Pressure

The Pastor's Wife at our church has really been putting a TON of pressure on me to attend the weekly Book/Bible study that the church offers on Thursday mornings at 9 a.m. John has really been encouraging me to go. But the truth is that I have zero desire to go and I don't have peace about it at all. Now you are probably asking why I wouldn't have peace about going to a Bible study. Well, I'll tell you. John is completely OVERLOADED in every single sense of the word. He is taking a seminary class, starting a new church, maintaining the other church, discipling several believers, constantly has a ton of administrative work for the IMB (ie., it took him over 6 hours yesterday to do 1 expense report), mission teams coming all summer and the immense amount of work that goes with that, and he is planning this huge pastor's conference for next year. And all of that in a culture that you can't get very much done very quickly. And every day there is something "extra" that pops up like a flat tire (today), a sick kid (yesterday), a school activity, an IMB conference (next week), IMB paperwork for our stateside, etc... You get the point, I'm sure. He just has a lot on his plate (notice I didn't even touch on the 5 kids and their needs) which means I have a lot on my plate. So if I am gone from the house for this study, then that means that he has to stop EVERYTHING so that I can go and then it just creates more stress later on because things have to get done regardless. Plus, on Thursdays there are 3 kids at home instead of 2 and I am spending 2 hours in the car everyday taking them and picking them up. It's crazy. It's really not that far away - like 10 miles or less, but the traffic is unreal here. It's making me not want to ever leave the house. On average, I go 2 miles in 20 minutes during peak hours. I can run there faster than that. I digress. Back to the study....they are studying "Becoming a Woman After God's own Heart" By Elizabeth George. Great book! I have read it twice and studied in a group once. So of course, I don't want to do it again. But still, there is the pressure on me to attend so that "the women of the church can get to know me better and pray for our family." How sweet, but I just honestly feel that I need to be home taking care of the house and trying to support John every single day instead of adding more on his plate (trust me, he helps me enough as it is). So today, I e-mailed the sweet Pastor's wife and just told her that I can't do it. And no sooner than I sent the e-mail we realized we had a flat tire in the van. See, it wouldn't have worked out anyway. So John had to stop and change the tire and then go try to get it fixed. Then I took the kids to school and stopped at a grocery store to buy tickets to see the Swan Lake Ballet tomorrow night ($7 for 2 kid's tickets...woohooo). I stopped at the ATM to take out all of our money for the entire month (fees are high) and we envelope budget. The ticket place wasn't open even though they were suppose to be. I waited for 20 minutes for her to arrive. I then went to get the tickets and her printer was broken. An hour of wasted time in the grocery store and it was still broken and I walked out with no tickets. This is so common here. Well, I went to get my keys and I couldn't find them. Jaxson had left them on top of the ATM machine. Praise God they were there when we went back. All I could think is that there is always "something" in this country and it is a good idea that I'm not doing the study. John needs me, the kids need me and I need me to not be stressed out or overbooked. I am trying to leave "margin" in my life for days like today. And trust me, living here you needs LOTS of it!!!

All that to say, I'm not doing the study and I hope the Pastor's wife understands and stops the pressure. John is fine with me not doing it. I'm sure I need the fellowship BADLY, but it will have to wait until July 31st. :)

Thanks for listening!