A person I don’t know incredibly well messaged me in response to a picture I posted, accusing me of something. Yes, I’m being vague. The details don’t matter because this isn’t just about a single event. Lately, and more than ever, it seems that people feel complete freedom to act as a voice in our lives, even when they have no such place otherwise.

What do I mean?

Many people have access to us because of social media, but few have been given permission or blessing by us to be a voice.

Do you understand the difference?

Voices of influence are necessary and Biblical. I have people around me that I’ve asked to keep me accountable on certain issues. I have friends that I bare my soul to about hurt and with complete vulnerability. I have a husband that is my deepest confidant. All of these people (plus family and trusted counselors) have been given a place to speak into my life, so when they talk, l listen. They are voices in my life.

So back to that social media message. I felt wounded by this person’s accusations until I realized I had allowed that wound. No one is allowed to speak words that can cause us pain  if we don’t give their voice power in the first place.

Social media may have let hundreds of new voices feel as if they have a place in our lives, but we are the ones who set the parameters for which of those voices are allowed to count. This may sound harsh but it’s actually meant to be the opposite of that – freedom for those of us affected by these situations.

It is imperative that we stop allowing everyone who can reach us to reach us – mentally, spiritually and emotionally.

Start by deciding who has a voice in your life. While the point of this blog has been a sifting of too many voices, it’s a certain reality that some may actually need more voices. If you feel like you have no one to run things by, no one to tell you the truth in love, take stock and prayerfully ask a few people to be that for you. I have my husband, 2-3 select friends, a counselor, a few mentors and maybe 2 family members who get to be a voice for me.

Once you clearly define who your voices are, find freedom in releasing the power of voices outside of that circle. There’s no magic formula that makes harsh words and accusations stop hurting, but we will find more contentment when we define who our voices are, knowing that people outside of that don’t have to carry such a weight in our reality.

This day, it was about trees. Yes, trees.

I’m an overachiever. I like to achieve. I feel the most useful and, yeah, I’ll say it, worthy when I’m achieving. Which is great…until I’m not achieving.

In times when the phone stops ringing, my hands stop writing and my song stops singing, I feel lost. Worthless. Empty.

This is where trees come in.

My counselor started it. She asked me to liken myself to a tree, beautiful and full of blooming flowers. She asked me how I felt when those blooms were brightest and most full. I answered immediately: alive, purposeful, worthy. She asked me what then do I feel like when the branches are bare – not a bloom to be seen. This time, my answer came slower because it felt deeper, more painful: unseen, unworthy, useless.

Still, I thought. Still. I’m 37-years-old and still dealing with the noise of my own life’s worth. And yet, there I was, weeping over a tree because the vision of it hit me harder than anything had in a long time.

Slowly, with my counselor’s help, I started to wonder about how I could find a way to love the tree/me, blooms or no blooms. I was reminded that in times of bare branches, there are roots, deep roots, that are still doing work under the surface. She told me that those roots are part of what lays the foundation for the tree to even have those blooming seasons.

And it all started to become clearer.

This imaginary tree taught me so, so much about myself in just a moment. I immediately knew I needed this visual reminder and had my friend, artist Greg Francis, sketch it for me. When I look at this picture, I’m challenged, encouraged, humbled and, most importantly, reminded. I know when I look at this tree that I am not only important when the branches of my life are seemingly full of blooms. I know now that my life is moving forward, growing and mattering, in season and out.

Every time I see this picture, I’m reminded that no matter the season, I am worthy. I’m worthy because God says I am, and because His ways and times and plans aren’t the same as mine. I trust the unseen. I trust the process. I trust my God.

I’ve been a pastor’s wife for over 12 years and a pastor’s kid and grandkid before that. I am no stranger to the idea of being an example for the eyes that are upon me at all times. I’m usually quite good at playing the role. Actually, most of the time, I don’t even have to play the role, I’m just myself. I genuinely love people and care about them. It’s why my husband and I got into ministry in the first place.

But that day…that day, something was off.

I walked into the church lobby and immediately burst into tears. Except, I’m the pastor’s wife so I can’t just burst into tears in the lobby of my own church. People will notice. So I ran behind the ever-present pipe-and-drape area and had a full-on meltdown. My husband found me and, eventually, through tears, I managed to get out two words: “I can’t.”

Many phrases could have followed those words: “I can’t be perfect today,” or “I can’t keep this smile on my face today.” I was past the point of explanation, though. My soul was groaning. I was tired, mostly of myself. I was sad, even more so because I felt like I shouldn’t be. I was simply done.

Ministry is probably my soul’s great passion. I love helping people and showing Jesus to the world. But, can I be honest in this space, friends? I’ve struggled on days to keep it together for the sake of others. There are things I wish I could explain or say, but it’s never the right time, or I allow my fears and insecurities to silence me.

So today, I’m taking time to let it all out. The true reasons why I sometimes feel like “I can’t.” In preparing to write this, I felt more than a little vulnerable, so I went to some of my most trusted fellow pastor’s wives and asked them this same question: What do you wish your church knew about you? The answers made me smile and broke my heart simultaneously. Today, together with my own thoughts, I offer our top 5.

1. We love you. It brought me so much joy to see across the board that this was the #1 thing we pastor’s wives hope our churches know about us. I remember when our church first started, I knew every single name, every single issue. As our church grew, it became physically impossible for me to know everyone, but I love every single person that walks through the door each Sunday. I pray for our church all the time. I smile when I see your face. I pray blessings on your children. I simply love you.
2. Because we love you, it hurts when we don’t see you. The bigger our churches grow, a misconception can be that each member is only a number or a faceless seat-filler. That could not be further from the truth. We do our best to connect to as many people as possible on Sunday and throughout the week, but it is not possible to reach each one personally. We notice a lot more than you think, though. When you miss a Sunday, your absence is felt. Further (I’m going to be incredibly open here and let you in on one of my biggest hurts), when we invest in you and your life for weeks, months, years and decades, and have to hear that you are going to another church via Facebook check-in, that simply guts us. For us, church is family. We see you as a part of our family. When you leave without so much as a note, it feels incredibly personal and hurts us. More than hurts us, it wounds us. No, church is not a competition, but it is a relationship, and we have loved you and prayed over you. When else in life would you “break up” with someone and not even have the courtesy to tell them? It hurts because we love you.
3. Please take us off the pedestal and out of the box. I’m going to say something that needs to be said: pastors and pastor’s wives are just regular people. We are doing our best to listen to and obey God’s direction for our lives. We will make mistakes. We will disappoint you. We serve a perfect God but we are far from perfect, and when you expect us to be, it makes us want to pull away from you so you can’t see just how flawed we are. Similarly, we’re sorry if we don’t fit in the box you think a pastor’s wife should be in. I’m probably far more sarcastic than I should be. I joke too often. I’m loud. But I am a pastor’s wife and will do my very very best to love you the truest way I know how. Thank you for allowing us to try to live the lives God has called us to without the added pressure of unrealistic expectation.
4. Our families need us, too. We know you need us. We want to be with you, but our families need us, too. If it seems like we’re not available in the times you want us, please extend grace. We are wives, mothers and friends who really do want to balance it all. We want to talk with you and hear what’s on your heart, but the right time for that conversation is probably not when I have 3 kids all trying to talk to me at once. I want my kids to know that they are more important to me than anything other than God Himself, and it’s hard when I have to constantly shush them or push them aside for the sake of “ministry.” I love you, but I love my family more.
5. We can never thank you enough for praying for us. It brought tears to my eyes when a fellow pastor’s wife brought up this point because it’s so true. Pastors and pastor’s wives will face attacks both verbal and mental that you will never ever know about. We don’t just desire your prayers, we flat-out need them. It never ceases to humble me when I hear from someone that they are taking time to pray for me and my family. Thank you. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you.

I can’t thank you enough for taking the time to read this. It’s been on my mind for months and months, but I wanted to check my heart repeatedly before writing it. After speaking with pastor’s wives that I look up to and admire, I knew I was not alone in feeling this way. My purpose for publishing this was simply to offer another point of view. I remember being younger and viewing all pastor’s wives as some sort of perfect robots who mothered their churches with perfect smiles and perfect hair. I didn’t understand why they’d walk into service late and leave early. But then I became a pastor’s wife myself and I got it. When we’re hurt, our instinct can be to shut down and never open ourselves up again. I don’t want to do that, but some days I’m tempted. Instead, I decided to write it all out in hopes that maybe someone else feels the same way. Thanks for listening.

For the rest of us, here we go.

This blog has been embarrassingly quiet lately and there’s a reason why. Get ready for some real life confessions ahead.

Back in January, I racked my brain to come up with a word for the year and landed on the word Hallelujah. It sounded so full of promise and spiritual. Immediately, we did the Christian thing and found an etsy shop who sold said word on a piece of reclaimed wood. I was ready.

What I had not anticipated, however, was the implications of this word as a theme. Here’s where the confessions start:

Honestly, a few months into 2019 and I wanted to pick a new word.

I’m a doer, an achiever (what’s up, fellow enneagram 3’s!) and an accomplisher. I don’t like to be still. I feel guilt when I sit for too long. If I flip on Netflix, I’m immediately assaulted with feelings that tell me I should be writing a new book instead of binging TV.

Since God knows me inside and out, why in the world would He ask me to pick Hallelujah (which simply means Praise God!) as a yearly theme and then seemingly force me to be still? Force me? Well, let’s just say this year hasn’t exactly been dripping in new opportunities. If you recall, last year my word of the year was Courage. It turned out to be an amazing year of stretching and growth in all of the best ways.

But when the clock struck midnight to usher in 2019, the whole climate of my life seemingly changed, as well. Gone were the opportunities of the previous year. Auditions that I had been nailing were DOA. My phone stopped ringing. Even my words seemed to dry up as I desperately sought to put them down on paper. I started to panic.

Fueling my panic was the fact that in addition to having less opportunities, I also seemed to have more time on my hands than ever. My kids are now all in 5-day-a-week school. I couldn’t use the fact that I was a stay-at-home mom as my excuse for not producing or advancing. I was shaken to my very core with feelings of my own worthlessness.

Adding more angst to my seasonal stress was the ever-present comparison game. I watched as everyone I knew seemed to advance in their careers and opportunities. I fought (and honestly lost…a lot) feelings of jealousy and anger that my life was going no where. This sounds dark, I know it does. But the truth is that the first part of this year, one of the only words I could use to describe my emotional state was lost.

In Luke 10:41,42, Jesus goes to hang at the home of some of his closest friends. Sisters Mary and Martha were both in prep mode for the Lord’s visit, but in vastly different ways. Martha was stressing and striving and doing all the things. Mary was simply sitting down and experiencing Jesus. Can I be honest? I always sympathized with Martha in this story. Like, I know that we’re supposed to be like Mary, but Martha didn’t seem like she was doing anything wrong. She just wanted Jesus to have the best, right? I relate to that on a soul level.

But Jesus, as always, has such a different set of priorities.

“Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed – or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

The achiever in me has an almost physical reaction to this verse. Hearing the words of Jesus as He basically reads me right along with Martha. How many times have I been “worried and upset about many things” and yet, it’s not needed at all?

When you’re addicted to achievement, your life can experience the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. When our value comes from what we are accomplishing rather than who we are, our very sense of worth can fluctuate and leave us with plummeting souls.

My escape can come either temporarily from the next “hit” of achievement, or permanently by a re-routing of my soul toward a new sense of completion. I have to change my wiring to disconnect achievement with worth and connect daily connection with Jesus to “enough.”

So how do I do that?

I’ll admit this is something I’m learning and not something I’ve mastered. I do, however, notice things that seem to make my effort harder or easier and I’d like to share them with you:

1. Keep your eyes on Jesus. This sounds cliche but hold on. Keeping your eyes on Jesus is a two-fold blessing because while you are keeping your eyes on Him, you are also NOT keeping your eyes on others and/or your circumstances. This helps so much. Friends, I cannot stress this enough. So much of what fuels my dissatisfaction with my own life is comparing it to what I think it should be instead of what it is. Keep your eyes on Jesus! In Him, you always get love first!
2. Shut out the noise. I am so distracted. I find it harder and harder to focus in a world of ever-increasing stuff that vies for my attention. The more distracted I am, the less in tune to God’s presence I am. Similarly, the less in tune to God’s presence I am, the more time I have to move into my own head and out of God’s voice.
3. Just be. Be still. Write in a journal. Turn on worship. Clear your mind. I spend so much time worried about accomplishment that I forget to simply sit still and be. It’s a lost art but not without hope of revival.

Are you an addicted achiever? I truly believe there is hope for us. We can move from a place of achievement-based-worth to a circumstance-exempt reality. It is not a miracle fix. It is not a fast fix. It is not even an easy fix, but we can get there. When we add God to any life equation, our efforts go from pathetic to empowered. He is the difference. He is the change. He is the one who can help us sustain a life that values being over doing.

Addicted achievers, take heart! We can make a change! Let’s start today, together!