It was a bright and beautiful Sunday morning several months after we had settled into our first church. I was walking into the church and I was met immediately by 2 of our older saints. They were indeed on a mission, as their body language so quickly conveyed! I am thinking, "uh oh" here it comes! The sweet little man said: "you have the date wrong in the bulletin!" and he walked away. The saintly woman then said with her finger pointed at me: "you've misspelled so and so's name here! How could you do that?" A few years after this incident (and many confrontations about type-o's in the bulletin), I was making up the Wednesday night prayer bulletin for those we needed to pray for and I put my name beside my husbands name along with the Deacon's, Trustee's, Sunday School teachers, etc. It wasn't even 5 minutes after my proof-reader's came in before I was asked "why do you need prayer?" I am laughing as I tell this. I wasn't back then. It was definitely one of those, "here's your sign" moments!
What on earth do you say to someone who comes up to you and says, "I need to tell you, I really need to tell you what some of the ladies are saying!" This woman had been such an enormous help to me, and encouragement, and being the very "unseasoned" Pastor's wife that I was, I quickly responded, "what is it?" For the next few minutes I listened to what she thought I needed to hear. It wasn't real bad, but it was information I didn't need to know and I certainly didn't need to know it just before the Ladies Christmas Banquet. It was hurtful! I didn't like it! But I learned from it!
My husband and I were out one evening and we walked into a beautiful shop that had some of the prettiest Christmas arrangement's I'd ever seen! We were just looking, but my husband eyed one arrangement and said, "Wouldn't that look nice on the communion table?" Well, we bought it and carefully brought it into the church and placed it in the center of the communion table. I received a phone call from one of the ladies at church on a Monday---the day after she had seen the arrangement. She was aghast at how I could allow another lady at the church to put that NASTY arrangement on the communion table for Christmas. I let her go on and on, and when she was done, I told her that she had "no idea" who bought that arrangement, and that it wasn't that "other" lady. I was convinced that if she knew the Pastor had hand picked it out, paid for it and displayed it, she would feel ashamed....nope, not at all. She told me to take that UGLY arrangement out of the church and put it in my house!! Again, I am laughing, but back then I was not!! I told my husband that the arrangement was staying right where it was until after the FOURTH OF JULY! In all seriousness, it took me awhile to get through that one.
Sand Paper People. Yep, that's what my friend Janell calls them, and that's what I call them too. They are those special people that God allows to come into our lives to shape us into the kind of women He needs us to be for the ministry He has led us to. They are not bad people, and though sometimes, their intentions to tell us what they feel aren't usually "spirit led," God still uses them to smooth out our rough and somewhat frayed edges. He teaches us patience & perseverance through them. He teaches us how to love them and how to understand why they may say the things they do. There's always so much more to them that we don't see. God chooses not to give us the whole picture, just so we'll trust Him. I kind of like that He does that, don't you?
Sand Paper People . . . What they have to say doesn't always feel good, it hurts, and sometimes there are a lot of tears, but the shaping, getting rid of those rough frayed edges, and then the finished project .....now that will so be worth it!
Oh, and if you're wondering... I didn't leave the arrangement up till the 4th of July. I took it down before Easter :)
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