and you don’t know Jesus as your Lord and Savior and you would like to, would you slip up your hand? I’d like to pray with you.”

Before I continue on my thought process let me say that I’m not indicting the church. I love the church and I believe in her ability. This post is about my working out how this all works and bringing you into my own conversation.

Luke 9:26 For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, of him the Son of Man will be ashamed when He comes in His own glory, and in His Father’s, and of the holy angels.

We bow our heads and close our eyes to give someone the privacy to confess Christ. We don’t want to embarrass anyone or intimidate anyone into not making a decision for Christ. I get the sentiment but how does that fly with the scripture of public confession? If we had to confess in secret when do we proclaim in public? We then hear this:

“Let’s all join our voices with those who are confessing Christ for the first time and repeat this prayer.” What follows is what we church folk call the sinner’s prayer. It’s a good prayer, nothing wrong with the prayer, but we all confess so as not to call out the person receiving Christ for the first time as if it’s a bad thing. Did we tell them this is an every day confession? Did we tell them this was step one? Or did we let them walk away thinking they were good?

Matthew 10:32 “Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven.

We all repeat the sinner’s prayer together. It doesn’t hurt anyone to say the prayer but it does hinder the congregation to know who is receiving Christ for the first time. Which leads me to my main point:

Matthew 28:18 And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.

Who came to Christ for the first time? My head was bowed and my eyes were closed. How do I disciple someone when I don’t know they raised their hand? Then there’s the question; what about conversion? How does conversion happen if I said a prayer in a group and no one told me that there was more to the kingdom and this new lifestyle called Christianity?

I hear so often about those who profess Christ on Sunday but cuss like sailors and live like hell the rest of the week and post all of their nonsense on Social Media and how bad a witness they are. Is that their fault? I don’t always think so. I think they may not know better. I think they may not be in the process of discipleship. I think we may have to cut them some slack until we begin to teach them to observe the things the Word demands of us.

Charles Turns 19

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My son Charles turned 19 on Saturday. He came into my life when he was 7. We spent the day going to a musical and out to eat.

Here’s what I love about Charles:

He’s a great looking kid. He has a genuine smile and is funny and smart.

He’s a great musician and it comes naturally to him.

He is the drama King of our family, but he wants to be an actor so I guess that works!

He is generous.

He’s a hugger.

He knows the word of God and has deep thoughtful conversations about the bible.

As a youngest child he always falls for anything his sister tells him, then resents the fact that she manipulates him. No matter how many times I tried to tell him, he gives her another chance.

He likes my cooking, that is, when I cook.

He knows I am proud of him and accept him as he is.

He is brave and trying life out on his own.

I love you Charles!

The Cat From Out of The Blue

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I thought about an old friend today.

I arrived in Germany the day before Thanksgiving. I was 21 years old and my little family was setting forth on a new adventure. It was cold and snowing but I was excited to be there. My little family was safe in a teeny tiny apartment while awaiting housing on a military base. I was enchanted with the quaint little village we lived in, where the church bells rang each evening and people walked out of their homes and over to the local Catholic Church. That is until a few days into our new place when I saw a mouse run across the floor. I yelled, jumped up on the couch and cried my eyes out to return to the States.

That night I dreamt of my grandfather who had died 6 years before. He trudged through the snow of my new little village street, marched up the few stairs to my new little apartment door and put a cat at the doorstep, “Aquí esta tu fregado gato”, he muttered. Translated that means, “Here’s your darn cat.”  I smiled in this dream and thanked him and he turned and walked away. I woke up suddenly and went to the front door. There on the landing was a tiny black kitten shivering from the cold. I took him right in as my lifeline. That same day, we trekked out to buy cat food, litter box and the works. We named him T.C. after the Top Cat cartoon.

Funny thing was, T.C. was just as afraid of mice as I was and now we’d both jump on the couch, which I’m sure annoyed my grandfather to no end. Try as he might, that man tried reasoning with me as a child that a mouse was smaller than I was an no threat at all. It never worked.

T.C. was a great cat. Within a few months we moved to base housing, where people spoke English, and I had the modern amenities of a new apartment rather than one of a village. There were no mice here so T.C. and I both breathed a sigh of relief and my little family got into the business of loving life in Europe.

The week we were moving back to the States after being in Germany for three years, T.C. disappeared. Never one to leave the house he suddenly was nowhere to be found. We looked everywhere, the basement, all around the house to no avail. He had never been outside. We looked everyday until the day we left. He left our life as mysteriously as he entered it.