God is the Job
October 2019 was a turning point for me. It was one of the most challenging months of my life. I wrestled with what I should do. I knew in my heart that God was telling me to quit. I felt the weight of it almost constantly.
I would blame it on my exhaustion… on my sickness…on just about everything I could, hoping that I would just find the energy and excitement I had at the beginning of my ministry.
Every time I decided to just give in and quit my job, a kid would get saved and baptized… and I would question my decision…
Or a kid would come to find me at church just because they wanted to tell me something that happened that week… or they would stop me in the hall to give me a hug, or I would find the sweetest card on my desk.
And then, I would be right back to the point of wanting to figure out how to keep doing my job. I loved what I did. I loved the ministry with all my heart. I felt very much like it was my calling in life.
It was an endless cycle.
I was in constant turmoil.
I didn’t know what God was asking of me, or maybe I did and didn’t want to accept that my time of being a Children’s Minister was coming to an end.
Here is my timeline for October 2019:
October 6, 2019… For King and Country Concert. This night was pivotal because I heard songs that would impact my decision-making process. These songs would become my mantra.
Three songs from the Burn the Ships album I would play on repeat during that month. Those songs were: “Control,” “Joy,” and “Burn the Ships.”
October 7, 2019… Me my husband and my daughter left for Nashville so that I could attend the Kid’s Ministry Conference (Etch)
October 8, 2019… Louie Giglio speaks at the conference and blows my mind with his message,
October 10, 2019… We are headed home from Nashville when I find the email about hiring the new permanent part-time music minister for $27,500 per year.
October 13, 2019… My family and I fly to Valdosta, Georgia, to accept our Farm Family of the Year award. This is a Sunday, so it’s a big deal that I’m absent.
October 16, 2019…. This is a Wednesday night, and I’m still in Georgia. This is a huge deal because I was absent the week before while attending the ministry conference.
October 20, 2019…Sunday morning…
I walk back into the church for the first time for service after being away the week before. That day is seared in my memory. I remember exactly what I was wearing, exactly how I felt… I was miserable.
I was there for less than 5 minutes when everyone needed something from me. The Pre-k department needed a step stool, the check-in machines weren’t working correctly, and my office was piled up with things people had left for me… I was so overwhelmed that I couldn’t even speak.
But this Sunday was no different than any other Sunday. Everything that needed to be done was normal; it was my response to them that wasn’t normal. I found myself struggling to do the simplest of things.
My husband made a quick trip to the store to get the needed step stool; I went to my office and closed the door. I needed a moment. I cried, dried my face, and went to Sunday School.
The pastor was always adamant that we attend Sunday School as a staff, even though I always had a million things I needed to do instead. I didn’t want my absence from Sunday School to be brought up in the staff meeting the next day… so I went… I sat down in class.
My husband was teaching that day, so I couldn’t talk to him. I thought I had pulled myself together, but the weight on me was incredible. My friend saw me across the way, and she knew I wasn’t ok. She sent me a text asking me if I was ok, and when I read it, I started crying more.
I quietly excused myself from the class and went to the youth building to gather myself. We had Kid Worship that morning. I still had a few things to get ready. My husband usually did the teaching, but he had to go back home to work. I would be doing the teaching that day. I sat down on the stage in that empty room. I put my head in my hands and just cried. I heard someone at the door. It was my friend.
She sat beside me and said, “you’re done, aren’t you .” I answered her, “yes, but I don’t know how to be .”
She will probably never know how much that moment meant to me.
I couldn’t even form the words to describe to her what I was feeling. I just knew that God was working on me, and it was painful.
She saw my need; she sat with me in my grief… she was just there, and that’s what I needed the most.
My heart breaks as I write this because I will lose many of my friends as my story continues.
This friendship was one that has never been the same.
I pulled myself together enough to teach my lesson that morning. I did such an excellent job of hiding my pain that my own kids had no idea that I was struggling until we got in the car after service.
I didn’t return to services that night. I was so over the guilt trip of attending a 30-minute Sunday night service that no one wanted to be a part of but the older people. I guess I didn’t care what the pastor thought about me missing Sunday night services by this point.
I texted the pastor that night, telling him how I was feeling. I found that message the other day… here it is.
I want to give you a heads up because I know you don’t like surprises.
I don’t like to be weak; it’s not my thing. I don’t like not being in control. I also don’t like drawn-out things, and I feel like I should be completely better by now, and I’m not. You’ve said you’ve experienced ministry burnout before, so I’m hoping you first understand and second have some advice for me. I just know that this morning there was no place I wanted to be less than church. I felt like if one more person asked me one for one more thing, I might explode.
I slipped away to have myself a cry and somehow managed to make it. I found myself enjoying KidWorship in spite of how I felt, and I was relieved by that. This has been weighing on me for months now. It ebbs and flows but right now, I’m just struggling. Not just at church but in everything.
I don’t know if grief and exhaustion have aggravated things or if this is grief and exhaustion and has nothing to do with ministry. I do know that I’m so tired and sleepy, yet I cannot sleep. It’s all weird. I just need you to know that I feel fragile right now. I feel behind, overwhelmed, and can’t find my excitement.
People asked me today about things that I totally forgot to do. I’ve never done that before. Ministry has always come easy for me. Being busy kept me energized. And now I find myself in this struggle and on the verge of crying almost constantly.
I have a work-in appointment with my counselor tomorrow at 2. I’ll be there tomorrow at 9 and try to get some stuff caught up, then I’ll leave at lunch.I don’t know what I need from you other than your prayers and encouragement, and patience.
I feel like I’m holding the whole church up with my messed-up self. I just can’t seem to get my head above water.
His response
Just getting home from deacons meeting. I will be praying. I wish I had some great advice to give you and after praying I might. Glad you’re seeing your counselor. Thanks for sharing
I responded one more time…
I was a tad afraid to share because I feel like I should be better by now. I don’t want you to think I can’t do my job. But honestly, I’m struggling to think I can do it myself.
I didn’t hear anything back from him that night.
I just want to pause here for a moment and be transparent and honest. It hurts me to look back over these text messages. The pastor was my good friend. He became very much like a brother to me. You can read in the text messages the trust, the friendship, the camaraderie… It’s all there. This was someone I trusted and loved. In the moments of those messages, I had no idea (or didn’t want to admit to myself) that the pastor was part of the problem. I didn’t realize that much of the exhaustion and anxiety had been caused by him. I was still looking to him for help, advice, and comfort. This is why I was so quick to defend him to anyone; this is why I controlled the narrative as he asked. When I go back and read those messages and try to reconcile them with the person I know today, I just can’t do it. It blows my mind that all the time and energy my family and I put into that friendship was blown to pieces so quickly and easily. How does that even happen? I also think that’s why it hurt so bad… to be hurt by someone you trust is a terrible thing.
I have a wonderful friend who saw all of these things from the beginning. She never saw the pastor as anything but manipulative and controlling. She warned me on several occasions, and I didn’t listen. I pride myself on being able to read people. I don’t know how I missed all the red flags.
I think there was ego involved. I think I enjoyed being friends with the big boss and being “in the know”…
I think there was some dedication involved… he was my boss, and this was my job; I needed to like and trust him.
Whatever it was, I bought it hook, line and sinker. I was all in, sold out, the whole nine yards. After all the things I had been through with church in my life, one would think that I wouldn’t have been so easily schmoozed, but I was.
I don’t regret it entirely… we had some good times…it just ended badly.
Some may think that by writing this blog, I’m now the one creating the rift in what was once a friendship, and I would argue that I tried for a very long time, and things were over and done before the blog ever began.
I went to the staff meeting on Monday. I had been candid with the pastor. I told him how much I was struggling, how burned out I was, how I was exhausted, and I didn’t know what to do. Please remember that the pastor had known I was struggling for an entire year. He had every opportunity to offer guidance, to find a way to give me a break… but he never did.
I made it through that morning, but just barely. I was both nervous and relieved to be going to see my counselor.
I was distraught.
I thought for sure that if I walked into his office in the state I was in that he would admit me to the hospital because he was going to ask me if I had any thoughts of harming myself.
My answer couldn’t be a firm no. I had never felt exactly like this before. It was just a lot. I couldn’t separate things in my mind anymore. I felt like I was losing control of my sanity.
I literally thought I was losing my mind. I didn’t like the feeling.
My husband drove me to see my counselor that afternoon and waited in the car for me.
I sat down in the counselor’s office and immediately began to sob.
My counselor knew I was firm in my faith. He also knew I had struggled with my grandmother’s death and all the feelings around that. So he said, “Whitney, why don’t you just let God hold you through this pain? He can handle it; just run to Him, give it to Him.”
He thought I was just mourning the loss of my grandmother.
I picked up my head, and this answer came out of my mouth, a response I had never considered, an answer I didn’t expect…
I said, “because God is the job, and I’m so confused and angry about my job right now, and God is part of that, so I don’t even have Him to run to anymore because He is the job.”
He asked me to explain a little more.
I told him that every time my phone rang, and it was the pastor, a parent, or a teacher, I had to answer it because even though it was my job, my job was for God.
Every text message, every email, every time I walked into the church, every day I spent at my office, every staff meeting, every extra event, every moment of exhaustion… it was all because of my job. Still, my job was for God, so I had to do it.
So now, it felt like God was a part of my struggle. I couldn’t separate the two, which was more painful than anyone could imagine.
My counselor looked me in the eye, and he told me that he knew my job had been a struggle the past year, and we had talked about me quitting if it ever became too much. But, he said if I never had a good enough reason to quit, then what I said just was all the reason I needed.
We walked through when and how this happened. We talked about how hard the last year had been and how different things had been since the new pastor was hired. We revisited our discussion on how important it would be for me to be willing to quit when the job began to require a full-time position.
We talked about when I began to feel this way and how important it was for me as a Christian to make sure that God was more to me in my life than just a job.
He told me that many people in pastoral positions began to feel this way. But, few were ever able to verbalize those feelings as I had.
He was proud of me for realizing these things. He made me feel so much better. He explained that what I was experiencing wasn’t weakness, but instead, it was strength.
He assured me that he wasn’t going to admit me to the hospital, that I wasn’t losing my mind, but he was giving me an assignment, and I had to do it.
He wanted me to go away by myself for 2 nights.
Only me.
Not my husband, not my kids… just me.
He wanted me to spend those two days just listening and talking to God, praying for clarity and answers.
This terrified me. I had never stayed in a hotel room alone.
He suggested that I go to a nearby state park and take nature walks, sit in the porch rocking chairs and soak in the quiet.
This park was popular, and it filled up fast.
I walked back to the car and filled my husband in on everything my counselor and I had discussed. He was so supportive. He agreed with what my counselor said and wanted to help me make it happen.
I checked the status of the park accommodations online, and the room was only available for Wednesday night and Thursday night. If I did this, I would be away for the third Wednesday night in a row, and this would be an issue.
I told my husband how worried I was to plan anything on a Wednesday night. I told him I couldn’t do it unless I talked to the pastor.
I called the pastor on the speaker phone of my car, so my husband could hear.
I was straight-up honest with him; I told the pastor that after my appointment, my counselor agreed that I was in a bad place, struggling, hurting… and needing to go away to get some answers. This shouldn’t have been a surprise to the pastor at all. I had been honest with him from the beginning.
I explained my counselor’s assignment and the fact that the park only had reservation openings for Wednesday and Thursday nights.
The pastor’s answer… if you have to miss Wednesday, I guess that’s ok, but if there’s any way around it, you need to be here… you’ve already been gone for two weeks, and people will start to talk, they will start asking questions, and it could look really bad for you and for me.
At my lowest of lows, this was his concern…
I had just sat through an intense counseling session; I had endured weeks of inner turmoil; I was in a battle with myself and with God… yet we were worried about what people would think if I wasn’t there to run interference for one night of AWANA. I didn’t even technically have a “job” in AWANA on Wednesday nights; I just filled in wherever I was needed and walked around visiting with the teachers. It wasn’t even as if I had to be there, but it was a big deal.
In normal circumstances, I would never have missed another Wednesday night; I wouldn’t have even dared to ask. However, this was uncharted territory for me. I had never felt this way before, spiritually, mentally, or physically.
Until Next Time,
Whitney