Your Mom Has A Blog

How We Got the Love Languages Wrong

by 1 Comment

You’d be hard-pressed to find a discussion on social media about Christian relationships that doesn’t include a mention of the book The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman. Dr. Chapman’s ideas about the ways that couples give and receive love really seemed to revolutionize the Christian marriage counseling world. He hit on something true: we all feel and hear love in different ways.

But, I’ve noticed that, in typical wretched sinner fashion, we have taken this knowledge and used it to grow selfish and dissatisfied in otherwise peaceful marriages. Instead of learning what our spouse’s love language is and then trying with all our might to express love in the ways that we know he will feel the most cared-for, we spend time dwelling on all of the ways that he isn’t meeting our needs. We lament and get on Facebook threads and we decry an otherwise wonderful, godly, loving man because he isn’t good at expressing love in the one way that we have decided we need to receive it.

In truth, we have misused the great information that The Five Love Languages gave us. Instead of using the book as a tool to better understand our husband or wife, we have used it as a weapon to demand more and better and to be utterly dissatisfied with all of the expressions of love that are right in front of us.

As a concept, this book was meant to help us understand our spouse more. It’s meant to help us be better comminucators, more selfless, more focused on the needs of the one who pledged to give an entire life to us. But, we have taken this idea and twisted it into a way to despise the kind and generous and loving things that our husband or wife is doing day after day, all because they don’t fit into a very small mold of what we have convinced ourselves we need. And then we become obsessed with what we feel is lacking instead of grateful for what is really there.

The Five Love Languages can be a great way for us to learn about our spouse. It can be a wonderful tool in marriage. But, like all good things, when we allow our sinful and selfish tendencies to pervert it, the Love Languages can become a detriment to an otherwise happy and healthy marriage. The Bible teaches us that love is not envious, proud, or self-seeking. It isn’t easily angered and keeps no record of wrongs. The last thing we should be doing is taking Dr. Chapman’s helpful concept and turning it into an excuse to sin against our spouse. Maybe what we should do instead is forget we ever learned what our own love language is and focus instead on how we can “speak” to our spouse in a way that makes him or her feel absolutely loved. And then we should “listen” to all of the ways that our spouse is speaking to us, refusing to reject acts of love just because they don’t fit into a category that is found nowhere in Scripture. We are wasting so much time trying to demand love in the way that we think we deserve it. If we will only open our hearts and minds and arms to the love that is already there, contentment and peace will follow.

Hospitality is Not Homebound

by 20 Comments

Hospitality has been a major buzz word in Christian circles for a few years now. Some excellent books have been written about the importance of rediscovering the lost art of welcoming people into your home. I have attended more than one women’s conference where sessions were geared toward already overloaded and guilt-ridden women like myself, with certain questions posed by women who are obviously passionate about their homes, and about things like hosting themed parties: “Do you often host people in your home?” “If not, why not?” “Did you know that the Bible clearly tells us to open our homes to others?” “Have you heard about what happened with Rosaria Butterfield when someone asked her over for dinner?” Ok, I’m kidding with that last one. But, there has clearly been a push among women’s ministry circles to more carefully consider the idea of hospitality and what it can look like in our own homes.

That’s a good thing. I agree–we should welcome others into our homes when we can. But, I also want to send a clear message to women like me, women who are rarely home, whose kids are in fifteen different activities after school, whose family generally eats at different times in different cars in different cities because that’s just the phase of life that we’re in: hospitality can happen literally anywhere.

After all, what is hospitality? It’s making people feel warm and welcomed and wanted. And I can do that sitting in the stands at my daughter’s basketball practice with other parents. I can do that in my Sunday school class, at school pickup, in the grocery store, and in the fast food drive thru. I can and should offer hospitality everywhere I go, even if I won’t always do it perfectly. Even if I am not offering a meal or a seat on a comfy couch or a nice hot cup of coffee. None of those things matter as much as a simple attitude of warmth and welcome, wherever my day’s responsibilities take me.

So, in the spirit of encouraging my fellow women, here are just a few ways that you are probably already extending hospitality to those around you.

1. You offer hospitality at church.
Chad often jokes about how most men can walk into a Sunday school classroom with one thought: “Where are the donuts?” while most women walk in and are instantly aware of the various emotional and relational issues in the room. As a general rule, women put people at ease by being sensitive to all of the dynamics that are going on in a certain situation, like a Sunday school classroom.

Women decorate rooms in the church and make it a welcoming place. You cook, clean, and serve meals, and you organize events and form groups that help people find their place in the building and in the body.

You are more likely to put young mothers at ease as you welcome their children. You plan lessons that you hope will delight the kids, and you kiss bumps and hand out bandaids and you offer snacks to chubby little outstretched hands. You soothe and rock and pat and play.

Women invite others into the Word of God, in their classes and Bible studies, trying to clearly communicate that this is our common ground, this gospel, this truth, and that no matter where our lives have taken us, here in this place we are all offered peace, grace, and mercy. The gospel is the ultimate offer of welcome and warmth and belonging, and when you attend church faithfully, when you serve and you teach and you study and you come to each Sunday knowing that you are not going to a building, but to live out the truth that you ARE the church, then you, women, are already offering hospitality.

2. You offer hospitality at work.
Some of you go to a workplace every day where you are keenly aware of some of the personal struggles of coworkers. Chances are you spend a good deal of your work day encouraging other people, listening, and offering advice to those who need it. You reach out to people, check on people, and make emotional and intellectual connections with people that make a positive difference in their day. No matter your line of work, you probably spend time every day helping others, nurturing those who need it.

Some of you stay home during the day, serving your own little children. You are doing some of the most difficult and overwhelming hospitality work, creating a daily world where your kids can flourish. Don’t doubt for a moment that this type of offering is not true hospitality. Your job of daily filling your child’s heart and mind with warmth and welcome, making them feel wanted even while you are called to train them in some very frustrating seasons of parenting, is one of the clearest pictures in our world of laying down your life for another.

3. You offer hospitality most everywhere you go. 
Sometimes you are free and can have people over to your house. And sometimes you aren’t. That doesn’t mean that you are out of the hospitality business. Hospitality is not centered only around our homes. The truth is that hospitality is about YOU, not your house or your schedule or your cooking skills. What people want is an openness, a kindness, and a posture that says that you are available and you care, and you can offer that wherever you go. And if you think about it, you probably do, just as a natural overflow of who you were created to be in Christ.

I love to have people over to our house at times. But at other times it’s all I can do to handle the jobs that await me between church responsibilities, work, raising children, keeping clean underwear in people’s drawers, and so on. Yet, it never fails that I feel pressure to be more and do more. The truth is that once I took a step back and examined what all of this work I’m doing is for, I realized it is ALL hospitality work because I am a woman, and that is what most of us are called to do. We are the welcomers, the warm hugs, the planners, the nurturers. It would be a shame if we let the pressure to put hospitality in a tiny box that looks like dinner around a dining table keep us from experiencing the joy in all of the other hospitality ventures that we are already undertaking.

Remember that this faith is not about trying harder. It’s about the gospel changing who we are. Hospitality will be a natural by-product of that change, whether in our houses or outside of them. Ushering people through the doors of our homes is wonderful. True gospel purpose can lie in that very thing. But, it is also all around us, in opportunities that go far beyond our dining tables. Don’t let the good message that hospitality is important blind you to the fact that it is not homebound. You can offer warmth, welcome, and a sense of belonging to anyone, anywhere, anytime. And chances are you are doing so more often than you realize. Take heart, dear women. Hospitality is not merely a well-laid table. It’s a wide circle of opportunity where you can serve right now, right where you are, even if your house is not even close to being ready for company.

Waiting for Kanye to Trip

by 2 Comments

Kanye West has spent most of his life making music that glorifies sex, materialism, and Kanye, idolizing himself in ways that have seemed downright shocking to most of civilized society. In a recent interview he called himself “the greatest human artist of all time.” Yet, in listening to Kanye’s new Jesus is King album, and in hearing pastor Adam Tyson’s account of the ways that God appears to be working in Kanye’s heart and mind, we should be cautiously optimistic that Jesus has radically saved Kanye West.

The skepticism that is permeating the online world among Christians is troubling in some ways. Many Christians seem doubtful that God could or would snatch a Kanye West from the pit of sin and death and set him on the solid foundation of Christ. Many seem eager to watch carefully, analyzing every move for evidence that Kanye is not, in fact, regenerate, but just another celebrity who is trying to make a buck. In fact, many Christians seem to be looking forward to seeing him stumble, as if they are hungry for proof that God has not rescued this man, that this is all a hoax, a ploy, or a sinister plot with politics at its heart.

The truth is that we have no way of knowing whether Kanye West is a Christian any more than we can know with certainty that our sweet little old neighbor lady is one. I have no idea what is in his heart or mind or what is going to come of all of this. But I do know that as Christians we should be hopeful. We should be rooting for him. We should be praying for Kanye West and thanking God for the opportunity to do so. Christians, of all people, should be excited about the prospect of this man influencing those in his very large circle for Christ. God doesn’t need Kanye any more than He needs us. Kanye can’t hurt God or the gospel. But, for all we know God had a plan from the foundation of the world to miraculously claim Kanye West as His own child. Are we really so quick to doubt that the creator of the universe would do such a thing?

It pains me to see Christians who are so cynical. I can promise you that if we are looking for displays of sinfulness in Kanye’s life, we won’t be disappointed. He will trip. He will stumble. He will sin in spectacular ways. But none of that necessarily means that this isn’t real. If we held ourselves to the standards that we expect this extremely newly converted, completely culturally brain-washed celebrity to keep, then we would all be running around constantly doubting our own salvation. Why are we so quick to believe that God can turn our wicked hearts, but not his?

Time will tell. I am all for taking a wait-and-see attitude. But, as we wait, let’s look forward to seeing more spiritual fruit. Let’s prayerfully and hopefully hold this man up instead of pessimistically holding out for a crash and burn. If we are more excited about being able to say “I told you so” than in seeing true salvation unfold, then we are sadly out of tune with the Spirit of God.

Brothers, Be Gentle

by 11 Comments

Yesterday I listened to men whom I greatly admire engage in banter on stage. It was a word association game. I will say a word, said one, and then the three of you will give a one-word, pithy response to the word. Are you ready? I could practically feel the audience in the room lean forward in anticipation to see what sort of fun this would be.

Beth Moore. He dropped her name lightly into the room, which was already poised to get the joke. Laughter broke out all over.

The first man who was asked to respond is one of my heroes. He and the moderator kidded back and forth for a moment before this great man of God paused, considering his sister in Christ, and responded simply, Go home. 

The reaction in the room was electric. Laughter, hoots and hollers of delight, and applause broke out in unison, and the moderator was obviously thrilled by how this had all turned out, entertaining and truthful and a little bit mean. It wasn’t necessarily designed to be a serious conversation, but this was especially sensational, and he and the crowd seemed to be loving it.

As I listened to all of this happen, my heart sank a little. I wondered at the kind of environment we have created in this opinion-saturated culture, where men of great faith and character and wisdom will sit on a stage and turn their concerns about their sister into a joke.

My brothers, speak the truth. You should. Guide and shepherd within your realm of influence. God has called you to it. Rightly divide the word of truth. We need you to. But when dealing with your sisters in Christ, no matter the circumstance, be gentle. Show the world that they can know us by our love for one another.

As your sisters, we sometimes have a difficult time knowing where our gifts fit into the biblical structure of the church. Like you, we don’t always know what to do with our strong opinions or our not-so-gentle ways. Let us all acknowledge that while God has certainly called women to do good work within our homes, He also calls us to do good work outside of them. “Go home” is an especially difficult pill to swallow in light of how many churches would likely collapse if all of those faithful, godly women who do a huge bulk of the teaching, training, planning, ideating, and plain old working in our churches simply went home.

Now, I know they weren’t speaking about all women. They were speaking about one. One who has faithfully studied and taught God’s word for decades. One who doesn’t always say or tweet exactly the right thing. One who has issues just like the rest of us. But, she is a child of God. She is a joint heir with Christ just like the men on that stage. And that should count for something.

So, in the days to come, as debates continue to rage over what women should and shouldn’t be doing, I pray that we will all cling to the scripture and see it clearly. But, even when there is disagreement, even when we see godly women standing on platforms where they probably shouldn’t, and even when we hear godly men joking in ways that are unbecoming of trusted leaders, I have hope that through the power of the Holy Spirit we will still be able to abide by Paul’s words in Ephesians 4: Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.

Want to Tend to Your Pastor’s Heart? Show up.

by Leave a Comment

Sunday nights are rough on pastors, and Mondays are even worse. Not only does a pastor feel exhausted, but he questions himself. He wonders how Sunday really went. He wonders if his sermon spoke. He sometimes dwells on things that were or weren’t said, and he can very easily wake up Monday morning feeling utterly discouraged, even if everyone else feels that Sunday’s worship and activities were fabulous. Few people understand how quickly a pastor can begin to feel downhearted, even when things are going well at church.

I know almost all church members care for and want to encourage their pastor. But I don’t know how many realize that the number one way to tend to their pastor’s heart is just getting up on Sunday mornings and going to church. In truth, this is the most basic and easy thing that we are called to do as Christians, and when we don’t do it, what is a pastor supposed to think about the spiritual condition of his congregation? I guarantee that he will leave the church building feeling discouraged and troubled when he sees empty seats where his sheep should be. Your pastor doesn’t just care about the number of people who are in the building. He cares if you are in your place. He thinks about your spiritual life, about your worldview, about the ways that you spiritually steward your family. When you fail to prioritize church attendance, your pastor has good reason to be concerned that you are struggling spiritually. Nothing encourages him more on a Sunday morning than seeing that you are being obedient to the Lord’s command to remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. When you are faithful in this, you not only please God, you enhearten and strengthen your pastor.

Dear Lonely High School Student: Your People are Out There

by 1 Comment

I remember walking into my economics class my senior year in high school, wondering how in world it was possible that I had no one to sit with. I had, after all, grown up in this small town and had known most of these kids since kindergarten, yet not a soul in the room was watching the door expectantly, waiting for me.

I made it through a year of senior dinners and parties, field trips and lasts that I celebrated with no one. By the time graduation rolled around, I was so happy to be released from an embarrassingly solitary year of being thrown together at every turn with people who had each other but didn’t seem to want me.

I don’t blame my classmates. Chances are it was my own Pharisaical attitudes that had landed me in this lonely spot. I was extremely zealous for the Lord and was terribly serious about not stepping one toe out of line. I was known as a goody two-shoes, and I wore that label like a badge of righteousness. I was proud and probably much too arrogant. I doubt I was all that fun to be around. But by God’s grace, despite my pride and my overblown ideas of how much God “needed” me, I left high school with my devotion to the Lord in tact, and with a sense that my life was finally beginning.

A few months later my parents dropped me off at the small Baptist college where I would grow and thrive and have fun, where I would make the most precious friends, and where I would meet the only love of my life. It turned out that there were lots and lots of people like me. There were kids out there who cared about the things of God, whose lives were built on the foundation of His mercy and goodness. I had spent my final year of high school grieving the fact that I was misunderstood and isolated. Then God poured out His blessings in ways that I couldn’t even have imagined, in the form of Christian kids who were serious about their faith, who had far outgrown me in righteousness and sincerity and biblical knowledge.

And now here I am, twenty years later, and my first-born is a few weeks into her high school career. She, too, is learning about the sometimes cost of following Jesus. About the lack of people who understand you. She finished an assignment for her English class last week, a video project where she was asked to choose a poem to read and then discuss in relation to her own life and experience. She chose “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost.

In it, Frost famously describes two paths that he came across in the woods one day, confessing that he chose to take the one that has been less traveled by, “and that has made all the difference.” For Adelade, the correlation seems obvious. She is on the narrow path, the path that leads to life. It, too, is the road less traveled. In the video she sits in front of a white wall in her grey over-sized New York sweatshirt, and says of this way of life, “Sometimes it means you don’t have many friends because you don’t want to do things that dishonor God.” This, coming from a girl who walked into her high school on the first day of school knowing that no one would be looking for her. It’s a hard place to be. Yet, she goes on to talk about the peace and joy that comes from following Christ.

I keep telling her that her people are out there. And they are. They may even be in the halls of her high school right now, people that the Lord is moving and changing and molding even as He continues to move and change and mold Adelade and me. I know He is working because He always is.

So, you, lonely high school student, follow Jesus and keep living according to His word. Be radical if you need to. But don’t ever think that you are alone, because your people are most definitely out there.

On See You at the Pole day this past week, youth ministry expert Dr. Richard Ross posted this idea on Facebook:

“One student praying—may feel weak. But swept up in a worldwide student prayer movement—strong.
One student living in sexual holiness alone—weak. Part of a worldwide movement—strong.
But students cannot be drawn into movements their leaders don’t mention.”

High schooler, consider this your notification: there are students all over this world who are fully dedicated to loving Jesus through obedience. You aren’t alone, even though you may feel like it. Your people are out there, and when you find them, get ready for some of the greatest blessings that God gives. High school is so much shorter than it feels. Just keep your eyes on Jesus and be patient, always remembering that the road less traveled leads to true fulfillment.

Marriage as a Ministry

by 1 Comment

Chad and I walked the sweet couple to the door, and we all chattered over each other as we said our goodbyes and hugged and laughed. It was the end of a marriage counseling session. The four of us had been sitting in our living room, huddled together on couches that had been used as gymnastics equipment by our seven year old daughter earlier that afternoon. We talked about important things, about Jesus things, about the joys and hardships that come with marriage and life, and about how through it all the Lord sustains and He gives grace and He offers truth that runs counter to all the world’s advice.

We shut the door and got our children in bed, and then Chad and I settled down for an evening together, both of us still thinking about the joy that comes with mentoring young couples in their very first days as husband and wife. Still, I was surprised when he turned to me and said, simply, “I never feel more called to ministry than when we’re sitting in our living room with someone on our couch like that.”  Here is a man who stands behind a pulpit and preaches God’s word every Sunday, who leads prayer meetings and ministers in hospitals, nursing homes, and funeral homes. A man who sits across from people who need financial help almost every day, who listens and counsels and carries people’s secrets around with him like Jacob Marley’s ponderous chains. This is a man whose entire life is given for Christ and for serving others. Yet, in this moment he revealed something precious to me: he feels most secure in his calling when we are serving together.

We were newlyweds ourselves when we first figured out that serving side by side is one of the greatest blessings of marriage. We dove directly into a local church where we were loved and mentored and allowed to use our gifts to glorify God. We would talk for hours about the best ways to do church, about who God is and what He might have in store for us, all of this years before He ever called us to take on a full-time ministry position. We were just a young couple with jobs and bills and worries and marriage struggles who happened to love our church and enjoy serving with our church family. We soon realized that this life of shared ministry would be a foundation that our marriage could stand on. It was fun. It was challenging. And it forced us to depend on the Lord. So, through several career changes and moves and births and miscarriages and all of the regular heartaches and hilarities of life, two constants were a reliance on Jesus and a vision for being a couple who served Him together.

Turns out that twenty years later, we still feel most at home in ministry when we’re working side by side. There is a spiritual intimacy that comes with viewing your relationship itself as a vehicle for blessing the church. Through the many phases and stages of life, our shared understanding that we are meant to serve together has kept us from getting too bogged down in that marriage and family self-obsession that is so easy to fall into. We have never served perfectly. We have never perfected marriage or ministry or juggling life in all of its craziness. But one thing I can say with assurance: our marriage has made life so much more interesting and fun and spiritually fulfilling not because we are madly in love (although we are) and not because we have it all together (because we don’t), but because we have simply had a great time serving the Lord together. And over and over and over again, He has blessed the whole imperfect ball of wax.

Someday soon we will have another young couple sitting expectantly on our worn couch, and we may or may not have much wisdom to offer them. But as I sit next to the man who has helped me love the Lord more today than I did on the day we married, I will be able to advise those newlyweds with confidence: view your marriage as a ministry. And just wait and see what God will do.

Things Stay-at-Home Mothers Aren’t Allowed to Talk About

by 35 Comments

I saw a fascinating video the other day of Mayim Bialik, the famously crunchy, extreme-attachment-parenting mother with a phD and a Big Bang Theory cult following.  In the video, Mayim explains and defends her decision to stay at home with her children while they were young. What strikes me about her demeanor is that she seems a bit apologetic, saying many times during the course of her monologue that staying home with her children was her personal choice that was right for her at the time and might not be right for everyone.

As I watched, I recognized the hesitation there, the sense that we stay-at-home moms are really not allowed to talk about the benefits of staying home with our kids, for fear that we might make another mother who chooses to work or has to work feel guilty or judged. It’s difficult for a mother like me to extol in the public square all the great things about staying home with children. Mom guilt is such an extreme handicap for all of us that I would never want to pile more of that onto my fellow mothers. Yet, the world needs women who are advocates for the stay-at-home life. Why? Because society needs dynamic women in the home as much as it needs dynamic women in the boardroom.

As a child I learned a lot about the benefits of having one of those dynamic women pouring all of her energies into our family and home. My mother was always available to me. She dedicated her creativity and her brain power to making our home a warm, neat, and welcoming place to be. My mom had lots of interests when I was a kid. She was an avid reader, a brilliant decorator, a great photographer, and she even dabbled in drawing and painting and was quite gifted. My mother made every holiday great fun, and the woman cooked several meals a day most every day. She encouraged me in my faith and encouraged me in every other way, too.

Now, I’m not saying that my mother couldn’t have done all of those things while she worked outside of our home. But, I am saying that they would have been infinitely harder for her to accomplish. She made the decision, as many do, to sacrifice any accolades she could have received from a career, to give up the clothing budget that her working friends had, to pinch pennies and run a tight ship so that our family could have what we wanted and needed. And then she threw herself into our family with her whole heart and mind. I will forever be grateful to her for that.

My mom gave me the gift of herself undivided. And what a gift she was (and is). Her children rise up and call her blessed.

These are all ideas that are quite taboo to talk about in our diverse society, where women follow lots of different and good paths. Not everyone has the desire or the financial ability to stay at home. But, I want to encourage those women who are thinking about becoming stay-at-home moms. Maybe you are looking at your budget trying to decide if you can make it on one income. Maybe you are a young woman and the world is telling you that career is everything, but all you want to do is stay home with babies someday.

To you stay-at-home hopefuls, I say go for it. As one who is living the double blessing of having had a mom at home and being a mom at home, I can tell you that it is an absolute treasure of a life. I am so grateful to God for every year that Chad and I can make this work.

To all of you working mamas out there, God bless you. I have no idea how you do what you do, but I know that you love your families fiercely and you fight hard to be everything to everyone who needs you. I admire you, and our world would be a lesser place without you.

Emerald made me a card this weekend, saying she loves it that I “didn’t want a job.” I have never specifically talked with her about being a stay-at-home mom, but at seven years old she is already understanding a little bit of my heart when it comes to our family. I don’t know if she’ll wind up being the PTO President or a CEO, but if she chooses to stay home with babies, I pray that she will find in it the complete joy that I have. Because this world needs kind and artistic and smart and funny women like her in the kitchens and the laundry rooms and the carpool lines, and there is nothing at all wrong with her giving herself to her family, undivided.

The Best Advice for a Pastor’s Wife

by 13 Comments

A couple of weeks ago I started feeling a little bit discouraged. A combination of factors related to our church were piling on in an unusually burdensome way, and I just felt like there was a huge weight on my shoulders. My husband Chad is pastor, a calling in both of our lives that we are passionately committed to. We are sounding boards and burden-bearers for many in our community, and Chad says that he has learned to embrace the melancholy that sometimes comes with being a spiritual shepherd, a counselor and secret-keeper. At times it is a weary load that a pastor, and often his wife, carries. It can be difficult to deal with people in all of their human glory, their faults and failures and their ever-pressing expectations.

A few days ago we drove out of town to attend a funeral, and afterward we stood and talked with the hospice chaplain. He, too, has pastored churches, and as we talked he turned to focus on me. He told me that during his years of shepherding a church someone offered his wife a wonderful piece of advice.

Now, I often read or hear advice for pastors’ wives. Generally it is something with a bit of a worldly spin on it, something like,  Tell that church that they hired your husband, not you or Your one job is to love your husband and take care of him–the church shouldn’t expect more from you than that. I braced myself for yet another mediocre idea of what a pastor’s wife is meant to be. But he surprised me.

He said, “Just love the people.”

At those words I felt the weight in my spirit shift. The burden didn’t disappear–the heaviness that comes with being intimately intertwined in the lives of others. The sense of melancholy that Chad talks about was still present. But in that moment I remembered that I am not a pack mule struggling to shoulder everyone’s problems. This calling is so much more than that. It’s an opportunity to love sacrificially (though imperfectly) and, even more amazingly, to receive sacrificial love in return from the (imperfect) people who make up our church family.  I was reminded that I am a follower of Christ first and a pastor’s wife second. Jesus told us all to love the Lord and love our neighbors, and I certainly shouldn’t expect to do anything less than that as I minister alongside my husband.

Sometimes loving others looks like absorbing wounds inflicted by the very people you are called to love. Sometimes it looks like mourning in unison. Sometimes it looks like laughing, eating good church food, watching our kids play together, marveling at the many ways God is working in the lives all around us.

I stood and nodded at the chaplain and wondered if my heaviness of heart feels extra burdensome because I have tried to complicate this calling with too much problem-solving, too much time spent trying to figure things out that have no real solutions. I think I forgot that loving people, although not always easy, is fairly simple.

This heavy load that Chad and I sometimes bear is not ours alone. Ultimately, it belongs to Christ, and He is more than strong enough to carry it. So when I feel myself starting to stoop under the weight of it all, I pray that I will remember the advice that gave me pause on an especially wearisome day, that I will lay these burdens at the foot of the cross and open my arms wide to those whom God has given us.

%d bloggers like this: