Who Are You Accountable To – Part OneI am not someone who jumps in feet first. No, no, no. I have to test the waters and then slowly wade into the water. So, as you can imagine, I looked at quite a few blogs before starting this one. In particular I looked at other minister’s wife’s blogs. Some were cute, some not so cute. One late night I found a few blogs that broke my heart. They were all about minister’s wife’s who had called it quits. All of them shared their stories about heart-ache, bitterness, guilt, shame and sadness. Some of them did have happy endings, but some of them didn’t. As I was reading through their stories I started to think, “What happened?” and “Why did this have to happen”.
I believe that one of the reasons why is, they simply had no one to talk to. I don’t care who you are or what type of profession you are in, as a woman you will always need someone to talk to.
Two years ago a sweet friend in our church decided to start an accountability group with myself and a few other ladies in our church. I can honestly say it has changed my life. Every Tuesday night I swing by Starbucks, get my drink of choice and head on over to my Porch Pals meeting. As an associate Pastor’s wife I KNOW that I have a safe place to share my struggles, my fear, my joy and my life.
Why is this important? Well, come back on Wednesday and I’ll share why.
How can you start this? Come back on Friday and I’ll share that too!
3 comments:
You tease! Now I have to come back TWO days this week just to hear the rest of the story :).
Well, you see I believe that you should do more than one post every couple of months! Ha! Just playing. And yes, you'll have to visit my blog again on Wednesday AND Friday!
Leslie, This is a great topic to start with. This is something I watched my mom struggle with and then I began to struggle with as I got older. I know my mom felt like she had no one she could talk to because it's hard to really "trust" other people with what's going on at home when your spouse is in the ministry. Even if it's not bad things at home and just the everyday junk that we all deal with. Thankfully, since we moved to Austin she found some really good women friends and was able to have some that she could confide in.
As a child of a minister we also deal with the same thing. I never felt like I could talk about anything going on with me that might be perceived as bad because it might reflect negatively on my parents. This had some devastating effects in my late teen/early adult life. Thankfully we have a God of grace and mercy. Even as an adult in the same church as my parents I felt this way (I can't tell you what a relief it was to find a new church where no one knew who my dad was...I love my dad, but...). So, as your kids get older you have to make sure that they have somewhere that they feel they are safe to let their feelings out. You might be surprised to find that they don't talk to their friends about homelife because they are afraid of making you look bad (even if nothing bad is going on).
Anyway, just my two cents on the subject : )
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