I’m helplessly staring out the window of a church lady’s car, tears streaming down my face.
Again.
I can’t keep doing this.
She is driving me back from a worship seminar, preaching at me all of the things I am doing wrong when I lead, a firehose of unwanted demands. I feel like I’m three. My voice, my approach, my everything. She is running down a list of what I need to do to fix this, and fix that, and I am ready to open the car door, tuck and roll and take my chances of injury rather than this berating. And after years of yes sir, no sir, what would you like, sir, how can I change to better accomodate how you think I should be, sir,
I finally crack.
I know something is desperately wrong. I have that sense of critical mass. I’m glass breaking, a cliff giving way at last after years of erosion. But my life is just this way, and will always be this way, suck it up and do your best. Toe the line.
And then, I read one simple story.
The first pulled thread to unravel the years of indoctrination, and the first inkling of the person buried underneath, is a simple book.
I counsel with one of the pastors because all of this shit is getting to me. I share too much, problem being instead of counseling with a licensed therapist, who will lose their license if they tell your secrets, I am confiding in a pastor, who has no such requirement and legally could sell your story to People if they felt like it. Things you should know about church #542. Some of what I shared in private is eventually used against me, of course not by Pastor Real, who is Italian, and would view broken confidence as betrayal worthy of a decapitated horse.
He hashes over my years of upbringing as the youngest of 8, being perpetually at the bottom of the pecking order and feeling as if I have no choice in my life. I am here to make others happy, and my happiness doesn’t matter. I was raised Catholic, and suffering for the sake of others is the best way to live… right???
So, believing this is what’cher supposed to do, I am totally living for others. Somewhere around this time, in my thirties, it begins to dawn on me that living my life to please others isn’t working. The problem I am running into is, not only am I pulled in a thousand different directions with everyone’s expectations, but I can also do everything for someone else and they STILL. AREN’T. HAPPY!
Although I am a bit frustrated with this pastor’s loose lips later on, he does recommend Boundaries*.
I start reading the opening story, about a guy who has a problem. Every time he turns on his sprinkler, it waters not his lawn, but the guy’s next door. His lawn looks terrible, no matter how much he waters. He is exhausted from all of this lawn care, yet it is still dead, all brown and crusty from years of neglect. Meanwhile, the next door neighbor is passed out in his hammock, but damn, his lawn looks great! A lush, green carpet he has done nothing to deserve.
And I am stunned.
It’s a perfect picture of how I have been living, make sure everyone else’s problems are solved. You want me to marry you? Okay, I’ll marry you. You want me to give up my career to work for the church? Okay, you must be right. You want me to be your friend and treat me like crap? Okay, I’m here to listen. You want someone to start a new ministry for young adult female redheads with bipolar disorder? I can do that!
I had always viewed myself as the person who could just take it, being strong for others around me, putting in the extra time, because I can handle it. I was a voluntary doormat for so long, this was the first time I realized not only did I not want to keep playing the role of Doormat, but that it was okay for me to roll it up and get it the hell off the porch.
The moral of the story with the guy watering his neighbor’s lawn is to move his sprinkler to his own lawn and put up a goddam fence. And, of course, you have to be prepared for your neighbor, glass of lemonade empty and lawn suddenly brown, to be pissed. This was possibly the hardest part for me, and part of what made getting my life back so difficult. I realized that I was going to have to be okay with people being mad at me. What the hell, enough church folks were mad at me anyway.
This book asks an important question that has stuck with me, a question most people never ask themselves. It’s simply… what do you want?
Most live in obligation, routine, or acquiescence, doing what is expected, or what is easy, not what they really want. I have discovered this is painfully common, inside and out of the church.
This is the first time I have understood that my life belongs to me… is it really possible for me to say no? Is it okay for me to turn down someone when they can’t make it and want me to take over leading something? Is it really okay for me not to put together a new committee? Okay for me to not go to someone’s house if I don’t feel like it? Okay not to have someone touch me if I don’t like it?
And at effing last I wake up to the idea that if I feel like shit after spending time with someone, it’s okay for me to go ahead and say no, not answer the phone, not go to lunch with someone who is going to tear me down.
I stop spending time with the church lady who started this chapter. She is not happy. She is still mad at me to this day. I hold my ground, I know now there will be others in your life who will be mad at you no matter what you do. I can’t care anymore if I want to unearth this Monica who once existed.
It will take years for me to get my life back. but I can’t unsee this, and a door I hadn’t known existed is suddenly available.
I commit a cardinal sin.
After 16 years in ministry, for the first time, I say no.
I have turned the knob.
*This fabulous book is Boundaries by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend. You’re welcome!
Worship Leader Gone Wild 