disillusionment and dying to self, phase two.

Well, I'm getting a bigger and better picture of where my man's faith is at, and that is helping me to deal with things as they come.
First of all, I guess, I'm dealing with disillusionment.
When I married him, it had been prophesied over me that my husband was going to be a pastor and that I would meet him in Basic Training. Imagine, of course, my state of mind as we went through life... first meeting and then marrying in BCT, and then when we finally settled into a church where he had the opportunity to "go somewhere."
As he moved forward in his faith, and in the ranks of leadership there, it became apparent to both of us that if God was going to open doors for him in ministry through this particular church, he was going to have to meet him halfway by agreeing to submit to the church's particular "DNA," or style of doing things. Which he wasn't. Suits and ties and "marketplace" thinking hasn't yet been my husband's forte. In fact, as he reminded me last night.... it's not a place he's looking forward to going. To take it even further, I remember when he was selling cars and had to go to work in a suit every morning that I had to press the night before. Not only did I hate it, he hated it. And he looked like a giant, overgrown kid playing dress up. Oddly enough, if you throw a helmet, a toga, and a leather cape on him and hand him a spear, he looks like a warrior. That's just who he is. In another twist of irony, someone once prophesied over him that he would be a king in the marketplace.

Anyways, fast forward to California, where we went to help a growing church in desperate need of action and people who know how to use their giftings. We were super equipped to help the church in California, but we were useless to them because we couldn't find a way to communicate to them what we had learned. I believe the root of that was in two places: fear and pride on our part. and a little frustration mixed in. Combined.

California broke my husband. To say that he went through a disillusionment period is an understatement. He was absolutely shaken. Not in fear, though. In frustration that his life would come to mean nothing-- that his work for the Kingdom meant nothing.
He began to believe that God chose not to speak to him, and to distrust pastors who use Christianese "catch phrases" and didn't explain them. He lamented the loss of Christian culture to worldly culture, and couldn't relate to anyone anymore, not for lack of trying. My husband has always been a solitary man with few, but incredibly close, friendships. But at this point, he felt left to his own devices. Abandoned by God and man. When he tried to share his struggle with the few people he wanted to respect who could help him, they gave him trite answers and tried to placate him by regurgitating things they had learned or giving him brief answers that sounded good but had no practical application that he could see or understand. He became bitter. When God called us back to North Carolina, we came joyfully. Neither he nor I were happy in California. But it was bittersweet-- there was a sense of resignation that neither one of us will be able to finish the things we start, or to really maintain the forward thrust of motion we had been caught up in.

Now that things have settled here, we are dealing with phase two of the disillusionment and dying to our selves. I initially understood that my husband was having a crisis of faith, based on a conversation we had recently. I had agonized for months about how to reproach him for some behavior that was recurring. Finally, I attempted to engage him in a talk during which I told him: "You aren't acting like a Christian."
His response was: "I don't feel much like one." I panicked.

Underneath all of that, I was able to grasp the thing that was happening: He isn't hearing from God, he isn't optimistic anymore about his role in the local body and he doesn't know what God has for him. He's overwhelmed with trying to feed and clothe and care for a family of four on the most measly salary anyone has ever seen, and time is passing him by and his dreams aren't being realized. Anyone would go through it at that point, I'm sure. I've been there. It's called a quarter life crisis. And it's hard.

Of course, I grabbed onto the two things that freaked me out the most: his faith issue (not hearing from God or thinking God is putting him through it for the fun of it) and his behavior in certain areas. And I addressed that in that talk.... culminating in a better understanding of who my husband is and how to help him. And as I said earlier, as his helpmeet, that makes it my time to shine.

Last night, we addressed part two of the disillusionment process for ME, which is where I was going wrong as his help meet. In a lengthy, tearful discussion peppered with frustrations and laughter, we managed to hash out the root of the issue for me. And guess what it was? Pride! How ironic, when that's what I've been trying to tell HIM is his problem.

Pride. Pride keeps me from being real with other Christians...I'm not a hypocrite by any means, but I've got pharisaical tendencies to want to "out-Christian" others.... not for the sake of ME but for the greater good of the church. I read books about "perfect" marriages and "perfect" Christian women and I want to be that so bad that I endlessly torture myself into that mold---I don't tell people when they ask how I'm doing that I need help because I'm scared they'll think I'm not mature enough to know how to deal with my own issues. When Pastors' wives ask me about my husband and what he's up to I play up this big vision for him and how he's going to walk in it. I don't tell them that we need prayer for finances, to put food on the table, to do family devotions or for just plain getting along some days. (although this is becoming more and more rare-- yay for biblical marriages, at least I can say that that works!)

It's doubly hard for me. After all, my identity is wrapped up in my husband. "Stop acting like a pastor's wife," he told me. "You need to understand who you really are. You are married to me. I'm far from perfect. We live in a small house in a middle to lower income area in a black hole. We are struggling to survive. We have two beautiful children. We love each other. I'm not ready to be the guy you think you want to be with. Right now I need to be me, to finish something I start, and to figure out what I'm going to be in the future."


It's like when I FIRST became a Christian. I still smoked and drank and partied and had sex and did all kinds of nonsense that doesn't fit in with a Christian lifestyle. And most nights I'd come home, curl up with my bible and my tears and my Jesus, and GENUINELY repent of all of it, only to go back the very next night and do it all again. But I lived in constant fear that a Christian person from church would run into me in a bar and I'd be smoking. Or that the girl who was discipling me would "stop by" when there was a guy at my house. They put the fear of the Lord in me, but it was fear of THEM, not the Lord. If I had really feared the Lord, I would have known He could see me even when my blinds are closed, even when the lights are low in the club.

So last night, Wayne says to me as we're enjoying a movie together: "I think every person should get one free phone call to God in their life." And I reacted pitifully.
"One phone call? Wayne, we get millions. He never hangs up the phone."
"Oh come on, " he said. "I mean, to hear his voice. You know?"
I threw up my hands in exasperation at his obvious lack of faith, in an even more obvious lack of humor "No Wayne, I don't know. I hear His voice every day and you could too."
He was right to call my response "a trite platitude." In my response I showed him both my fear of his "UnChristianese behavior" and my pride over my own "holiness." Nothing in the way I talked to him for the next hour and a half showed him love or respect. Just fear that he would never "act like a Christian," and that he had ceased to try.

But over the course of our discussion, he showed me two things. One, that his FAITH wasn't shaken, but his pride was. Because he had repented of his pride and broken it.... God had spoken to him. And what He had said was this: "Wayne, you are in a season where you need to build character and perseverence. You are not equipped to be a pastor at this moment. Right now, you need to know that you've never really finished anything in your life, that you have a family to provide for, that you're kind of a redneck and an unrefined viking, and that that's simply who you are right now. Now is a time to build up your family and your business, to focus internally, and to build character through it. So RELAX. Just relax."

Wow. And now God is calling me to do that very same thing... just relax. His Word does not return void. We all need to remind ourselves of that and to live in our seasons, keeping our eyes on the goal. His goal and not ours. His timing and not ours.

We have to be "close to the cross, mindful of the cost, satisfied with Jesus."