What love looks like to me!

My husband is a good man to the core.  I know a lot of people have not and probably still don’t agree with all the decisions he’s made in his life. Even I, at times, have questioned some that had to do with our family. But the past two weeks I’ve realized what a great man my husband is and know that I will never understands how much he loves me.

Two weeks ago, January 26, 2012, I was carrying my sleeping two year old to the car to pick him up from work. I fell down our front porch stairs holding him and severely sprained my right ankle and broke my left leg (fibula) and my left ankle.  I had surgery January 27^th, the next day; the doctors had to put a plate over the left side of my ankle and screw it back into place as well as put some screws in the right side of the ball of my ankle to keep it in place so I can walk again.  I cannot bear any weight on my left foot at all, believe me I did accidentally and it hurt incredibly bad.  I have to go back in 3 months and have the screws out.  I have an ortho boot on my right leg to help me “hop” using my walker to get around.

The way our house is built makes it difficult. We live in a two story house that has at least two stairs to enter the home at all three of our outer entrances. The living room has two stairs to get from it to the bathroom, kitchen, formal living room, and the stairs to reach our bed rooms.  I am living in the living room with a portable toilet. My husband lays out food for me that won’t spoil during the day so I can eat as well as bottles of water.

After telling you all this you will understand why he is a good man and the best husband.  Everyone likes to think that in a time of crisis no matter how big or small your partner will be there for you and do anything for you. Mine does, he makes sure I have what I need, he slept on the floor and love seat downstairs with me because the house makes noises and I was scared. He waits on me constantly when he’s home because I can’t go to the kitchen and get a glass of water, he changes the pot I have to use the bathroom in and never once has said anything about it. Yesterday, during the super bowl, him and his dad brought down the bed so I could sleep because my back was hurting bad from the recliner. He didn’t complain about it or say things under his breathe like most guys would, like I probably would have.  He makes sure I have everything I need.  He has to wash my hair, get me a bucket with water so I can “take a bath”. He had to pick me up to get me on the porch to get into the house because I can’t do stairs, and I’m not a small girl.  I literally can’t do anything without him, and he doesn’t mind!

I hate being dependent, I can’t believe how much I took him for granted before all this. Yes, I know it’s not like I’m paralyzed or had brain surgery but this is physically the worst thing to happen to me and he has shown me so much love and patience through it, more I think than some men would. He leaves for work some days at 7:30 others at 8:30 and gets home around 8 every night. He comes in says hi and heads straight for my “bathroom” to change it. I don’t know of any other guys that would do that.

I love you John Donophan, you are the best man for me!

What EVERY church member needs to realize about their Pastor!!!!

My father is a minister, he started going to college to be ordained when I was about 5 years old. He graduated from Southwestern Assembly of God University in Waxahachie, TX. He has been the pastor of 4 different churches in his almost 20 years of ministry.  We moved roughly every 3 years and he HAD to have a second full time job while we were at 3 of the churches. So for the first 12 or so years of his ministry he was working two full time jobs with no days off and we never took a family vacation. He worked 7 days a week and there were no set hours because anyone who knows a minister is aware of the fact that they are “on-call” 24 hours a day, and people expect that of him!  There is no benefits package with this job, sometimes we lived off eggs for a week or so. No one really understands the hardship a pastor or his family goes through to be able to do what God has told him to do, and it’s all for the people who sit in pews on Sunday morning and hopefully appreciate and respect it. 

Now that you know a little (and I do mean very little) of my personal history with this subject I will explain what I really want to explain so people know what your pastor has given up for YOU.  I have two children now they are 3 and 2. My father has missed my 2 year olds birthdays for 2 years. Why? Because a church member expected him to drop everything with a week’s notice to do a service for them, he didn’t complain, he just called me and said he couldn’t be at a family function.  My high school years, I played volleyball, basketball and did track and field my freshman year. My father was able to come to the very last volleyball game we had that year that was the only game he was able to attend.    Funny how every other parent can attend their child’s games and functions but a minister is expected to be where others need him to be at any given time regardless of his plans or his children.  As a pastors kid you learn to get used to being on the back burner because other people need your father more than you do (or so they assume) and you have no choice and neither does the pastor because that’s part of the job. 

When I bring my kids up to visit my mom and dad, he has had a funeral or wedding or a visitation he had to do so he missed time with them and me, which I get it is important but for people to not even thank him afterward is really selfish.  I feel that people take advantage of their pastors, they don’t think clearly.  If you have been planning a surprise party or memorial service for weeks, its selfish to just assume he has nothing else to do that day and wait until a few days before to ask because then he has no choice but to say yes or else he looks like a jerk when in reality the person asking is the thoughtless jerk. No one realizes the sleepless nights, the ridiculous hours, the work load that ministers have.  He goes to the church around 8 or 9 in the morning and finally gets home to 5 or 6 depending on what board meeting, class, or meeting with a member he has that evening so he then goes back to the church just to get home around 9 or 10. No one else goes to visit with their family and has to wait until 11o’clock at night to actually spend time with them.

I am very aware that everyone deals with difficult people at work and it’s not just pastors who do. I work in the church division for a photography company, I work with church people all day and I hate to say it but they are all the same. They all expect you to wait on them and give you attitude when you mention that you can’t because your job ends at 9:20pm. I even got this attitude at my father’s church doing their directory, granted they didn’t recognize me or know me because I hadn’t been there in a while but a few people did come and treat me like scum.  It happens in every church, in every city and every state.

So on top of pastors sacrificing their family events for their congregation they have to put up with a lot of bad attitudes, rumors, accusations, from the same people he is sacrificing his family for, do you have to miss your child or grandchild’s birthday? What about a sporting event of theirs? Do you wake up at 4am to shovel snow out of the church parking lot? Do you volunteer for church functions so your pastor doesn’t have to do EVERYTHING? Do you not visit your children when they’re in the hospital because you have work to do? Do you only hear “thank you” one day a year from the people you work for?  Do you get paid overtime when you have to leave your bed at 2am to go to the hospital to check on someone? 

You see on top of preaching a few times a week your pastor has a heck of a lot more on his to do list. A full time minister has to be available 24/7, they have to put up with horrible people and their attitudes, they miss their children growing up, they don’t take vacations because they can’t afford it, they don’t go to pro-ball games because there is no time for it and they can’t afford it, they have no personal time and when they do take a few hours its interrupted by phone calls which pulls them away from it. 

I hope this gives you a little insight as to what your minister does, bear in mind this isn’t a complete list, you wouldn’t be able to handle reading every single thing your minister/pastor does.