skin

There are some lessons you learn from books or teachings, and then there are some lessons you must learn the hard way.  One of the lessons that I thought I had learned from teachings, I ended up actually learning the hard way when I implemented that learning. There is this ugly little thing called “familiarity”.  I call it ugly, but it can be a beautiful thing when used in the correct context.  Like when you are so familiar with your husband that you can finish his thought or the punch line to a joke.  Or you are so familiar with your sibling that you can pick out clothing for them and they love it.  But familiarity can get you into a lot of trouble when not used correctly.

When you are in leadership, whether it is your position or your spouses position, people are watching you.  And they put together a picture in their head of what you are, whether it is accurate or not.  Then when they get to know you, often their image of you comes crashing into the reality of you.  They see your flaws, they see the booger in your nose and the runs in your hose, and sometimes they don’t deal with it well.  They begin to chip away at their respect for your position.  Like, “Oh yeah they say that, but I know what they really think.”  When someone becomes familiar with you and doesn’t handle that information correctly, they can have a really hard time living under your delegated authority.

I learned this lesson the hard way when I first stepped into leadership.  I was 18 or 19 and I was made a  leader in the youth church.  The issue I had was that I was still friends with many of the teens I was supposed to be leading.  They knew how I had acted (I had a big come back to Jesus meeting with myself when I was 18), they knew what I had done, and so it was hard to establish any influence with them (because leadership is simply influence).  And this caused several issues.  And I really struggled to find my balance.  I wanted to stay friends and hang out and have sleep overs, but I wanted them to respect and submit to the authority I now had.  Trust me, I didn’t handle that struggle well.  I have a tendency to jump from one ditch to another, so the conclusion I came to after one too many broken relationships was that I just wasn’t going to have any friends.  Sure, I had friends that were fellow leaders (haha, I married one of them!!), but I kept everyone else at arms length.  And when Jamie got ordained and I came on staff at the church, the struggle only got harder.  Now not only did I reflect myself, Christ, and the youth church, now my every action reflected my husband and the ENTIRE MINISTRY and our senior pastors! Yeah, no pressure there!  I struggled and pleaded with God on this issue of “friends”.   My closest friend was and still is Tammy.  And believe me, she knows me without me having to say a word, and I know a lot about her, but there is still a respectful distance because she is still my leader.  I can go to her with anything, and have gone to her with everything, but I know I don’t know everything about her. And I shouldn’t. She is my leader, I don’t need to know about her marriage and the details of her relationship with her children.  I know enough (I’ll talk more about establishing this respectful distance in a later post). I love her dearly.  But still I struggled with this thing called friends.

One afternoon I was at Pastor Connie’s house for a meeting of some pastors wives and other women in ministry. After the lesson (which was awesome, I LOVE learning from Pastor Connie!!!!!!), we were all standing around chatting and the subject of friends came up.  One of the ladies said, “when you are in the ministry you just can’t have friends.”  And oh that has been my motto for a long time, but it still hurts. I have shed many tears over the issue of friends.  But then Pastor Connie said something that totally rocked my world.  Sure people always say stuff like, “God will always be your friend.” But really? I understand that concept, and I appreciate it, but sometimes I just need someone with skin to hug, a girlfriend to cry with, someone to giggle with.  But Pastor Connie said, “God will always be there with skin on… but He doesn’t always wear the same skin. And you can’t mourn when the skin changes.”  Wow. I don’t know if you understand how profound that is. I had always felt like I would have a friend for a little while, then something would either happen or we would just move on, and it always hurt.  This statement totally rocked my world.  God doesn’t always wear the same skin, but He will always be there with skin on. I have to keep my eyes and heart open to the skin that He is wearing for that season.

This has been a long struggle for me, and its not over just yet, I’m still learning.  But if someone had said that to me 5 years ago, I would have spared myself many heartaches.  So I hope that helps you as much as it helped me.  God will always be there with skin on, but He doesn’t always wear the same skin.

Just because you needed a cute picture of the baby!!

a new direction

One of the turning points in my life was on my first mission trip.  While at an orphanage in Mexico, Pastor Micah pulled me aside and told me to “prepare myself” and then took me into the nursery of the orphanage where the infants were.  There was one little boy with whom I bonded instantly.  He was probably about 9 months old, and when I had to leave, he cried and cried and kept reaching his arms out to me.  It broke my heart.  And as I processed that grief with God, I realized that if for no other reason than to spend a few minutes with that little boy, to hold him, to give him love that he rarely received, that the whole trip was worth it.  And if all the heartache I’ve been through in my life could help encourage and change just one life, than it was worth it.

Being a stay-home mom has really begun to change my views on life.  I used to take a lot of pride in my knowledge, education, work, etc.  I’m a fairly intelligent person, I did very well in school, and I think I was good at my job.  I enjoyed having conversations with people when I knew what I was talking about.  I liked being the one who knew everything (but you’ve probably already guessed that if you know me at all).  But this whole mom business … I don’t have a clue!  Its so different than anything I’ve ever done before.  And I don’t feel like I know everything, or even have a slight idea about what things are.  So I’ve been soaking up as many resources and blogs and books as I can to try to learn what I don’t know, to see where I want to go and learn how to get there.

As I’ve been reading those blogs, I’ve begun to ask myself, what am I offering in my blog? What am I teaching, who am I encouraging? I know I can’t talk about mom stuff, or crafty things, or anything like that because I don’t know enough.  So I began to ponder, “what do I know?”  One thing that came to mind was that I am a pastor’s wife.  So I wondered, are there any blogs out there about that? There are, but mostly they are in very different denominations than I am, so their struggles are a little bit different.  On that note, I am going to begin taking a new direction with this blog.

As I said, if the things I’ve dealt with can help just one person avoid the heartache I’ve expereinced, then it was worth the tears.  So I want to share my journey as a young pastor’s wife, as a woman in leadership, as a mother in the spotlight, as a Christian in a glass house.  Some of you that read my blog may lose interest and others may find me because of this change.  But like I said, even if I help just one person, it’ll be worth it.

Here’s to a new start…