This blog was recently posted on the Allegheny Center Alliance Church livejournal blog:
While it has been a long time since I blogged a Healthy for Christ post, it hasn't been a long time since I thought about it, especially since Pastor Blaine's heart surgery. Having two of our beloved pastors undergoing heart surgery in such a short time, it really gets you thinking, you know? One of the things I thought about was when I was on staff at ACAC, I would cover for Sheran White when she went to Kenya. As the assistant to both pastors, covering for her made me privy to just how much stress these men are under in their calling to shepherd us. Their email inboxes didn't have hundreds of emails, but literally thousands. Okay, Pastor Blaine had thousands. Pastor Rock was and is, of course, on top of everything (wink, wink). I used to have fun sending Sheran little messages about how many saved voicemails I discovered or what crazy jokes Pastor Rock used to tease Pastor Blaine with.
Anyway, thousands of emails, I can't even imagine! Trying to convert the couple of personal email addresses I have into one has had me overwhelmed for years. Yes, years because no matter how many things I unsubscribe to, those darn inboxes just keep growing and growing. Ah, fah-ge-da-bowt-it. Then that gets me thinking about technology and how it has complicated our lives when it was supposed to make them easier, but that is another topic for another time.
Our shepherds have people pulling them in every direction and nothing irks me more than hearing someone complain that a pastor didn't get back to them right away or didn't say "hi" to them. I am the first one to admit to having tunnel vision when I have a list of projects needing my attention. I can be so focused, either while at my desk or in my head while running from here to there, that someone can call my name or wave dramatically at me and I'd have no clue. To quote my aunt, "A bomb could go off and Kathy wouldn't notice." And let's face it, in this day and age, we are all overworked and overwhelmed. We are connected 24/7 and the line between work and play has become blurred. I imagine most people feel the added pressure of being connected 24/7 as co-workers send them texts and facebook messages about work when they are "off the clock." That pressure is just a piece of what our pastors deal with, and they deal with it wholeheartedly because it is part of their calling from God.
(TINY PRINT: No pastor or leader of ACAC has endorsed this message. They don't even know about this message. This message is just the personal, ramblings of K.Rae.)
The next thing Pastor Blaine's heart surgery had me thinking about was the passion that still resides in me for God's people to be healthy. It's been hard for me because in spite of changing bad habits into healthy ones - by going back to the lifestyle I lived as a Certified Nutritionist - fibromyalgia somehow found itself cozy living in my body. I've been through so many different emotions, including grief and resentment, and blogging about being healthy was the last thing I wanted to do. There have also been days that I've wanted to blog again, but I simply didn't have the energy or brain power (my brain gets highjacked in a dance the experts call "fibro-fog"). So everything is harder for me, but the voice is still there, the one telling me that God's people (including myself) need encouragement to get healthier and all the jumbled, conflicting, confusing information out there concerning health and nutrition needs researched and simplified, needs to be accessible for His children who struggle with being healthy in a time they are connected 24/7, in a time they are too distracted and too busy to really deal with it.
And what about all our brothers and sisters struggling with chronic illnesses? I met a lovely woman with a huge heart for the Lord. She suffers from debilitating and powerful pain from the many, many back surgeries she's had. During the time I met her, she shared with me that she had been suicidal because she just couldn't take the pain anymore. What was more heartbreaking to me was that she was married and her husband loved her and was good to her, but she didn't share this with him. She had stopped sharing her physical struggles with her loved ones because they just couldn't understand her struggles no matter how she voiced them. She is not alone in this as time after time, I've met people with chronic conditions who no longer had a voice. There are so many reasons our modern-day Pauls (2 Corinthians 12:7-9) no longer speak, and Lord knows I don't have any problems opening my mouth on the behalf of others! I know, I know, that's not necessarily a good thing, but you get my point.
I was talking to Pastor Rock about this blog and I told him I didn't know how to get back into the groove. I've been out of the Healthy for Christ mindset for so long, you know, what do I blog about first? He said, "Just tell them, 'I'm back!'" ... Okay.
Readers, I'm back!
Please comment if you have any specific topics you'd like me to blog about (and to hold me accountable because I am very forgetful these days). In the meantime, I'll just pull stuff randomly from my head and pray it helps someone.
Have a happy, healthy day!
K.Rae
