This is my first post in the past three years. Yes, the bible study that I using as a method to remind me to do this post, discontinued its Blogger post reminders week their studies. I used that as an excuse to quite blogging. It's sad. But it's true.
With that being said, I am now 10 years into my job as a Pastor's wife and I am beginning to think that I have some information worth sharing with others once again.
I have been struggling for the 10 years that we have been in ministry in our small town rural church to figure out exactly where I fit in to my new role.
For a little bit of review. I was living in a city of about 80,000 people when we moved 3 hours away into a town of 2,100 people. Now, I was not completely naïve of small town life because I spent 5 years on a small island in the Smallest State of the Union, Rhode Island USA. It is 7 miles long and 2 miles wide. It had a population of 5,405 in 2010. It was connected by two bridges to main land bodies. While I wasn't driving at the time that I lived there, I do remember driving a bit to do shopping and get to events an other such things. So I thought that was prepared enough for small town living in the Midwest.
I was wrong!
There are several things that have lead to this I believe and I will list them without much extra information for now. I may go into more detail later.
1. My family moved here for a Part Time position as the Pastor of a very old church (150+) with a small congregation.
2. I am a nurse had difficulty finding a Full Time position in the area that didn't require me to be working so many hours that would make my husband unavailable for those in the congregation.
3. Within a year or two of our move we discovered that our youngest son had some severe developmental delays and was later diagnosed with Autism.
4. My husband was able to get a second Part Time job which eventually lead to a Full Time position, but we had to wait for over 5 years for that to happen.
5. I figured out that I was literally working my full time job to pay for the daycare and gas to get back and forth to work (I had to commute an hour each day)
6. So, with both my kids in school, a child with special needs, I made the choice to become a stay at home mom.
7. The area that we live has had progressively bad winter weather every year that we have been here, making travel very difficult.
8. Within the first 5 years of our living here both of our young children had accidents that required significant hospitalizations.
9. Our closest family and friends live 3 hours away.
10. I moved into a depression for several years because I have not been able to find close friends here.
So, that brings me to the point that I am contemplating today. I have been deeply disappointed by people that claim to be a part of the Body of Christ. I have a friend in ministry that used to say to his congregation, if I am not meeting your expectations, lower them, for I am only human.
Unfortunately, I have had to do that with the Body of Christ in general over the years of ministry. I came from a small church by city standards (and probably today's too) of about 200 people. I have been very involved for many years with a ministry of people that have hundreds of people involved.
Currently I do not have that support system other then through social media. So, when things go wrong for my family, I feel alone and abandoned.
It's not anyone's fault, it's the nature of the ministry that we serve. Small, close knit community.
We are outsiders. We will always be outsiders, That is never more evident then when you are in need of physical, tangible help.
Last week I was hospitalized for 4 days. Leaving my husband alone to care of our two boys on his own. For a normal family, my now Middle School Aged children would have been able to handle it as the incontinence that it was. But for my special needs child, it required my husband to stay at home while I lay 20 mins away in a hospital bed, not for sure what was going on or when I would be better.
God is Good! And he took care of us. My husband was already on a three day vacation so he didn't have to take off time from his full time job. (Our primary source of income) And his sister who lives 2 1/2 hours away was also able to change her vacation plans to come and help him take care of the boys.
However, my disappointment came from the local body of Christ. One person, came to our house to help. One family ordered pizza for our family the first night I was back. The next day, Sunday, my husband went to church, did his job and we were left to our own devices. Sad that our society has become so selfish that we are quick to light up a social media post with "Prayers" for one another but never making an effort to really find out what people in need actually need.
Church members of any church forget, I think that when a Pastor excepts a call to your church, they are often leaving behind all their personal support system to do so. Sometime we are lucky enough to live and work where we know a lot of people, sometimes we know no one but the people that come our church "family". How far do any of us get without the Body of Christ?
I think that we would all do well to remember The Parable of the Good Samaritan (Message Version) Luke:25-37
25 Just then a religion scholar stood up with a question to test Jesus. "Teacher, what do I need to do to get eternal life?" 26 He answered, "What's written in God's Law? How do you interpret it?"
27 He said, "That you love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and muscle and intelligence - and that you love your neighbor as well as you do yourself." 28 "Good answer!" said Jesus. "Do it and you'll live."
29 Looking for a loophole, he asked, "And just how would you define 'neighbor'?"
30 Jesus answered by telling a story. "There was once a man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. On the way he was attacked by robbers. They took his clothes, beat him up, and went off leaving him half-dead. 31 Luckily, a priest was on his way down the same road, but when he saw him he angled across to the other side. 32 Then a Levite religious man showed up; he also avoided the injured man.
33 "A Samaritan traveling the road came on him. When he saw the man's condition, his heart went out to him. 34 He gave him first aid, disinfecting and bandaging his wounds. Then he lifted him onto his donkey, led him to an inn, and made him comfortable. 35 In the morning he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, 'Take good care of him. If it costs any more, put it on my bill - I'll pay you on my way back.'
36 "What do you think? Which of the three became a neighbor to the man attacked by robbers?"
37 "The one who treated him kindly," the religion scholar responded. Jesus said, "Go and do the same."
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