by Ashley Haupt | Feb 4, 2013
The January we moved into our first parsonage, it was one of the coldest winters in years. Elderly deacons that we didn’t yet know unloaded all of our mismatched furniture into our frigid house and hurried back to their own warm homes. Outdated baseboard heaters lined the walls and an enormous Texas chocolate sheet cake sprawled across the counter.
New home, new church, new city, new baby arriving, and new role: pastor’s wife. I was a wreck on the inside, terrified of failure, especially in this tricky new role.
What you might not know about your pastor’s wife is that she’s scared to death.
When Tim and I married, we were headed to the mission field. In his second year of seminary, Tim picked up a couple theology classes. He lit up like a neon sign when he shared his gleanings from class with me and I felt an uneasy foreboding in my heart that proved to be prophetic. He switched his degree from Missiology to Mastor of Divinity that year. Ironically, I was ready to go to Africa at a moment’s notice if God called, but I wasn’t ready to become a pastor’s wife in America.
My dad once attended a church business meeting in which the pastor was not only voted out of his position, but physically carried and thrown out from the sanctuary. A church is more of a living organism than a stable business and job security is not a perk in this calling. This particular church gave me no reason to fear, but fear doesn’t always need reason. It has its own artistic power of imagination, painting vivid portraits of frightening futures.
To an extrovert, this next statement will be unthinkable, but greeting the congregation on a Sunday morning was one of my biggest challenges. An in introvert, I thrive in one-on-one time with people, but crowds overwhelm me. I can’t work a crowd to save my life.
If you have an introverted pastor’s wife, don’t be offended if she doesn’t come greet you on a Sunday morning. Don’t assume it’s because she doesn’t care. She might be shy, so go say hello to her first. If she’s anything like me, she’ll grasp your hand with gratitude and talk your ear off. Keep in mind, she might have had a crazy morning, too. She might have single-handedly hauled three kids, three bags, and a coffee cup to church in high heels. She might have forgotten to eat breakfast.
What you might not know about your pastor’s wife is that she’s painfully human, fragile as the next female (or more so), and is most likely doing the best she can in her role. If you’ve got some to spare (and we all do), show her some grace this Sunday.
by Ashley Haupt | Jan 23, 2013
Dear Abby,
I have some bad news and some good news.
Bad news: The Bible is silent on a lot of things that will be really important to you.
Good news: In the silence is freedom.
The Bible does have all the answers for life’s most significant questions. Make no mistake about that. But in between birth and death and salvation are only about one million little and big decisions you’ll have to make about how to live your life.
If He gave us a guidebook for everything: type of food to eat, friends to have, parenting philosophy, daily schedule, what to wear, we’d not have to wonder. But guess what? He practically did that for the Israelites (see Leviticus), and it did not lead to peace, joy and intimacy. No, instead they were rather faithless, grumpy, and discontent.
Ah, there is the rub, Abby. Freedom requires more faith. And stretching our scrawny spiritual necks out to exercise that greater faith produces deeper intimacy and trust in Christ, in the goodness of the Father.
I can think of two errors to avoid as you approach life, dearest girl. One is to always doubt yourself and your choices. Thinly labeled as low self-esteem and lack of confidence, it is in essence a lack of faith and trust in God and His providence. Have nothing to do with these shackles, love. I’ll do my earnest best to see that you don’t, having been familiarly acquainted with them myself.
But the second error is equally damaging. This is to think you have found the only way to live. Oh, you’ll know when you brush up against someone like this because you will walk away feeling 2 1/2 centimeters tall and you will wonder what just happened. In truth, they may have found some good ideas, wisdom, or knowledge but unfortunately they possess those gems with an arrogant self-righteousness, as though they have earned their way to victory.
Knowledge has puffed them up and they have missed the love boat. They make you feel small because they have climbed the throne of legalism in their own heady strength and from that height, they peer down at you contemptuously.
Abby, there are a million ways to live your life.
Gifts, philosophies, talents, finances, parenting styles, clothing styles, love languages provide the variety, friction, and color that make our world beautiful as it is difficult. Live and let live. Devote yourself to holiness, but always with the knowledge that it is by the grace of God you desire it, and it is Christ’s holiness you pursue, not your own.
Ah, my dear, you have such a tender, sensitive heart. I know you will make room in it to let others be themselves. Just don’t forget to give yourself freedom, too.
Love,
Mama
by Ashley Haupt | Jan 10, 2013
Dear Abby,
When you started asking “What if” questions on the eve of kindergarten, I knew you’d be a worrier.
What if I get sent to the principal’s office?
What if I’m late?
What if I’m bad?
I want you to know about the desperate zone. The desperate zone is where you suffer a stifling sense of guilt, fear, and or anxiety throughout your day that you should be somewhere else, doing something else, and never settling into the present grace.
I find myself there, Abby, washing dishes and thinking about how I need to be exercising, exercising and thinking about how I need to be organizing, reading and thinking about how I need to be vacuuming.
The desperate zone is not a decent place for anyone, but it’s a really pathetic place for blood-bought believers. Christ didn’t set us free to fret. Grace was costly. Costly enough to purchase a little freedom for your day.
I hope that you learn this sooner than me, that you’re free to live your day any creative way you choose. Dance your way right out of the desperate zone, that constricting place where you’re doing everything out of fear and nothing out of faith.
Don’t believe for one minute that believing is cheap and easy, Abby. Believing is hard work, and like all things in life, that which is hardest is often most worth pursuing. If grace doesn’t touch your everyday working life, then it’s not true grace after all, but merely a cheap Sunday substitute, like Splenda for sugar. Similar but not the real deal.
Real grace sets you free, sweetens your day, and tethers you to your chores with the light yoke of servant’s joy.
Fulfill your duties, do the work, but don’t let the work worry you. Abound in the work of the Lord knowing that your toil is not in vain.
Free indeed, my girl. That you are.
Love,
Mama