Sunday, August 23, 2009

marriage, ministry, work and hardships

This morning is very bitter sweet.  It is our pastor's last sermon. His last day of work. I wont go into details  but the whole situation surrounding his departure has been very emotional. Emotional for the church. Emotional for his family. I'm still in shock that he was treated so poorly by some members of the congregation. I never knew that people could be so ugly. Maybe I knew but wasn't expecting it to be within the church.

Anyway, on to why I feel the need to type out a blog before church this morning. This church is the first full time ministry position that my husband has ever had. For five years he was the pastor of a small, and I do mean small, church in a quaint rural town. We fell in love with each person that walked within the doors. They were sweet, caring, God loving, Christians that we began to see as part of our family. They celebrated with us when got married, when we announced the birth of both of our children, when we graduated from college. They mourned with us when we were going through the depths of despair with the lose of a family member(love you papal) with a death of a church member (love you mrs. emily). They were more than willing to give us a pat on the back when we were going through moments of discouragement. I can honestly say that I love that church. I dearly miss it even though I know that it was time to move on. Time to let someone else have the opportunity to meet such great Christian people. 

This church is different. It is more business like. Which I guess you would expect with a larger congregation. We are still in the process of forming relationships with people, which is always difficult. With a full time position the demands on the staff are sometimes immense. I am in a position where I am learning the hardships about being married to a minister. We have not gone through any hardships as of yet but looking at the pastor and his family and all the hardships that they have been through has opened my eyes to the possibilities. Of the things that no matter how hard we try, no matter how prepared we are, will inevitably happen. There are always going to be people within the church that have some sort of problem with you, your husband or your children. There's always going to be that person that enjoys gossiping about the pastors family. I just pray that we will never have to go through the amount of hardship that our pastor and his family has gone through on numerous occasions.

When Roger told me, while we were dating, that he wanted to go into the ministry I was more than willing to support him. I am still all for supporting him. But I had no clue how difficult it can be to be married to a minister. Let me preface this with admitting that we have not actually experienced much of this but I have observed from the wife of our soon to be former minister. At any given time your husband can be called away. For example, called away to the hospital to mourn with a grieving family. At any given time your husband can pack up and move to another state in pursuing another church job. As a wife you don't choose where you live, what church you go to. I mean I guess you talk it over with your husband but when it boils down to it you go where he gets a job. You are constantly waiting and constantly following. You expect this when you marry some sort of other professional as the classic example of a doctor but I had no clue it was like that with a minister. I never thought about the fact that at any given moment he could be called away and that I was to smile, pat him on the back and say "I love you honey. i guess we'll try to have dinner together another night." Or that any given moment he could announce his intentions to apply for an "awsome job out of state" get it and the whole family pack up, leave our friends, family, school and job in order to follow. I guess that was just part of my la la land "oh I'm marrying a minister. he is so handsome" thing.  Now I am married to him, have taken solemn vows and I am in it for the long haul. I love him. 
 
We have come to the conclusion that marriage is hard work, go figure, who knew. So, once a month we send the kids to the grandparents for an extended weekend. This has been one of those weekends and it has been fabulous. I almost feel like I am cheating on my husband with my husband. It's always reassuring when the kids leave that we still have the ability to be alone with one another and actually have fun, acutally have good conversations. I have heard horror stories about couples that divorce after the kids are grown because they have discovered that the kids were the only thing that they had in common. It is so sad. So, we are trying to take time to get to know one another each month because each month we change a little and have to become reacquainted.

This has gone off subject. I better go brush the teeth and head to church. Even though it is the pastor's last Sunday, so sad, we are having two baptisms, so exciting. 

I ask that you keep our pastor in your prayers. There family is going through a rough time right now. Not only is he losing a job but his family is losing a church, his children losing a youth ministry that they seemed to love.  But they seem to have a strong family unit and a very strong marriage.      

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