We’ve been talking about HEALTHINESS as a ministry wife. It’s so important to be healthy women, mothers, daughters, sisters, friends, ministry wives…all the things.
For those who are new here, we are talking HEALTH in 5 bite-sized pieces (called markers): spiritual health, emotional health, personal health, relational health, and missional health.
We’ve spent some time talking about the 1st marker: Spiritual Health (you can look back through the posts and read those if you’d like).
Now, we move into the 2nd marker: Emotional Health.
Oh. ugh. I have NO EXPERTISE in emotional health – except for the fact that I am constantly wrestling and failing and growing and crying about it!!
The truth is: my emotions are crazy.
My emotions can HIJACK a perfectly good mood.
One moment, I’m walking in a room and feeling super confident. And within 5 minutes, I can crater into thinking I’m the ugliest, most selfish, most unseen person there.
I’m sure I traumatized my husband in the first few years of our marriage when all my emotions were unleashed, and he received the onslaught of tears, laughter, sobs, snot, and gobs of words.
So when we talk about emotional healthiness, I am learning.
It’s especially important to have emotional health as ministry wives. Our lives are put on display and seem open to criticism that can WREAK HAVOC on our emotional healthiness.
Other people’s opinions seem to FLY FREELY on:
how we look
or how much weight we’ve lost or gained
or our moods
or our helpfulness
or our parenting
or our marriage
or how frequent or infrequent we attend events.
Are we stuck up? Bossy? Demanding?
Or too meek, too quiet, and unseen?
How great would it be to be HEALTHY ministry wives that – regardless of other people’s opinions or our own failings – we had such a SOLID emotional health that we were able to stand STRONG or rebound WELL when things and people came at you?
I want that for us. I want that for you.
So…I hope to have conversations here over the next month about emotional healthiness.I hope to offer Biblical truths all the while fostering honest conversations.
To start, we need to come out from behind the image of perfection and be willing to say, “I don’t have it all together. I am struggling. Will you help me?”
I’ll go first. I need help.
May we lead in our homes, in our churches, in our communities with such a DESPERATION for JESUS because we know that we NEED him so much and he is the ONE who can help us.
Help me, Lord my God; save me according to your unfailing love. Psalm 109:26, NIV
It’s such a journey. But, it is so worth it.
Let’s enter into this marker side-by-side, open-handed and desperately trusting Jesus to do a good work IN OUR MESS.