Tuesday, December 09, 2008

Rough Week For A Priest's Wife

As a priest's wife I am having a rough week.

Sunday my hubby preached a sermon about the wilderness. I have to admit that I had a hard time staying with his sermon. I guess I was wandering in the wilderness a little. Not because it wasn't a good sermon, what he was saying was right on target, my problem is that when he writes his sermons he writes a sermon that he is called to write.

I on the other hand, spend WAY too much time worrying about whether or not he is going to offend someone in the congregation or upset a new member. When we first were called to these congregations they had 5-8 people on a Sunday. Over the past 4 years we have grown to 15 at one church and 28 at another. When I walk into the church and see all the faces I am thrilled with the work that is being done inside our little churches.

I realize that I am worrying way too much and need to just concentrate on the sermon but for me it is soo hard.

The next thing that I have encountered this week is that a community member notified me at a meeting that they would be using our parish hall on a different night than their group's regular night and would I please let my husband know. When I got home the hubby was still at a city council meeting which led me to forget to tell him about the change until this morning. Ooops. Now there are two groups meeting tonight on the church calendar. Luckily one can meet in the church. Needless to say I am not a very good messenger but I am also not the church's secretary. I think that job belongs to someone else. However I have a hard time saying "No" when someone asks me to relay a message, but clearly I either need to get better at relaying the message in a timely manner or better at telling them to call the church office.

Gez and it is only Tuesday. Thank goodness I am out of town Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday which should help keep me out of trouble.

I know that there are other clergy spouses that check in on this blog every now and then and if you should have any magic answers or great ways that you deal with things I would love to have you share.

Thanks.

4 comments:

Jane Ellen+ said...

You're right-- you are not the parish secretary. Therefore, you are not responsible for making changes to the parish calendar, or for running interference for the Vicar. So, my dear friend, "getting better at relaying messages" is not the answer. Getting better at passing out Rev. Ref's phone number is.

Suggestions? "Please call the office and leave that message. I don't want there to be any confusion." Then keep some of his business cards in your wallet, and use them as needed.

Anonymous said...

Awww! (((hugs))) I am so sorry! I think Jane Ellen is right. I always tell people that I do not know his schedule or the church schedule and that I am unreliable as an answering machine! LOL (No, I've never really said that but I think Jane Ellen is right. Best way I handle stuff like this is being self deprecating... ie. honest about the fact that I have a terrible memory and will likely forget!)

As for the sermon, I understand your feelings there. Even when *I* know what my husband means when he says things, sometimes I worry that someone might misconstrue something or take something the wrong way. If they are offended by the truth of scripture then I don't have a problem with it because they can take it up with God (LOL) but if they are taken aback by something that he says that might be offputting then I am concerned. Sometimes my thoughts on something he has said were obviously just oversensitive but sometimes they are legit. and he has thoughtfully gone to the person who might have understandably taken something the wrong way and made sure to clear anything up so it's not always been a bad thing that I think about such things. It's a difficult balance though as you have to weigh out being overly critical, worrying too much about "man's opinion" rather than God's and then (as you said) just listening to the sermon and learning... it's a tough balance to strike!

Hang in there!

The Lovely Wife said...

Thanks Nancy, its nice to know that I am not the only spouse with these issues.

Dawgdays said...

I haven't had much experience with this yet, but I know that if someone at work asks me to do something, I will often ask them to drop me an email, since I know I would forget otherwise.

Heck, if I have to stop on the store on the way home from work, if there's more than three things, I have to write them down.

So I know that if I get the "will you pass this along" question, I'm probably going to say, "Call/email her."

I prefer to think of this as CRS - Can't Remember Stuff.