Confessions from the Laundry Room

One day, when I am old and gray and way smarter than I am now, I plan to write a book about my experience as a preacher's wife. I plan to call it Confessions from the Laundry Room because that is the inner room of our house where a lot of praying, screaming, and thinking happen. I know that I probably should not confess or share my shortcomings so openly, but unfortunately I have not attained perfection so I have to pray that the lessons I learn along the way might encourage someone else. *Maybe* when I have reached that old and gray state(BTW, I don't plan to ever be gray. My daughters will have strict instructions to continue dying my hair even if I don't know who I am or where I am. Or possibly, God will eventually rid me of my vanity. :) I will finally be able to offer instruction and teaching that actually aids in other people's spiritual growth. Until that time, I plan to just share my experiences and invite you to laugh, cry and scream along.

This past weekend was a big time in the Fidler household. Eli had his last t-ball game and Sarah was supposed to have her dance recital until it was cancelled due to the loss of her dance teacher's nephew. We were expecting my parents and Josh's parents, sister and grandma. My parents decided to wait and come for the dance recital so it worked out good that our weekend was not quite so busy and we had more time to visit and now we are looking forward to another visit in the next couple of weeks. Anyway, we had a great visit and Josh always enjoy when his family gets to hear him preach.

That brings me to the preaching. Since the cat is out of the bag (is that the saying?) I will go ahead and let you all know that Josh and have been praying for about 5 or 6 months about God's plan for our ministry and if we are to continue in Montrose or if He has somewhere else for us. When Josh lost his job with hospice we felt that God might be closing a door here because it was time to go somewhere else. It makes me sick at my stomach to even type that. I started this blog at the point that God first called us to Mississippi and I am so thankful that I have it as a diary to look back and remember the steps we took along the way. So, as hard as it is, I've decided that I want to document this time as well. Besides, what happened this last Sunday was a moment that just has to be archived in the "This could only happen in my life" file. :)

Sunday morning started awesome.Sarah and Eli had spent the night at the hotel with Josh's family. Kate was sleeping in. Josh had an early meeting. I was alone in a quiet house and had time to read my Bible and pray before church!!!!! If I told you how rarely that ever happens you would label me the worst preacher's wife ever and write me off completely. So...I took advantage of having that time and spent it reading the words of Jesus. Lately I have found myself very bogged down in theology and a lot of other people's opinions and I have desperately needed to hear the Truth from the Truth himself! (John 14:6) Recently I have really been struggling with knowing which ideas we follow that are man made and those which are truly from God. Check out where God led me in Mark:

"This people honors Me with their lips, But their heart is far from Me. And in vain they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. For laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men-the washing of pitchers and cups and many other such things you do.
He said to them, All too well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition."

Mark 7:6-9

Just thought I would share that. I thought it was great. It also speaks of something that is very important to Josh and I which is seeking God, not upholding manmade traditions. I also had to remind myself of this a lot once Josh started preaching Sunday morning!!!!

Okay, so we got ready and headed to church. I'll tell you right here that I have been struggling with something that starts with an H and ends in ORMONES! I will just leave it at that. This became evident when I burst into tears in Sunday School for pretty much no good reason. Or it could have been that I knew a search committe was coming from another church. Yes, that is right, they were coming all up into Montrose Baptist Church to hear Josh preach at our church in front of our members! I honestly did not think much about it because we have really not felt a clear Word from God at this point. And we have decided that until His direction is as clear and STRONG as it was when He called us here we will just stay put. But this church called and wanted to hear Josh preach and Josh never turns down people wanting to come to our church. :)

I cleaned my face of the mascara mess that was left after Sunday School and then spotted the committee that filled one of our pews. Oh my nerves!!! I had no idea where they came from. I wasn't expecting to be nervous at all. We didn't really feel like we wanted them to call us anyway, so why did I instantly become terrified at the sight of them?

I did my usual rounds and made my way to my pew. (Yes, we do have assigned pews in our church :). Josh's family had made it with the kids. Sarah had a blanket with her. Seriously. The service started and as always my attention went to keeping Kate as content and quiet as possible. Other than feeling like I was going to throw up and trying to keep my dress in place as Kate climbed and twisted, I thought the service was going well. Then, Sarah wrapped that blanket around her, and Kate started grabbing the hymnal. I was at a crossroads. I could either let her have her way and possibly shred a hymnal or I could take it away and let her scream and throw a fit that could be heard for miles around. Such wonderful choices. :) She started getting really fussy when Josh got up to preach and I was so consumed with her that at one point I thought Josh said we were going to pray so I jumped up to take her out thinking everyone would have their eyes closed. They didn't. Josh was actually telling a story about some people praying. So everyone turned to stare at me when I got up, but thankfully one of our ladies rescued Kate from me and fled to the nursery. Thank you Jesus!!!!!!!!!

I sat back down feeling some relief and then I remembered what Josh was preaching on. He had started working on it early in the week before we knew the committee was coming. Let me stop here and tell you that we are baptist and we do not believe in drinking. Of any kind. Well, I mean of alcohol. That being said, Josh was preaching about Jesus turning the water into wine (John 2) and he spent a lot of time talking about how he thought we are too dogmatic in our stand against drinking. All I could think was that I really wanted to grab that blanket from Sarah and hide under the pew with it. I just knew that our church was going to fire us and of course this other church would want nothing to do with us. I was thinking "Lord, why? Why did he preach on that today? Can you make it stop?" I know, me of little faith. My physical nervousness did not end until we were safely in our house and I was serving a roast, but at that point in the service I felt a spiritual peace. As hard as it is to be bold, I know that any church that isn't going to accept our family and Josh preaching what he feels led by God to preach is not where we need to be.

During the invitation my crying spell attacked again and I could almost hear the committee taking notes. Preacher's wife-emotionally unstable and cannot control children
Preacher-crazy liberal who probably taps a keg at 4th Sunday Sing

Okay, so I'm sure that I way over exaggerated all of this and it was only *half* as bad as I remember. I just thought this experience most definitely had to go down as one of my confessions from the laundry room. :)