3 Things I Try NOT to Say Sunday Morning

1. "My husband says..." If my husband wants someone to know what he thinks, he can tell them.

2. "Sure, I can be on that committee!" The energy of worship and fellowship time can make volunteering for a project seem simple, but it almost never is. Better that I take the time to consider an opportunity before I make a promise. Generally, I think of my role in the church as participatory and supportive rather than leading. My husband leads and organizes a lot and neither the church nor our family needs much more of that from me.

3. "I'm fine." I long for church to be an authentic community. I struggle to be honest, not to vomit the details of my personal life but to be honest when I am miserable or delighted. How can we "rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn" (Romans 12:15) unless we know each other's joys and sorrows?

Personal Devotion

I could use some help from you all.

I understand the value of daily, personal study of the Bible and prayer. I understand this as an invitation from God to give Him my burdens, to be encouraged and strengthened through the Holy Spirit.

I do not have a daily practice of doing these things. I want to. The main thing that inhibits me is how exhausting it can be.

Reading the Bible or praying used to be a mechanical, intellectual endeavor. It took some time management and study skills but no emotional engagement. Lately it has become something entirely different. Any time I read even a short passage and ask God to show me what is there for me that day, it turns into a heart-wrenching, tearful conversation. The subject varies - it might be recognizing something about God's character, or a conviction about some failing on my part. It doesn't matter. Everything is tender and tear-prone.

I don't want to have these emotional episodes every day. I appreciate them. I'm glad that God is opening my heart to Him. But I just want to get through the day without drama.

If there have been times in your life that were like this, how did you handle it?

Authentic and Awkward

Our church has been praying for me every week during my chemotherapy. I am thankful for their prayers on my behalf, though it has been uncomfortable to see my name on the prayer list every week for as long as we've been here. I feel like I get so much attention just because I'm married to the pastor that I don't need any more.

On Sunday the prayer was altered to thanksgiving that the treatments are done. Lots of people spoke to me afterward to express their happiness for me. I was asked several times, usually with a mood of eager optimism, how I am feeling.

You'd think that would be a simple question. A year or two ago I'd have told all those kind people that I'm feeling much better, thank you. They all want so much for me to be well, for my life to be happy. I'd hate to disappoint them.

I'm trying to teach myself to be considerately honest and sometimes that's uncomfortable. When people asked how I'm feeling I told them I'm relieved to be done, but I don't feel very well.

Every time I felt a little like I was hurting their feelings. We'd have a very brief awkward moment in which we all took in the disappointment that happiness and ease has not yet arrived and then we'd part.

Being honest is awkward. We are all in a hurry to be done with pain and living alongside other people's sadness is hard. It is also much more helpful to all of us than polite lies. Now those people know me a little bit.

Comparative Suffering

A few weeks ago my brother called me on a weekday afternoon - not a customary time for us to chat, but not unheard of either. He caught me in the middle of putzing with my kids; we were going outside to play for a while, then out for errands. Things were not quiet for me to give him my undivided attention. Our conversation was brief. I poked around a bit to see if there was a particular reason for his call but he didn't give one.

Later he told me that he called because he'd been having a particularly hard day. Familiar frustrations, but sometimes they build up and you want to tell someone about it. I get it. But, he told me, when I answered the phone and sounded happy he wondered what he could possibly have to complain about. That is: she has cancer and she sounds ok. How can I complain?

He's not the only one who has said something like this to me. I periodically get notes from friends who tell me I am inspiring, or that when they feel frustrated with their lives they think of me and are motivated (guilted?) to buck up.

Comparing my suffering to someone else's is not helpful. I'm inclined to do it myself. There are always people whose lives look more difficult than mine - someone with a more tenacious cancer, a deeper depression, a different challenge altogether. Comparing my pain to other people's pain is one strategy that intensified my depression.

Pain is pain. There is no way to measure my pain against yours. For a long time I felt guilty for becoming clinically depressed because I thought I "should be able to handle this." Other people's lives are hard and they don't go crazy over it. They just plug away and handle it. Why can't I?

That line of thinking was entirely unhelpful. My life was (and is) icky and painful to me. I am profoundly disappointed by it in many ways. I need a lot of help to cope with it. Thinking I should not need help didn't make anything better. Now I have support of all kinds - spiritual, emotional, logistical - and I still feel like I'm scraping by one day at a time.

I am not a hero. I'm not stronger or better than anyone else. I do not pull myself out of bed every day because I have such an admirably tenacious will to succeed. God is kind to keep me afloat when I think I will drown. I cannot explain God's grace but I know that I live in it.

I have never supposed that God compares my pain to anyone else's or to His. He loves me and cares about what I feel and what I need today.

Honesty Is Working

Last week I wrote about a note I put in the church bulletin explaining my cancer treatment and related fluctuating energy level. It was a little awkward to explain so much about my life to new acquaintances, but I guessed the benefits would outweigh the awkwardness.

Last Sunday I had the opportunity to visit with a lot of people after worship. No one mentioned my note explicitly, but I could tell many of them had read it and that it helped them know how to talk to me and how to offer help. Lots of people asked if this is a good week -- that is, are you feeling well today? It is so much easier for me to establish comfortable connections with people when they have a context for understanding my varied behavior.

Tomorrow I will have chemo again, and on Sunday I will probably be tired and not too interested in chatting. I will likely rest in my husband's office while the kids go to Sunday school. Me hiding in his office while everyone else is in Bible study could be pretty confusing. But since most people know I need to do that sometimes, I don't think it will be an issue. My husband has even said my note has helped him answer questions about how I'm doing.

Thumbs up for this little project.

Experimental Honesty

The last time my husband took a call, our three children were between 6 months and 3 yrs. old. We were in the midwest and it was the middle of winter. I didn't get out too much.

I assumed that people in our new church would understand that managing my little gang was a full-time task and it would take me a while to get to know them. We went to worship on Sunday morning and tried to stay for some of the fellowship time, but it was intimidating to be in a crowd of people I didn't know while my children wandered off.

I fretted about the tension between parenting and being involved in church as I thought a pastor's wife *should*. Once or twice my husband told me that some people seemed confused about why they never saw me. SERIOUSLY? It doesn't take much creativity to imagine that a new community, a bunch of little kids, and a husband with a new job = all I can take.

Now, my husband has taken a new call once again and I am in a compromised position once again. This time it's cancer treatment, and it seems like everyone would know because they've been praying for me all summer and are bringing me meals every couple of weeks. But I have learned not to assume. So I wrote this for the church newsletter:

Dear [church] friends,

What a blessing it is for us to be here with you! You have shown us such kindness and care. I am thankful for you.

Thank you especially for your prayers, concern and thoughtfulness for me during my cancer treatment. I have finished 3 of 12 bi-weekly chemotherapy treatments. On the weeks that I have treatment I tend to feel very tired. On those Sundays I love to be in worship but may not have the energy to visit much. Your prayers and patience during these months are a generous gift.

With praise to God for His ministry here,

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Nobody has said anything to me about it, and I don't really expect that they will. I feel more at ease just knowing I've made an effort to let them know. It's awkward to tell a couple hundred people I just met about a part of my life that makes me feel so compromised, so distant from the self I know. I've tried fear and anxiety with a congregation and that turned out badly, so this time I'll try trust and see how things go.