A Wife’s Reflections on Her Husband’s Resignation

A Wife’s Reflections on Her Husband’s Resignation January 31, 2017


The inside of Orchard House looks like a typical Monday this morning. All the blankets I drape over our furniture are askew from people snuggling up for a few hours after church the day before. Bibles lay here and there and seemingly everywhere. Orders of service, too. Most of my dishes are clean, but there’s clutter strewn about in the kitchen. Oh, and clean skillets litter the counters, because my Mom is tall enough to clean them but not put them away in the pantry. Sunday clothes still need to be hung up. Thanks to the wind, my deck is a wreck.

And so on.

My version of a good Sabbath rest is to allow Mom to work kitchen duty while we are at church, and refrain from worrying about making the bed or picking up clutter as I go throughout the day. In the name of rest and relaxation, I just leave it all.

Truth is, we are leaving a lot in the name of R and R. Shaun resigned from his position as lay elder a week or so ago, and made it official yesterday morning by announcing it publicly to our church. So today, Monday, feels different than it usually does. It feels normal, in that Shaun is at work and I’m at home cleaning up and getting groceries so we can all function as normal Americans this week. But a burden is gone from our lives. And so is a privilege.

We love lay ministry. And yet, when we began taking a good look at our life and why we might feel so drained, we realized the very thing we loved was the only thing we could reasonably cut out of our schedules, at least until God shows us another way.

There are so many reasons God has communicated to us that it’s time for a sabbatical – or what we suspect is a sabbatical. Too many to spell out here, in a tiny blog. But the overarching reason for the resignation is that if we do not get some R and R, we are going to crash and burn. Shaun spiritually, me physically. The last seventeen years, and especially the last five have been particularly taxing in a non-stop way, and it has occurred to us that when a cup ceases to overflow … it’s time to stop. Drop. And fill ‘er up.

There was a phrase used in yesterday’s service. I can’t even remember which elder said it, what the context was, or anything. But something was said about “the heavy pursuit of God.” And so my mind wandered with that a little bit because I think that’s what’s taking place. Yeah, we have been so busy our heads are spinning. But we are finding that though busy-ness may have a superhero-like spirituality appearance to it, the truth is that the further one gets from true spirituality, the heavier the pursuit of God becomes.

God is a jealous God and frankly, He doesn’t give a hoot about how spiritual we appear. He gives a hoot about how alive to Him we are.



Shaun and I have been two empty cups lately, clanking around in the name of Christian service while God stands by, ready to quench us, fill us, and make us naturally overflow. But we are always moving to and fro and missing what He freely offers because … no time. No ability to concentrate for lack of ability to sit still. Someone always needs us. Or desires us. And by us, I mean typically Shaun, but as his “other half”, there are pressures on me as well.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s great to be and feel needed. But we are worn. And God is heavily pursuing us in order to fill us to overflowing with His love and goodness, and most of all, His strength.

We can’t check out of life. That’s not what we are doing. Shaun will still work. I’ll still care for Mom and this household and be the best Mom and Marmee I know how. And write. In fact, my writing opportunities seem to be stepping up a notch, which I’ll discuss at a later date. But we as a couple are simply taking a step back, and sitting still long enough to fill our cups and listen for a still small voice to tell us where to head next where ministry is concerned. Right now, we simply feel as though we’ve been living life on a roller coaster, flying at a high rate of speed. Picture Shaun constantly hanging on to me in an effort to keep me from falling out of my seat, and me hanging on for dear life, screaming my head off in both joy and terror at the same time, and you’ll have a good idea as to what our life is like. It’s fun and funny at first, and then after a thousand times around the track, it becomes terrifyingly exhausting, and the screaming starts sounding like something out of a Stephen King movie rather than a joy-full Psalm.

I love ministry (did I already say that?). I do not love being a lay minister’s helpmeet while on a 750 calorie per day diet that is not by anybody’s standards “healthy”, and trying (and failing) to get my remaining nutrients via IV tubes. After seventeen years of just trying to survive the rigors of a very trying stomach condition, coupled with pushing myself in spite of how miserable I’ve felt, my body is screaming at me to STOP IT. My body wants to either be fixed (at the very least helped), or no longer required to paste on a happy face. It’s tired of hearing me say Buck up, Snowflake. One more day of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps won’t kill ya’. 

I don’t even feel as strong as a snowflake these days. What convinced me that I need to stop what I’m doing was when I took my mother who has Parkinson’s to the bank a few weeks ago to cancel a check. No problem, I thought. The bank is five minutes away. It’ll just take a few minutes. So we were standing at the teller, and that was the problem for me — merely standing in one place for longer than five minutes. It’s one thing to not be able to stand all the way through a song service at church with all those strong, healthy people hovering over you. You just figure well, I’m just struggling a little more these days and naturally, people who eat three our four times more than I do per day will be stronger than I am. It’s another to not be able to keep up with your Mooooooooom who is twenty years your senior and suffering from a disease that will eventually take her life.

Anyway. More on that if the tests I’m undergoing turn out any definitive answers. Meanwhile, Shaun and I both have inklings of what we eventually want and should be doing. We are not oblivious to our heart’s desires. Neither is God. But we live fallen. Our aging bodies are not limitless and we can no longer live like a couple of spry, too-sexy-for-our-shirts people.




*snort

So for now, what we are saying is that in order for God to give us the desire of our hearts, we have to first lean not on our own understanding, but on Him. To rely not on or own strength, but His. We have to trust that God is sovereign, and He can use us in spite of a difficult family past (and present), in spite of the way He made us (shy and sick), and in spite of our perplexing circumstances (demanding job, lack of health, extended family demands, yada, yada).

Those “in spite ofs” were taken from yesterday’s ironically timed message based out of Esther 2:18. All points hit home with us, but especially #3. The call to ministry has always been perplexing to us, because of our perplexing troubles. We’ve already proven God uses people in spite of troubles. And we know He will continue to do so, even though we don’t know what that looks like anymore, practically speaking. 
Rest, as you know, is an act of humility. One who refuses to rest, or admit the need for rest, is one who misunderstands the role of finite humanity vs the role of an infinite God. God does not slumber. And therefore, man is able to humbly place perplexing problems in the hands of God, lay his head on his pillow … and snooze away, because God’s got this. Whatever “this” is. Ability is of course different than practicing, and this is what we’re attempting to change about the way we do life for the next year or so. We don’t want to just know there’s an unending fountain of strength, we want to actually access it in a deep and meaningful way. 


In closing, I’ll just say that in spite of our perplexing troubles, I am happy. No, not happy. Joyful. Our troubles don’t make me happy. Being perplexed doesn’t make me happy. But I experience a lot of joy in being married to the man I want to be married to. My guy isn’t unafraid to stand up to a culture going everywhere and nowhere at the same time. He isn’t afraid to, by speech and living example, say No. I will not participate in an ungodly lifestyle one more day. I will no longer lead anyone in the way of empty busy-ness. “Let us cross over the river, and rest under the shade of the trees.”

Shaun didn’t say that last line. Those were actually Stonewall Jackson’s last words. But in essence, he’s encouraging others with Stonewall’s invitation, because stepping over the roaring river of life and resting beneath the shielding shade of the trees is at times a legit calling in life, as well as death. And I am grateful to be married to a man who is able to put aside pride and boast in his weaknesses – no matter how counter-cultural and therefore peculiar he may look. Fearing God rather than man is a nobility rarely seen in our day, and not only am I pleased to be the wife of such a man, I’m excited about continuing to be his wife for however long the Lord allows me to pull through my physical weaknesses.

So those are (some of) my thoughts after a few tough weeks and months of praying for direction and finally receiving it. Thank you for listening. We covet your prayers as we attempt to become more deeply rooted in Christ. May our ears hear. Our eyes see. Our hearts be in contrition. And our wills be conformed. 

If you need us, we’ll be under the shade tree, talking, praying, maybe necking. Approach at your own risk. 

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