Pride and Honesty
Perhaps I don't feel the strength to be as honest as I would like to be. I search and think and the perfect words seems to fall effortlessly into place like so many snowflakes alighting from heaven. Then I sit at the computer and they mysteriously disappear.
In fact, I do have something to say. What I want to say is beautiful and chilling. It is the realization that I am desperately weak and yet unquenchably strong. So there it is, I am human.
What I fail to realize so many times is that my pride is a setup for failure. I seem to recall something from 1st grade Sunday School and pride going before the fall and from 6th grade Proverbs study that haughtiness is inexorably linked with destruction. I know this and yet I forget. Like some bigmouth sticking my foot into my mouth yet a billionth time, I forget my weakness and fall prey to this most human trait.
What brought this to mind is painful to speak of. It is humiliating and embarrassing. It is probably good for me. Sometimes the truth hurts. Titus and I have "taken over" (whatever that means) our little church. My dad, for reasons of his own that are another long and painful story, was wanting to relinquish his leadership role. Titus stepped in to fill that gap. It felt a little weird, since our group has always been small and informal, to think of him as the "pastor" of the church. But, whatever you call him, since he (and myself by extension) had been in a leadership role, pretty much every family has left the church. The exception to this is my parents, and Janice, and one couple who actually came back. So we are 7.
The painful thing is for me to be honest enough to admit that I had hitched some part of my identity to this new found role (of what? Pastor's wife?). Somehow, I, in my ever human condition, had glommed onto this position. If this was a title, then by all means we should excel! We should be the best! We should grow our church with vision and passion! Yet, I was conflicted. I felt embarrassed to tell people that we were pastoring a church of 30 people. It felt silly, like we were a couple of children dressed up in big people's clothes pretending to go to work.
And so, instead of growing our numbers of 30ish, we shrunk to 7. Is this defeat? A sign we are not in the right place? Should we give up and join a mega church? I don't know the answers to all of these questions. I am, however, learning that any answer I find that is not completely wrapped up in being in love with Jesus, is not the right answer. Any answer that is formulated so that I can feel like a legitimate "Christian" at family gatherings and amongst party goers, will leave me coming up short. I think Paul said something like, if I was doing this for man's approval, I would have given up a long time ago.
I guess I am here to present myself as an offering. A love offering at the feet of Jesus. It makes me cringe to say it, but yes, we pastor a church of 7 people. (I know its horrible that I cringe and I'm not sure if it's more at the title "pastor" or the number "7"). We feel we are where we are supposed to be. Right now our congregation is a small group of people who really love each other. They are people who have been deeply wounded and are on a journey of healing and freedom together; and speaking for myself, learning that Christ is not judging on the same criterion as anybody else.
This is the same old story, just a different venue. As soon as I was given the title, "mother" I felt I needed to somehow validate that title with certain behavior. The irony is, just like the potty training of my son, as soon as I give up - change begins. With Joe, I had come to the ego-bursting realization that my son was not going to toilet train before age 3. No amount of candy, cookies, praise, punishment, soiled underware, or encouragement made any difference. I finally realized that my primary concern had been how other people would view me as a mother, perhaps as lazy, unskilled, or inadequit. When I could finally lay that down and focus on what was best for my son, I realized that he would do it when he was ready. And he did. Inexplicably, one day he came to me and said, "I pooped in the toilet." When I went to the toilet to validate this exclamation I saw that he had flushed the evidence. But after 3 days of this and no poop in any diapers or underware, I figure he must be either very backlogged or he was telling the truth. Either that or one day I will come upon a cache of hidden poopy diapers, but I find that possibility both unlikely and too disturbing to bear.
So the moral of the story is this - if you are worried about having all your sh*t together, you will continually have a mess on your hands. The only one capable of dealing with all our crap is Jesus. I have to keep realizing that I am mess without my Jesus. ("I'm still a man in need of a savior.")
And the even more amazing thing is, instead of just dealing with us, he makes us truly beautiful. I'm working towards the day I can have my identity completely wrapped in no other title than, "beloved of God". I think that will be a beautiful moment. I am looking forward to it.
In fact, I do have something to say. What I want to say is beautiful and chilling. It is the realization that I am desperately weak and yet unquenchably strong. So there it is, I am human.
What I fail to realize so many times is that my pride is a setup for failure. I seem to recall something from 1st grade Sunday School and pride going before the fall and from 6th grade Proverbs study that haughtiness is inexorably linked with destruction. I know this and yet I forget. Like some bigmouth sticking my foot into my mouth yet a billionth time, I forget my weakness and fall prey to this most human trait.
What brought this to mind is painful to speak of. It is humiliating and embarrassing. It is probably good for me. Sometimes the truth hurts. Titus and I have "taken over" (whatever that means) our little church. My dad, for reasons of his own that are another long and painful story, was wanting to relinquish his leadership role. Titus stepped in to fill that gap. It felt a little weird, since our group has always been small and informal, to think of him as the "pastor" of the church. But, whatever you call him, since he (and myself by extension) had been in a leadership role, pretty much every family has left the church. The exception to this is my parents, and Janice, and one couple who actually came back. So we are 7.
The painful thing is for me to be honest enough to admit that I had hitched some part of my identity to this new found role (of what? Pastor's wife?). Somehow, I, in my ever human condition, had glommed onto this position. If this was a title, then by all means we should excel! We should be the best! We should grow our church with vision and passion! Yet, I was conflicted. I felt embarrassed to tell people that we were pastoring a church of 30 people. It felt silly, like we were a couple of children dressed up in big people's clothes pretending to go to work.
And so, instead of growing our numbers of 30ish, we shrunk to 7. Is this defeat? A sign we are not in the right place? Should we give up and join a mega church? I don't know the answers to all of these questions. I am, however, learning that any answer I find that is not completely wrapped up in being in love with Jesus, is not the right answer. Any answer that is formulated so that I can feel like a legitimate "Christian" at family gatherings and amongst party goers, will leave me coming up short. I think Paul said something like, if I was doing this for man's approval, I would have given up a long time ago.
I guess I am here to present myself as an offering. A love offering at the feet of Jesus. It makes me cringe to say it, but yes, we pastor a church of 7 people. (I know its horrible that I cringe and I'm not sure if it's more at the title "pastor" or the number "7"). We feel we are where we are supposed to be. Right now our congregation is a small group of people who really love each other. They are people who have been deeply wounded and are on a journey of healing and freedom together; and speaking for myself, learning that Christ is not judging on the same criterion as anybody else.
This is the same old story, just a different venue. As soon as I was given the title, "mother" I felt I needed to somehow validate that title with certain behavior. The irony is, just like the potty training of my son, as soon as I give up - change begins. With Joe, I had come to the ego-bursting realization that my son was not going to toilet train before age 3. No amount of candy, cookies, praise, punishment, soiled underware, or encouragement made any difference. I finally realized that my primary concern had been how other people would view me as a mother, perhaps as lazy, unskilled, or inadequit. When I could finally lay that down and focus on what was best for my son, I realized that he would do it when he was ready. And he did. Inexplicably, one day he came to me and said, "I pooped in the toilet." When I went to the toilet to validate this exclamation I saw that he had flushed the evidence. But after 3 days of this and no poop in any diapers or underware, I figure he must be either very backlogged or he was telling the truth. Either that or one day I will come upon a cache of hidden poopy diapers, but I find that possibility both unlikely and too disturbing to bear.
So the moral of the story is this - if you are worried about having all your sh*t together, you will continually have a mess on your hands. The only one capable of dealing with all our crap is Jesus. I have to keep realizing that I am mess without my Jesus. ("I'm still a man in need of a savior.")
And the even more amazing thing is, instead of just dealing with us, he makes us truly beautiful. I'm working towards the day I can have my identity completely wrapped in no other title than, "beloved of God". I think that will be a beautiful moment. I am looking forward to it.
Comments
Your transparency allows a clear view into a rare and beautiful sight: a humble heart being continually refined by our Creator.
To sum it up, you're the bee's knees. Please keep on being you.
I love being around you, Elizabeth, even though I don't know you all that well. You are real, relaxed, and a blast. The integrity and beauty that you live life with is inspirational.
So there.