The day had come.
November 4th, 2019… the day I would resign…
I left for work that morning and resolved that I would do what God was asking of me. I was going to lay this job down. I was giving it up. No turning back.
And I was struggling.
All the way to work, I listened to For King and Country. The three songs that spoke to me the most during that time were “Control,” “Burn the Ships,” and “Joy.” They reminded me that I needed to give up all the control I was trying so desperately to hold on to and cut ties entirely with this job. I had to leave it behind. In doing so, I chose joy, the joy I hadn’t felt in a very long time.
You asked me to let go, but I thought I knew better
Afraid of surrender and what I don’t know
I’ve always had a plan, but now I’m so weary
And I can’t see clearly, forgot who I am
So won’t You make my eyes Your eyes
My ears Your ears, my tears Your tears
And won’t you make my hands Your hands
My feet, Your feet, my dreams, Your dreams
I give up control, oh, oh, whoa
Body, mind, and soul oh, oh, whoa
Can’t do this on my own, no, no
I give up control
How did we get here?
All castaway on a lonely shore
I can see in your eyes, dear
It’s hard to take for a moment more
We’ve got to
Burn the ships, cut the ties
Send a flare into the night
Say a prayer, turn the tide
Dry your tears and wave goodbye
Step into a new day
We can rise up from the dust and walk away
We can dance upon our heartache, yea
So, light a match, leave the past, burn the ships,
And don’t you look back
Oh, hear my prayer tonight. I’m singing to the sky
Give me strength to raise my voice; let me testify
Oh, hear my prayer tonight, ‘cause this is do or die
The time has come to make a choice
And I choose joy.
I also called my husband and my mom on the way to work that morning.
They helped me remember why I was doing what I was doing. They encouraged me to stay strong, follow through, and not back out.
I got to the office in time for the staff meeting.
That was the longest staff meeting we ever had. It wasn’t over until noon. That’s a three-hour meeting. The whole time I was an absolute wreck. I remember the pastor asked me to pray before the meeting, and I couldn’t even get the words out correctly. So I was quiet and had very little input; neither of those things was normal for me.
I took notes, kept my head down, and texted my husband, my mom, and my friends… I gave them updates throughout the meeting. They were all praying for me and wanted to know when I would tell the pastor.
Finally, the meeting was over.
As the other people left the room, I asked the pastor if I could speak to him privately. I stood up and closed the office door.
I pulled out my notes.
I started by talking about when I started my job and how I felt called to the position. How the job expectations had changed repeatedly since I began.
The most important part for me that day was this… I wrote on my notes and circled… Choose Friend…
CHOOSE FRIEND
I explained how complicated things had become for me to separate; He was my boss, and he was my friend, and when I was angry at him as a boss, I carried it over into the friendship.
I told him I would much rather have him as my friend than my boss, and I felt like by staying in the job, I was putting our friendship at risk.
These were my bullet points.
- I want my life back
- Job consumed me,/ Lost myself
- I don’t have to be on staff to minister
- Always thought I was doing what I love, and I was blessed to even be paid
- Tried to come up with another solution
- God clearly wants this
- Expectations change constantly
- God/job – can’t separate the two
- This last year is a blur
- I worked my butt off
- Thought people would see that it was worth more compensation/ they didn’t but gave me more work to do
- Last year was a blur; I can’t do it again
- $300- never anything else
- List of things I do/ it’s too long for part-time
- Evaluations
- Raise
- Music minister pay
- Never enough
- Not looking forward to things
- Never caught up
- Feeling of relief when I decided to quit
- Next year’s schedule brings dread
- New Pace/ New Normal
- Summer Program nearly killed me
- People being upset about canceling things
- The stress of full-time pay for part-time
I think it’s interesting that “last year was a blur” was on my list two times.
I literally couldn’t remember celebrating my own kid’s birthdays that year, and that broke my heart.
The only thing I could remember doing was working.
I calmly told him that I had confused the difference between God and the job at some point while doing this job. As a result, I had elevated everything at the church to God status, every part of my job to God status, and every assignment, event, and program to God status.
He told me that I had eloquently described something that almost all pastors experience and can never put into words.
He listened. He nodded.
He spoke very little.
When I was done, he told me he had seen this coming. He knew I was struggling. He knew I was burned out. He knew I sought God’s will when deciding, and he wouldn’t argue with me if I had my mind made up.
He asked if I would be willing to train the person who came after me, and I told him I wouldn’t.
I had to let it go completely.
He understood and agreed with my reasoning.
He said his greatest worry was that we would leave the church altogether. I told him he was crazy.
I hadn’t even thought about that possibility. I thought it was strange that he would even say that. We had been church members far longer than I had been on staff; I wasn’t going anywhere. I loved the church.
One day in 2019, when he kept asking more of me, I told him that I felt inadequate. I explained to him that I had never been to seminary. I had never been trained to hold a staff position in a church. I had also never walked an aisle and surrendered to the ministry. This was simply a job that I felt called to do.
The day that I resigned, he threw those words back in my face. He told me that he had been thinking about things and thought I was right. I couldn’t handle the stress of the job because I wasn’t ministry-called and seminary trained.
That day I just agreed with his wisdom. However, later I realized that wisdom wasn’t the case.
He flippantly told me that he would choose the next person for the job and would not get stuck with someone like the secretary. He wouldn’t let the committee chairman get his way this time. He would make the decision. He would hire who he wanted.
He told me we should keep my resignation quiet until we had a plan. People would talk, and we needed to stay ahead of that.
I told him I wanted my resignation effective on January 1st, 2020. I asked him if he would allow me to read my resignation letter before the church so I could have a proper goodbye on my terms. He said he thought we could make that happen; I would just need to let him look over what I planned to say beforehand.
I told him that I planned to leave everything in good order for the next person. I would make sure that everything was lined out. I assured him that I had already made a list of everything I was in charge of and planned to leave instructions for each thing.
He told me I needed to make a detailed file for everything I had done. I needed to separate every event and responsibility and write exact instructions for each thing.
This was November 4th, 2019.
I still had a Trunk or Treat to pull off that Wednesday night, November 6th. I had a Christmas parade float to help plan and the actual parade on December 8th. I had a preschool musical to direct on December 15th and had to find time to have rehearsals before then. I had to write and learn my lines, teach the other people their lines, plan the costumes and the stage and then plan a Happy Birthday Jesus party for immediately after the musical. I had a Christmas Eve service to help plan and direct and several songs to learn for that, and I had to do all of this … before the office closed for Christmas.
Now I had to add to my list to also make a detailed file for everything I did while I was in the position.
I understood. I didn’t argue… I could push through… I could do this.
He said he had me for 6 more weeks and would get as much work out of me as he could.
I stood up to walk out…
He said something like; I hope you know you’ve really messed things up for me. I was planning to fire the secretary, but now that you’re resigning, I can’t do that. It would look horrible for me to fire her after firing the music minister… people are going to start thinking I’m the problem. So now I’m stuck with her… so thanks for that, he said… but I’m still hoping that if I give her enough rope, she will hang herself.
I was flabbergasted.
There’s just so much wrong with what he said at that moment.
That’s not how a leader acts.
First, he had just made my resignation all about him… He had taken everything I just said and boiled it down to what it meant for him. I don’t know why I was even surprised.
Secondly, and more importantly, instead of helping the person he had hired as a secretary, he was setting her up to fail, hoping she would fail, making it easy for her to fail… And my oh my, how that story ended. I’ve been left with mental and emotional scars, but hers… she was left with mental, emotional, and physical scars. My story is nothing compared to hers. My hurt is nothing compared to hers. How in the world someone hasn’t realized how much pain the pastor caused her, how much stress he put on her, and how what he did eventually caused her and her family irreparable damage… I may never understand…And he had been planning it since the first day he realized he didn’t want to work with her…
This whole morning had been extremely stressful. I was emotionally drained. I knew I had done what I needed to do, but it hadn’t been easy.
He asked me before I left his office if I was sure this was what I wanted to do.
I looked back and said, “I’m burning the ships.”
He said, well, that’s a little dramatic.
Little did I know…
Until Next Time,
Whitney
