Meltdowns in the Fishbowl

Many mistakenly believe that pastor's wives are so grounded in their faith that we have grown physical roots that stretch supernaturally to heaven.  But psssssst.... I'm going to tell you a super secret:  Pastor's wives have melt downs too.  Now, I can't speak for other pastor's wives, but I can tell you what mine look like.  They're colorful to say the least.

They involve projectile tears and often bawling to my sister on my cell phone while driving at erratic speeds on the highway.  You see, in case you haven't noticed, life is stressful.  I'm stressed about my kids, about my work, about my colleagues, about my ministries, about my writing, about my parents, about the laundry, about my cats.

I'm stressed about the fact that I'm supposed to be praying my way through this stuff and not feeling like I'm coming apart at the seams.  I think I'm pretty much stressed about all the stuff that women struggle with everyday, everywhere.  Well, maybe the cats aren't common to all.  To be honest, while the people I love and care about might care about and love me back, they really aren't concerned about all these things that are piling up to make me more than a little crazy. 

If we aren't careful we fall back to sleep and we forget the true reality.  We accept the illusory reality that stress is really all there is to this life, until we get old and trade stress for boredom. You know, I'm so lucky to have a God who reaches right over to me and makes me turn the radio on right when He has something to say to snap me back to reality.   He tenderly reminds me, in the middle of my melt downs, "Hey, I'm bigger than all those things. I've got this."

How blessed am I?  That the God of the Universe--the One who put all the pieces together--cares enough about me and my tiny little self-involved world to tell me how big He is?  That the mountains bow down and seas will roar at the sound of His name.  Mountains bow down?  Really?  That's exactly what I need.  I need my God. When I feel like I might slip under because the current feels like it might be too much, I remember that He is not just throwing me a life ring from shore and hoping I've got enough left in me to catch it. He is the one in charge of the river.