I always wish I had something great to write about on here. Save the baby humans, or save the dying people of the world, feed the masses or take a look because people are being treated unfairly…I do want those things to happen but I try not to be fixated on anything except Christ. I also refuse to use this blog as a daily journal or face book status/twitter “today I ran a marathon”, “I am eating pie” or”my life is completely focused on my political affiliation” OK…so I’m not that bitter. I know that we have all had our private little secrets that we ‘Blog” share, our victories, our opinions, our daily lives, and that is good right? But where does this stop and real, true, human to human relationships start? What about community? It’s one thing to be able to “blog’ share but why can’t we have that same thing in real life?
This is all coming from the fact that church-ministry, although our immediate calling, has negative sides. Maybe this is why i use the term immediate, do we think we will be in church work forever? yes! We value and believe in the local body. Will our ministry always look like it does now? NO! it can’t…
any ministry that you do full time, and really any for that matter is lonely. there are huge lines and barriers that we can’t cross or move, or do anything about. 80% of our hurts, frustrations, daily drama, we can’t share with the majority of people who we see in our day to day lives. Also, ministry is discouraging, most of what we do, we will see no fruit from while we are here, so we learn to take pleasure in the little victories…but it’s usually not enough.
it’s easy to get lonely. it’s easy to get discouraged. it’s HARD to count it all joy.
I am terrible friend…ask anyone. I love people and once you’re in with me, you’re in for life. but I am NOT an out of sight out of mind person, no I think about you, and talk about you often, I am an out of sight, out of communication person. I hate phone conversations, I am awkward. I love texts, e-mails, face book, things where I can be involved but not really commit…However if I had my choice I would choose being in people’s presence. that is how I know I am a true human people lover. I love, to a fault, people. So, forgive me when we haven’t actually spoken in months, forgive me when I’m flighty and don’t call, forgive me for being in my own world…forgive me for not being committed, usually it’s just because it makes it harder when we have phone conversations. it makes you seem almost in my presence and it reminds that you are not. that you are far away and that I miss you. I know that I would be less lonely, and discouraged if I these forms of communication were enough to satisfy, but they’re not…they just make it harder. Please do not use this as your excuse to stop communicating with me. maybe someday I will get over it…I am getting better anyway. and those of you “lifer” friends…new and old, i couldn’t have gotten this far in my communicational(yes that is not a real word) growth without you. don’t stop believing. “she’s just a small town, living in a lonely world”
I think I’m one the verge of something great here. Why is communion so important? Communion, community…maybe I should Greek it up right now. Brandon?
so back to real community. why is so hard to find, build, cultivate? is it that I have super high standards or that once you are in real community and you have your “lifer” friends, that anything sub par will not meet up to those things? I have sneaking suspicions, a big part is not wanting to make effort…or something… who knows. any Freudian opinions out there?
sorry to ramble. my mind is blank.
this is from a new song I am trying to finish
“you say you can’t always count it joy, you’re in the desert and you can’t afford, just to stop and take a moment to breathe because you might find you’re suffocating”
[...] you should check out my beautiful wife’s most recent post about the necessity of community. She also includes a few nuggets of wisdom about the purpose/misuse of blogging: I also refuse to [...]
oh, friend. i love you. I also must confess that I feel the exact same way about all of the forms of communication you’ve mentioned. you should know that you’re one of my favorite people no matter how far away you are or how often we talk. i’m seriously praying my baby comes early enough to meet both you and brandon. i feel like i need him to meet you two immediately after me and bryan. i desperately need him to know you. maybe bry and i should get a web cam so we can see each other when we talk and it will be as close to in person as we can get. then you can see my belly and our baby when he comes!
Dear Leah,
I stumbled on to your blog…yes it was the “video” that caused me to trip this way. My daughters came in and told me they found my long lost sister. that led me here. I realize this is a old post, yet i feel compelled to comment. My husband is also in ministry. though i am quite a bit older than you i identified with much of what you said. Ministry can be lonely at times. while other wives can share challenges (regarding husbands challenges at work) we are unable to, we must keep to the unspoken code of the “wives” silence. though i can say that this has been a blessing in disguise, at times in life i have had no one to cry to but the Lord. in times when i would have preferred human comfort, i have been forced to go to the one I should have desired to run to in the first place.
I also understand the frustration of not seeing the fruit. we took a small group of people through the Doctrines of Grace. all our people, people save 2, seemed to understand and embraced these truths. I thought so anyway, until the pastor of our church preached a very contrary message, and one of our ladies called and said “I knew exactly what he was talking about because of all you guys taught us” It was so sad that she could not even discern the difference. yes it can be frustrating. The Lord has placed us in a church that is not reformed. (though our Pastor told us that he was a calvinist)
at times i do feel like a foreigner here….But we have had the opportunity to share the truth with so many…i feel like a missionary within the church….and so many have come to embrace reformed theology…it is amazing to watch their lives turned upside down….the sad thing is that usually the Lord calls those who come to this understanding away..which brings me to the separation…and the difficulty in communication…an area that i fail at time and time again…It is not that i do not love my long distance friends…but life is filled with complications when you are in ministry, and even though i see the sovereignty of God with in those complications, to explain it all seems complicated in itself….
anyway this is the first time i have ever commented on a blog…but i just wanted you to know that someone else out there understands….