Break it down for me fellas…
By Amanda on Oct 21, 2009 in Featured
This has been a very overwhelming season, as I have mentioned in the past many posts… God has been teaching me a ton: rewiring me, breaking old cycles, learning boundaries, and balance, and the art of saying “no”. So stay tuned, I’m gearing up to share a load!
But this post is a reminder for me on how it all breaks down:
1. God
2. Jeff (probably not Jeff for most of you)
3. Kids
4. Ministry
5. All the other stuff
It’s when I am giving too much of myself to “all the other stuff” that makes me feel that anxious and overwhelmed feeling, and then all the other people that ARE the most important get the scraps. Even when I mix up 2. and 3., or 4. for 1., it seems good and acceptable. I mean, all are important but there is a very basic break down that keeps the balance. I think I am going to post that list somewhere (like next to my calendar) so I can see it daily.
It truly is hard to keep that balance. Right now I feel like I am scraps for everyone and everything. I just told my husband tonight we need to get feed some were as we aren’t getting it at our church. I don’t know really what I’m trying to say here. I feel your pain of this be a tough season. Between not seeing eye to eye with our church, my health problems and the general stress of yp life I guess your right just got to keep our order of life in order.
Mary | Oct 21, 2009 | Reply
For the first time in 20 years we are not the “Youth Pastor & his Wife”. Talk about making new priorities! We are involved in the youth ministry in our new church & still love it. My husband has taken a new job outside of church ministry to “make a living”. He loves his new non-church job and is now free to focus on a budding music career…which seems to be God’s clear indication of what our next steps in our walk with him should be. It’s so exciting & look forward to what God is going to write on my life with that “well sharpened pencil”.
Oh, and did I mention that we are: moving to a new house (our old one is the previous church’s parsonage)… I have to register the kids for school in a different district, one of whom has autism (pray for him)… and the suburban we were driving died on us last week.
God is also at the top of my list and it is no accident that despite my circumstances I am soooo happy & thing’s couldn’t be going more smoothly had I planned them that way.
You are all in my prayers…we are in this together
Jennifer | Oct 22, 2009 | Reply
Always a good thing to keep in perspective – priorities!
Hubby’s been feeling majorly stressed lately over church situations and I feel that family’s sunk a little lower on the priority list. He’s always been SO GOOD at making sure we are first in line, that it’s hard to see him like this. It’s hard, as his wife, not to nag right now… not to add more stress… And, you know, I think as the wife, seeing him uber-church focused, it makes ministry sink even lower on my list than maybe it should (out of spite or resentment maybe?), so even just remembering that ministry belongs on my list is sometimes a good reminder
Mrs. H | Oct 23, 2009 | Reply
Hey, Amanda – sorry to leave this as a comment – I think someone got a hold of your twitter account. Might want to check it out. It’s just sending out spam tweets.
Mrs. H | Oct 25, 2009 | Reply
I, too am the “Youth Pastor’s Wife” but I am also on staff at our church as part time secretary. Not only do I live with my husband, I WORK with my husband which has been an interesting journey to say the least. I used to keep a list of priorities in the back of my head and then one day I read a book a lot of people and maybe even some of you have read called “The Shack”. It talks about this “list” in the book and I had the biggest AH HA moment of my entire life! In the book it explains that it is humanly impossible to put God “first” on a list. Now hold on a sec and continue reading before you judge
! I don’t believe that God wants to be “first” on our list of priorities & in fact I think that limits Him a little. He wants to be the center of our everything. He wants everything we do to filter through Him. So when I started thinking about things this way and stopped stressing about my “list”, I found that my relationship with my Lord grew in ways that I never imagined it would. I am just in love with Jesus and when He is the center of your very being, everything else falls into place.
Danielle | Oct 28, 2009 | Reply
I agree. God isn’t just first on the list he is the maker of the list…which means for me I don’t have to stress anymore about maintaining control!
Jennifer | Oct 30, 2009 | Reply
Have another thought to bring up… I’ve been reading Elizabeth George’s “A Woman After God’s Own Heart” and she lists her priorities as such:
1. Loving God & following after Him with a whole heart
2. Loving, helping & serving my husband
3. Loving & teaching my two daughters and their families
4. Loving & caring for my home in order to provide a quality life for my family
5. Developing myself so that I have something to give to others
6. Loving and serving God’s people
This challenged me to think of ministry as #6, behind home and self (wow – that’s a big drop! Now, obviously by #2/serving our husband, sometimes that includes assisting him in his ministry/job).
In her book, she is very focused on our homes and the pivotal role that they play in our families’ lives. I agree, but never would have thought to put it in the list.
What does anyone else think – agree or disagree?
Mrs. H | Nov 5, 2009 | Reply