I am exhausted and I’m sure you are thinking ‘but you were just on a retreat!’…well it was a WORK retreat and we truly did work the entire two days. It was the first time to have our entire Faith Formation Office come together and discuss the good, bad and frustrating aspect of our programs. The positive that came out of the ‘work’ portion of the retreat was that we came up with mutual goals for our department which will hopefully benefit the entire parish community.
The other positive from the time we spent together was being able to purge the frustrations we have in ministry. I think one of the biggest misconceptions about those who work in churches are that it should be ‘easy’ and that we never have those issues in the offices and with the programs we try to implement, etc. It felt good to just get it out! All these frustrations can just build up and build up quickly becoming resentment and burn out.
Women tend to be the best at ‘purging’ their frustrations…men call it complaining…but it’s not that we are complaining, we are literally getting it out of us so that it doesn’t build up into that thick layer of resentment and burn out. Sometimes we just need others to listen, they don’t have to agree, but just be there to be a sounding board so that we can spew out all that is poisoning us inside so that we can have a clear mind and lighter heart to ‘let God and let go’.
The ‘theme’ of purging these frustrations carried on into today when the morning began with a text from my husband telling me about an issue at work that affects us financially and won’t be ‘fixed’ till maybe April, or worse, May. Add that to a pounding sinus headache, a taxi list a mile long with the boys and then to Family Fun Night for the school. I was ready to purge MORE and so were others. We listened, we heard, we let it go and now I’m lighter, freer and simply ready for bed. 🙂
I am anticipating tomorrow to be an interesting day. I’ve been asked by my priest to join him for a house blessing that has some ‘issues’ in dealing with spiritual warfare (or as it’s most often heard of now as ‘paranormal’). If you are a prayer warrior, cover us in prayer as that is never something you want to take lightly or play around with. I’m honored to go with him and you’ll hear about it tomorrow evening!
Blessings
Shannon