Stress Contagion

The last several weeks have not gone smoothly for me at church. A series of problems involving the kids -- sickness, tears and pleas for me to stay in Sunday school, multiplied misbehavior during worship -- has disrupted my plan every week.

I am an excessively self-aware parent. I regularly evaluate my own behavior and attitudes and try to decipher how I am affecting my children. I have purposely avoided analyzing our Sunday morning misadventures. There are so many reasonable explanations: they are young, there are three of them, it is winter, they are tired, I am tired.

I'm losing patience with these explanations, though. I'm pretty sure the stress I feel on Sunday is getting them wound up. I don't have any idea what I might do about it. Sunday is stressful. I want desperately to be at church and to be glad I'm there. No matter what I pray, or read, or try to think about during worship, the underlying conflict erupts somewhere.

The weeks ahead promise to be more complicated than the last few months. We are developing plans to move away from this situation and transition brings anxiety and conflict up from the locked closet in the basement.

This week someone reminded me of how "late" Jesus was when his dear friend Lazarus became sick. Lazarus was dead by the time Jesus got there. If Jesus had shown up when people thought he should, then the miracle of Lazarus' resurrection would not have happened. I cannot fix my Sunday morning stress, but I can try to be patient and trust God for the outcome.

This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God's glory so that God's Son may be glorified through it. John 11:4

A Forgiving Community

I've been following the Church Whisperer blog, which deals with church conflict, and this post particularly struck me. It's a meditation on Luke 7:41-47, in which Jesus explains the connection between being forgiven and forgiving. The kind of transparency and humility he describes is exactly what I crave in a congregation.

Unexpected Kindness

At church this weekend I was surprised by unsolicited kind comments from a couple of church members. A man I know only a little, and who I would not have assumed to be fond of my husband's ministry style, was chatting with my kids and told them, "Your dad is a good pastor. One of the best!"

So sweet and so poignant. I realized, as I sometimes have before, that the conflict here is localized to just a few people who happen to be very powerful in this congregation. I've heard that major church conflict is usually confined to 7-10 vocal critics. Our experience seems to support that theory.

Just One Little Change

Fellow wives of pastors,

Do you ever think you would like to keep everything about your life just as it is except for the part about being married to a pastor?

mp

Up and Down and Up and Down

I like a plan. I really, really want a plan. We have a good one going now and I've enjoyed the fantasy that I know what/where/how life will be for a few months.

Several years ago I felt like my life was too boring and predictable and I craved adventure and variety. Now I want stability and predictability more than most anything else. A side-effect of parenthood, perhaps?

A few days ago my husband got a note from someone inviting him to consider a new ministry opportunity. He seemed excited about the idea but I wanted to smash his computer and unplug the telephone. I couldn't sleep that night. At midnight I was the on the couch with a blanket over my head to muffle the sound of my screaming. I cried so hard my nose bled and then I was in the laundry room spraying stain remover on said blanket.

Hurt Feelings

How do you balance hurt feelings with compassion for the jerk who hurt you?

I suppose not calling him a jerk would help.

I am absolutely sure that senior pastor is making decisions that he considers good, responsible, Christian. I am also absolutely sure that, from my perspective, he seems to be a poor manager, self-centered, short-sighted, lacking compassion, and sometimes just mean. "Mean" implies evil intention, which I do not believe he has. I feel like he does.

I want so much to let go of this guy. Why do I care what he does or thinks or feels about Husband or me? Don't I have better things to do? It's like he creeps up on me when I'm trying to ignore him. I've been browsing the book Boundaries by Drs. Cloud and Townsend. They describe healthy boundaries as permeable in a specific way: allowing good to come in, and keeping bad out. I'm sure that trying to make sense of a relationship that has persisted in senselessness qualifies as "bad" that would be better kept out.

Encouragement

Some significant relief this week. I posted earlier about making a major transition and praying the senior pastor would manage to be supportive. He has agreed to share some lumber for our bridge. I am so thankful.

I'm also still po'd at him. I thought that this might be the point where his shell would come off and he would finally reveal some awareness of the pain my husband and I have suffered in this situation. No such luck. All business.

A reader wrote to tell me about a resource for clergy wives. I've just browsed a little but it looks great. It's called BethNuah Ministries. I read a devotion posted there about loneliness. It's so good to hear someone else identify so many of the situations that have made me feel so incredibly isolated within our congregation.