More Benefits and Some Drawbacks

I recently wrote about just a few of the benefits of ‘retirement’, or as I like to refer to it, this ‘season’ of in-between.  We are in-between ministries.  We are visiting churches.  There are benefits.  There are drawbacks.

Besides the six I mentioned in my last post here….there are a few more  I'd like to mention.

1.      You can wear the same thing Every.Single.Sunday.  Since we have gone to four different churches each week, I simply pull out what I wore the week before and wha-la!  Easy peasy!  So standing in the closet trying to remember what I wore the week before so as NOT to wear it again…which was the norm for years....is a thing of the past.  (For now, that is.)

2.      At 9:10 a.m. on Sunday morning you and your husband are still in the bathroom getting ready for church!!  Crazy, I say crazy!!!

3.      You can be invisible.  Sometimes I really, really like being invisible.  (See #3 below)

 

4.      No Sunday or Wednesday night church.  Now I totally know that this might cause some of you to gasp in shock and disbelief and horror....where others are right now sighing with longing and a bit of jealousy.

 

 

I must admit there are also many drawbacks to this ‘season’ of in-between. 

 

1.      I’m struggling with staying deep in God’s word.  Teaching ‘forces’ me to be deep in the word and I’m sad, as well as embarrassed, to say that without the two weekly Bible studies I taught I find myself wandering and somewhat rootless. 

2.      I miss the accountability of being in Bible study/small group with like-minded women.  Hearing their “God” stories and praying with and for them. 

3.      I miss knowing faces and people at church.  Most everyone is a stranger and I don’t know their hearts and their hurts.

4.      You can be invisible.  Sometimes I really, really like being invisible (See #3 above) but sometimes it feels really, really good being known. 

5.      I miss worshipping with people I know and love….even those who frustrated the wa-zoo out of me!!

6.      I miss being hugged at church.  And....sometimes I wonder if I/we will be easily forgotten.

I realize that all of these will come/change with time as the Lord directs us to where He would have us serve….but it is also good for me to reflect and ponder on the fact that, yes, ministry can be hard and sometimes simply unbearable….but that even in the hardest times there is much, much good!!

So, if you are in a season of not loving being a wife of someone in ministry and would give anything to get out NOW….perhaps my meager, inadequate and insufficient list of six drawbacks to being ‘out’ of ministry will encourage you.

Blessings!