Church Budgets

There were a couple of meetings at church last night about budget problems. I know, crazy! A church with financial challenges! I don't know the ins and outs of it, but judging by the number of church members who are out of work or who have moved away in the last several months because they found work elsewhere, I suspect the difference between income and expenses is significant.

My husband tries to keep his hands off the money situation but it's hard to stay uninvolved when hard choices will need to be made. We were both braced for bad news last night.

But then he came home early from the meeting. And he was smiling. It was a very strange experience.

The church council has a plan and is still trusting God to make up the shortfall. To me, the most important part of their plan was: Pastor, don't worry about this. We want you to teach us and care for our spiritual needs. We are responsible for figuring out the budget.

I love these people.

The Parsonage

We live in a parsonage. My husband has been a pastor for ten years and this is our first time in a church-owned house. I think I love it.

When we left the seminary I was dead-set against going to a church with a parsonage. I pictured a sad, neglected house and fights with the property board when the toilet broke.

What I live in right now is a lovely, well-cared for home that has plenty of space for our family. Someone else cuts the grass and shovels the snow. Posh!

The main drawback of being in a parsonage is that the fishbowl effect is magnified. Everyone at church knows where we live. Everyone in our neighborhood knows we are the pastor's family because this house has belonged to the church for decades. My husband jokes about "the compound" - as in, "Today I never left the compound. Home, church, home, church." The church is on one edge of the parking lot and our house is on the other.

I've heard that living in a parsonage can blur the line between home and work but for us, it has made the boundary between more clear. When my husband needs to work he can always get to church, so he rarely works at home.

Ten years ago this would have been an unhealthy situation for us. I would have been too sensitive to being so easily known. I would have felt self-conscious most of the time. Now, however, I am comforted by the congregation's care for us and usually like the easy movement between home and church.

That we are here now reassures me that God knows our needs and He provides for us with wisdom we could not understand. May He lead me to trust Him more.

A Place of Mercy and Grace

The pastor who preached at my husband's installation is familiar with the miserable situation out of which we came. After the service we spoke briefly and he assured me that there would be challenges at this new congregation, "but I pray this will be a place of mercy and grace for you."

I think of that often. So far it seems to be so. The general mood of the place seems to be confidence in God's work among and through the congregation.

A couple of weeks ago we had a visiting pastor. His sermon referenced the parable of the pharisee and the tax collector from Luke chapter 18:

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

“I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

How often, in our last congregation, I felt like the tax collector! It's strange for me to say, since I grew up attending church and have, as far as anyone else could tell, a well-behaved life. But there I constantly felt inadequate.

The tone of the sr. pastor's sermons, conversations, aspirations for the congregation seemed to be that the members of our church were set apart, closer to God than others. I would not have been surprised to hear him say in a sermon, "God, I thank you that the people of this congregation are not like other people. We follow your laws and deserve your attention. Help us make other people more like us."

It sounds so appalling that you'd think some among us could have rioted, but in practice it is insidious. It happens gradually, it's hard to identify exactly what's going on, and then one day you wake up and realize you feel less than. Less good than other people in your church. Less obedient. Less worthy of any blessings.

Being now in a congregation that, to my eyes, seems loving and merciful and humble causes me a different kind of pain. I am ever more aware of how lacking mercy and humility our last congregation was. I grieve for the years we spent there and for the dear people who might be misled by what is happening there.

Sitting with Sadness

One of the things I've started trying to attend to as a parent is letting my kids feel sad. It's hard. I want to talk them out of feeling sad or frustrated, to move the frame so they just see the happy things. The other day my son lost two rounds of Candyland and he was despondent. He sobbed for about ten minutes. I wanted to say, "Really? Candyland? Buck up, mister. It's no big deal." But to him it was a huge deal. Losing is very sad for a competitive six-year-old. He sat on my lap and I made soothing sounds and waited. After a while he stopped crying and started talking about something else.

For most of my life I have distracted myself from things that are sad. It's much easier for me to be angry, or feel guilty, or tell myself it's not worth being sad about. That's one of the things I learned from talking to a therapist. My therapist doesn't take it personally if I feel sad. Most of the time, she'd nod her head and say something like, "Of course you're sad! Life should not be this way!"

The problem with sadness, for me, is that there is nothing to do about it. It just is. And it hurts. The only thing to do is feel it, say it, complain to God about it, expect it will end sometime, and wait.

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,

[mp]

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.

Tempted to Be Weary

My birthday is coming up in the fall and the schedule for my chemotherapy indicates that I will spend my special day attached to the pump of toxicity. Noticing that scheduling quirk caused me to reflect on the circumstances of my last few birthdays:

• three years ago: preparing to sell our house and move as Husband took a new call
• two years ago: the week we realized Husband needed a medical leave for severe depression
• last year: at the hospital with my 3-year-old son and his ruptured appendix

A strange little tradition I've got there. I could find other formats to fill in with timelines of discouragement. Some weeks I feel like the frustrations, large and small, accumulate endlessly and I am tempted to be weary. I feel sometimes that I have suffered enough and have earned the right to throw up my hands and give in. Who can endure this? Who keeps paddling against this flow of bad mojo when the current does not slow?

God is so gentle with me. He has not once whacked me on the head for thinking these things. He reminds me that I'm not paddling, I'm sitting in the canoe and He is paddling.

The other night, while Husband was at a meeting, my youngest son vomited several times. It lasted for exactly the two hours that I was alone with the kids. I was nearly overwhelmed with the feeling that I could not continue, that life was becoming too much for me. God brought to mind the passage from Isaiah, "Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint." (40:31).

I have never understood that "they will run and not grow weary" because God strengthens them. I now think of this every day. Life is so hard right now, and every day I am tempted to think that I cannot stay in the canoe. God reminds me that He will keep me here and give me what I need today.

I expect that next year my birthday will be free of crisis. I know that it might not be. It is possible that some circumstance even more distressing than those of recent years is waiting for me there. My hope rests on knowing that God will be there either way.

En Garde!

I am drowning in offers of help.

Is it ok to consider that challenging?

My life is entirely too much for me these days. My life has been too much for me for a long time now. I mentioned briefly in one post that I have cancer. I recently began a six-month course of chemotherapy. For some reason, being diagnosed with cancer and hearing I needed chemo did not knock me off balance. It seemed of a piece with depression - another long, ugly illness that will be resolved eventually.

Now that we have moved and I've started treatment, I am losing my balance. The move is, big picture, great for our family. In the short term it is incredibly stressful. Everything is new, we have no routine, the kids are excited and confused and uncertain. The chemotherapy is an enormous wrench in the gears of trying to get settled. The primary side effect for me so far is severe fatigue. It looks like I'll be alternating good week/crummy week for a few months.

When someone loving and capable offers to help, I am confident that God loves me and is going to provide what we need to get through this. I also wonder if I am going to pay for it later.

What I need most is help with my children. A stunning number of people in our new congregation have offered to spend time with the kids while I cope with treatments. I am sifting through the offers. A few people appear very needy themselves, so I smile, thank them for the generous offer, and never call for help. Almost everyone else seems fine, but there are so many ways that inviting virtual strangers into the intimate connection of caring for my children can become awkward. Do they expect a "special" connection with the pastor's family? If I ask for help once, will it be offensive if I do not ask again?

I am in no position to return any favors. Not only do I need substantial tangible help, but I lack the emotional energy to tend to other people's needs with any depth or consistency. I am in a tunnel of my own family's needs.

We all depend on God's grace at all times, but that dependence is not always evident in our everyday lives. Right now, my dependence on grace is acute. It makes me feel fragile, exposed. I trust God. I'm not so sure about His people.

Here We Are

The move is done. We're in a new home, getting acquainted with a new congregation, trying to remember where we packed our toothbrushes and underwear.

In the last week, we have been given:

chocolate chip cookies

brownies

zucchini bread

tomatoes

a french silk pie

a pan of chicken enchiladas

banana bread

bundt cake

Today someone rang my doorbell at a very reasonable mid-morning hour and I was still in pajamas. (Life is just like that around here sometimes.) It was a woman of my mother's age holding a loaf of bread. That I was not in streetclothes was only briefly awkward as we introduced ourselves and shared pleasantries.

Happily, I find I am not skeptical about any of these gifts. I do not accept them wondering at what point the giver will feel disappointed in me and turn away. I accept them as expressions of God's generosity and the congregation's delight in our arrival.

Is There Good Paranoia for a Pastor's Wife?

My last post, about negotiating relationships with church members, sparked some particularly interesting comments. Here are some highlights:

"We don't want to be completely paranoid, but we do have to remember that the congregation is full of sinners." (Susan)

"I learned as a pastor's kid that the people who were the nicest to us when we moved there were going to be the first ones to betray us later on. As a pastor's wife, I now live a life of distrust, fear, anxiety and paranoia. But then I ask, if everyone really IS out to get the pastor and his family, is it paranoia? The reality is, Satan is after the one who distributes God's means of grace--the pastor. His family is fair game too. Our problem is, how do we deal with this reality without going nuts?" (Kathrine)

"We've been here almost 7 months, and we haven't had anyone accuse us of anything we haven't done, spread lies to try and undermine [my husband's] authority in the church - heck, even try to be underhanded with each other! There are some really good churches out there - I'm praying you have found yours. I know finding ours has gone a long way in healing my kicked and beaten up heart." (MamaOnABudget)

Clearly, a lot of pw's find this tricky territory. I can relate to the paranoia Kathrine describes. That's precisely how I felt in the midst of the conflict at our last church. We had been so deeply hurt and the feeling that my husband was under constant threat put me on guard with everyone in the church. In retrospect, I can see that it was a very small group of people that had any grief with us. Let's say there were 500 people in the church -- 10 were angry with my husband, 100 were very supportive of him, and the other 400 had no idea what was going on in the church office.

Like Kathrine, I felt like those 10 people were "out to get" us. Now it doesn't seem quite that way. In fact, I believe now that they felt threatened by us. Somehow we posed a threat to something they considered essential about the church. They weren't out to get us; they were trying to protect themselves.

Susan is wise to point out that the church is full of sinners - including us and our husbands. I'm praying to be part of a church where we all freely acknowledge our sinfulness. That's one thing that was clearly absent in the leadership of our last church.

MamaOnABudget, how blessed I would be to live among a group of Christians who trust each other and their pastor! Perhaps we will. It has lately occurred to me that the goal of life is not to escape suffering. I want to escape it, and I will exert tremendous energy to avoid pain, but I am beginning to understand that when I cannot see past the misery God is still trustworthy.

Same PW, New Setting

We've spent the last few weeks packing and I've been tossing out cards and small gifts we received from people at our old congregation who have since stopped speaking to us. I am reminded of what our arrival was like - the families who most enthusiastically welcomed us, who were most concerned with our comfort and well-being. To a one, they are now absent.

Those cards and gifts were not for US, they were for the family they expected us to be. I did not betray them; they were betrayed by their own expectations. Because I do not express my Christian faith they way they think I *should* they choose not to maintain a relationship with me. That hurt deeply at first but now it warrants a shoulder shrug. Their loss.

It's a troubling pattern to consider as we prepare to greet a new congregation as our home and family. I am tempted to stand back and keep everyone at arm's length until I can get the lay of the land. What are your expectations? Do you want to know me, or do you want me to be someone you already think you know?

Some people say it's good to trust people until you have a reason not to. That may be wise; it is definitely risky. For me this is one of the biggest challenges of being married to the pastor.

Anxiety Fatigue

We're deep in the midst of moving activity and my anxiety is spreading like the toy cars and dinosaurs my kids leave on the floor. There are so many unresolved pieces and there is no way to settle them quickly. A big one is that I will need several months of chemotherapy and it needs to start right around the time we are moving. That should be settled this week after I meet with my new oncologist, but in the meantime it's keeping me agitated.

I'm not sure what to do about all this. Moving requires a lot of energy and is necessarily unsettling. Focusing on God's steadfastness gives me confidence that the floor is not falling out beneath me entirely. I am not in despair. Faith in Christ does not resolve every contingency of this life, though.

I've been thinking of the Israelites wandering the desert and relying on God's daily provision of manna. I've always heard that episode described in terms of the miracle of God's provision and how Israel learned to depend on God every day. A miracle it certainly was. I'd guess it was also frustrating and anxiety-inducing.

Crazy

A few weeks ago I wrote that a congregation had called my husband. He has accepted the call. That is (of course!) good news. It also has the potential to make me completely insane.

By the end of the summer, we will have packed and unpacked our entire house, live in a new community, my kids will be in new schools, we will all be getting acquainted with a new congregation and a new schedule, and I will be visiting an oncologist twice a month for therapeutic poison-drips. Nothing on that list appeals to me. Every bit of it has come to me unbidden.

Here's the crazy part: I am not freaked out. I am, today, entirely calm. I feel content about accepting the call and making the move. I feel confident that God is guiding us there and that He will provide what we need as we need it. I am almost rolling my eyes at myself as I write this because it sounds so pious.

I feel like I am witnessing my own death and resurrection. I surrender. I give up on trying to figure out my life and make it work right. I'll focus on today and thank God for giving me the grace to trust that He will provide everything I need when tomorrow gets here.

Presence

I recently read a book that dealt primarily with a grown man's memory of the year he was 11 and his uncle died suddenly, violently. The movement of the story is the assembly of his memory, his childhood understanding, and his deeper adult understanding of what happened.

The most affecting scene is of the 11-year-old boy, Andy, sitting in the living room with his father and grandparents one night when all three adults separately and simultaneously weep. It is a stunning image of raw, private grief. It's a difficult and confusing thing for the boy to witness.

As an adult, after his father has passed away, Andy wonders why he never asked his father more about the uncle's death:

Why, as I got older, did I not ask my father for his version of these events? Now that he is dead, it is easy to wish that I had asked. And yet I know why I did not. I did not want to live again in the great pain I had felt in the old house that night when he had wept so helplessly with Grandma and Grandpa. I did not want to be with him in the presence of that pain where only it and we existed.

I did not want to be with him in the presence of that pain where only it and we existed. I know exactly what he means. How I have feared being in the presence of pain and the way the world shrinks to a horrible, tiny place where there is nothing but grief.

But isn't this the tremendous gift of Jesus? There is no place on earth where we are alone with pain. God is always with us, present in the deepest, most isolating pain. His presence is what I need most.

What I (Don’t) Pray For

God pointed out something distressing to me today. I write down some of the people I want to remember to pray for and all of them are people who do not live in my house. I neglect to ask God’s blessing on the people closest to me! It’s shameful.

The reason for the omission was immediately clear to me. Every intercessory prayer on my list is a person or situation over which I am sure I have no control - people who are sick or grieving, or who are on the periphery of my life such that I care about them but have no influence over them.

My family, however, is *my* responsibility. I take care of my kids and participate in the important aspects of my husband’s life. If something is not right with one of them, I take steps to make it better.

The layers of my illusion that I have control are stunning. I’ve written down the names of my kids and my husband because it seems I need to be reminded that God is responsible for them and He’s invited me to express His care and love for them.

Where To Look

On facebook I posted a link to this list of 10 ways Christians tend to fail at being Christian. Someone commented that maybe “we should all make a list and look very carefully for ourselves in it.” I don’t have time for that! I’ve got my hands full detailing other people’s self-righteousness!

For the last couple of weeks I’ve had a decent routine of personal devotion that is really good for me. It’s generous of God to give me a disposition toward this habit. I have found, though, that every chapter I read leaves me thinking about sr pastor and how destructive and misguided his efforts are. Stupid brain. I don’t want to be thinking about him, even to consider in detail his misunderstanding of the Christian life.

I am of two minds - maybe I’m being sinfully distracted from God’s message about himself and me, or maybe this is a necessary step in making sense of (and discarding the lies of) what’s been going on for the last couple of years. I’m not sure how to distinguish between the two.

I have exerted a lot of energy trying not to judge sr pastor & co., but realized that I have to judge their actions so that I don’t take responsibility for all this misery. “Love the sinner, hate the sinner” is much more complicated than it sounds.

Exposure

After my last post, a reader wrote me with this thoughtful question:

How do you keep people from your previous congregation and even the sr pastor from reading your blog? Are you ever afraid they will identify you by what you write? I think you are so brave to voice your troubles. I don't know that I could do that.

I have thought about this a lot and people close to me have listened to me fret about it for, cumulatively, hours and hours. Below are some of the things I've decided upon that allow me to write this blog.

It is certainly possible that someone from my old congregation has or will come upon this blog. The majority of them would not ever recognize that I am writing about their church. The people who have hurt me, sr pastor included, seem so unaware of themselves that I would not expect them to see that I am describing their behavior. If they do, I'm not sure what they would do about it. Apart from my description of the conflict I don't think there is anything here that identifies them specifically, so they'd be accusing themselves.

This is why I guard my anonymity so carefully online. I have no interest - ABSOLUTELY NO INTEREST - in identifying the people or the congregation I am describing. I cannot imagine any benefit that would come of that and I write primarily for my own benefit. Describing my experience helps me understand it, cope with it, trust God with it, compartmentalize it. I learn by writing. When I start a post I usually know what I want to write about and have an idea what I will say, but often discover something in the process of explaining myself.

I started this blog almost a year ago and a miraculous, unexpected second purpose has turned out to be creating a community of churchworkers and families who hurt. I thought there might be half a dozen people who would read this. I don't know how many readers I have, but it's more than that. The affirmation, encouragement, and spiritual care I receive from your comments and notes is one of God's great provisions for me.

Finally, Easter!

Feeling Easter-lilyish today. Hopeful. Like I've been wearing sunglasses on a cloudy day all this time, and now the clouds have cleared and my glasses are off and I have to squint because God is shining so brightly in my heart.

No event has inspired this -- Husband is still unemployed, life is still very similar to what it has been for a while. But I feel different.

I even created a new label on this post: hope. Over 100 posts so far and this is the first time it's occurred to me to use "hope" as a category. Thank you, God, for today.

Recovery Week

I've been quiet this week because I suddenly realized how completely exhausted I am. Husband is done. He is no longer pastor at our former church. It is such a relief.

It is not, however, the finished-your-final-exam kind of relief I'd hoped for. It's more of a bad-guys-finally-stopped-chasing-you relief. Several times I longed for a week's beach vacation where my only responsibilities would be moving from bed to beachtowel and back again. I feel spent.

I went on a women's retreat this weekend. I was with a group of several dozen Christian women who did not know me. It was a lovely group -- diverse ages, warm, caring, and open to new friendships. I felt safe among them and realized it's been years since I felt safe in a church group.

God encouraged me through the Bible study and through several different women I met. I was proud of myself for finding a way to be kind & respectful toward our former congregation while also being honest about my sadness. Today someone even described me as "vulnerable," which is not a word I've ever known anyone to use about me.

I feel hopeful and realistic. We have passed an important landmark but the road is still long.

Depression Symptoms: Sleep Disruption

Waking in the early morning hours and not being able to go back to sleep; insomnia

Excess sleep, fatigue

Sleep disruptions of both sorts have bothered me, though I’ve had more trouble with fatigue than insomnia. For the last many months I’ve discovered that when I feel apprehensive, or obliged to do something that seems overwhelmingly difficult, I get sleepy. I suppose it’s a practical defense mechanism. Understanding the connection between fatigue and anxiety is new for me. A few days ago I had counseling appointment and knew it would be helpful but dreaded it. I really wanted to stay home in bed. Understanding the fatigue is helping me fight it. Having an idea of why I feel so tired sometimes helps motivate me to fight the urge.

Periodically I’ve had trouble with waking at night and not being able to get back to sleep. For a while when I was obsessively anxious about the conflict at church I’d wake keep rehearsing the series of offenses and trying to find ways to solve them. This wasn’t ordinary lying-awake-to-solve-problems stuff. It was pointless and I felt I could not stop it.

I still wake sometimes at night fall into unhelpful patterns of thought while I lie in the quiet darkness.

Maybe I’ve done something horribly wrong.

Maybe I don’t belong in the Lutheran church.

God, am I totally missing something?

I’m swimming in an ocean of misery, mistakes, pointlessness and I can’t see the shore.

I’m just starting to learn how to deal with this. I have to open my eyes and shake my head to get out of it. I realized I also need something else to think about. At first I tried praying, but my mind wanders easily from prayer back to self-doubt. Then I tried rehearsing scripture. A phrase from Ephesians 3 came to mind, “I pray that you ... grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ.” I started to think of God’s love as the ocean, wider, longer, higher, and deeper than I could ever understand. I was swimming in an ocean of his love, an absolutely safe place to be. That’s a good thing to ponder in the middle of the night.

To read all the posts in the depression symptoms series, go here.