Warning: Not particularly coherent post ahead.
Being a pastor requires night meetings and other assorted things: wedding rehearsals, gatherings. I know this. I also know that when my life is a little bit out of whack, I resent them deeply because of the time they take away from my child, because of the costs sometimes involved with childcare, because of the costs to my own sense of well-being and/or balance in life.
For a long time now I've wanted to be a pastor when I grow up. Wanted in that sense of feeling called and truly enjoying what I do. Since we had a lot of time in the car over the past vacation, and it's what we do, DH and I talked about what we each want to be when we grow up. These days he has a much clearer sense of what he wants to do, beyond his current pastor gig, than I do. It's not a competition between us in the sense that because he knows I should know, too, but rather one that makes me think more about my own contentment/calling/discernment.
Just coming off of vacation (I'll stop mentioning that soon), I can see some of these things without a lot of drama. Of course a week, two weeks, tomorrow, I'll be ready to cry into my coffee cup again. The most frustrating part of all of this for me is not being able to really implement a plan to prevent the freak-out. In my head I know some of the coping things that would help (wider network of friends, regular exercise, enough sleep, eating well, all those healthy things) but I don't have the ability/gumption/something to implement them.
6 comments:
I hear you, Pink Shoes!!! Lots of prayers and hugs your way.
Thinking of you..
Feeling for you
Hi. I found your blog via the revgal ring. I SOOOO much resonate with this! I'm the pastor of a congregation in northwestern Illinois and mother to an 18 month old and another on the way. I've taken a huge cut in pay to be able to keep my daughter with me most of the time, but the juggling of calling as mother and calling as pastor and calling as wife as well as my own sometimes intensely selfish desires to just run away sometimes is something I'm very seldom good at managing.
Thank God for grace, understanding family and a 60-day termination clause in my contract! (ok...kidding about the last one...)
Anyway, thank you for this post and your blog. I hope vacation invigorates your return! ~April
I think part of what keeps me going (apart from the little glimpses of hope that I see in my congregation, etc., blah) is knowing that there are others out there struggling with similar things. Misery loves company? Sort of, but I think it's more than that -- I think it's strength from knowing that if someone else is doing it, then so can I -- and it helps to know that I'm not silly/crazy/alone in feeling how I do!
Thanks, all, for weighing in!
it seems like everyone i talk to is in the same sort of mood lately...to the point that i've found myself in a simliar one...
I've managed to convince a friend/sortofcoworker to be gym buddies with me....after one workout i feel better already....that and weeding at the church :) (except for the poison ivy! how'd that get there??)
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