My Struggle in Ministry

First, I am not posting this for sympathy, answers, or asking people to come listen to my problems- I think it is more than enough if you even read this. I just got thinking today about where my struggles are so that I can work on them. I am more than excited about exegeting in New Testament. Something is really exciting about learning about early Christianity. Spiritual formation is exactly what I need and more than a little exciting as I learn new ways to pray. Pastoral care on the other hand, scares the you-know-what out of me, making it less than exciting. I don’t expect this to be solved today, tomorrow, or even this semester. This is something that I will struggle with for a while. Maybe into my first call if not longer. However, I think the first step, just like in any 12-step program, is recognizing my problem. Honestly, I would be more worried if I couldn’t find one. Anyway, here goes…

Today in Pastoral Care, we got talking about key things to remember when you are working with people and their problems. Most of the stuff I have heard a thousand times already, some stuff was knew and really interesting. One thing stuck out though, and it has every time I have heard it, and funny enough is something that all of my supervisors in the past have tried to remind me of- one of the most important things when helping others, is making sure you help yourself. This should be easy, right?

Well, for me this is one of the hardest things to do. One of my biggest blessings and curses is that nothing hurts me more than knowing I am letting someone down or didn’t help them to the best of my ability. I was joking with a friend the other day about how I will set up all of my friends and make sure they are all in happy relationships before I set myself up, only I don’t know that I was joking. Actually, I know I wasn’t. That is just how I am. My dad gets on me about being the “mother hen” out of the three daughters, and he is very right. I get so concerned that everyone else is taken care of, has everything they need, is comfortable, gets it… and even though it all comes from the heart, it isn’t necessarily a good thing. Other than the fact that my sisters always want to kill me (and I’m sure my friends do sometimes), I never take care of my own needs or get comfy.

I’m currently caught in a trap with this. I won’t go into detail because honestly, it doesn’t matter that much. However, here is the gist- someone came to me with a problem, oddly enough one very similar to one of my own. Of course I sat down with them and tried to help them work it out. I have struggled with this person as they work it out, putting myself in the situation the way it was recommended by Charlie Brown (yes, my Pastoral Care prof is Charlie Brown… we also have Sam Adams teaching OT). It has worn on me, and honestly, at least twice as much as on them as I have had to push my similar problem to the back burner where it has consequently boiled over and made a huge mess (like when rice boils over… no fun). It doesn’t help that I have been called numerous things for approaching it this way, none of which are appropriate to repeat here (who knew it was such a bad thing to help someone?). So when, and how, do I cut this off and take care of my gooey, nasty, rice mess? Cause goodness knows, it only gets worse the longer you leave it!

Of all of the things in ministry, I think Pastoral Care is what I am going to struggle the most with. Not because I can’t talk to or listen to people… I do it all the time. I have for years. My past residents used to tell me that I listened as well as I wrote them up for stupidity (which was quite often and quite thorough). The struggle for me comes with putting them on the back burner every now and then while I take care of myself. I run myself ragged and when I finally have time for me, all I can do is roll over and go to sleep. I think something else that comes into play is that I am scared to handle my own problems. If I have problems, I am no longer in control. Why do I like playing trumpet? Because theoretically, I am in complete control. Letting go and trusting someone to help me gives up even more control. I am not looking at my own problems from an outside perspective so I can’t really “predict” what will happen based on my actions- I only know what I want to happen. And even worse than loss of control, what if I take care of myself, but it hurts or disappoints someone in the process?

So, I guess this is my focal point for a while… I always love a new challenge :) And of course, that is another problem to work on… I can’t say no very easily. Not starting on this one though!

Night y’all