This week in....As the Ward Turns....
...one young family finds out stage 3 cancer has metastasized and is now stage 4.
...a family loses their home and is forced to move.
...a young mother miscarries the weekend her family is moving across the country.
...two more families lose their jobs.
...a mother of 5 (the oldest child in elementary school) learns she has Lupus.
...a woman who has a crisis of faith, and when I don't have time to listen as much as she'd like, she hangs up on me.
As Relief Society President, I find I am just not that sympathetic to random whining. Additionally, I find that this is a problem.
Your husband is laid off - talk to me. You are ill - share. You get headaches at church and have decided to take a couple of months off - maybe you should not try to get me to feel tremendous sympathy for that one.
I wrestle with this every week, and I've had so much patience and compassion extended to me throughout my life that I try to model that to others. But I think the faces I am making are giving me away that I think some of this....is bunk.
In my church-y job, I hear a lot of sad things. Large portions of heartbreak with sides of doubt and shame are often on my weekly menu. I try to compartmentalize individual problems and not make comparisons. I know the pain that comes from having your struggle set up against another's and you hear, "Just think - it could be worse! It could be like So-and-So's....." I've done that and seen the hurt it causes - and I've been on the receiving end and thought, "Thanks for sharing - now put your head down."
The point being, I know better.
But I am about at my WIT'S END with a couple of gals in my ward who have decided that things are sooooooooooooo hard for them. They require inordinate amounts of attention and when I reflect on their "problems", it's hard for me to not shout, "Sis. Blah's husband is DYING - can we talk about your church headaches and how the three-hour-block is harder for you than everyone else because you are sensitive AND hypoglycemic later, please?"
I know that would be wrong, but it's a large temptation on my part.
Last night at the Ward Christmas Party, I was speaking with a sister who shared with that she is feeling overwhelmed. Her husband loses his job at the end of December and she has 5 kids, and learned she was pregnant with baby number 6 when she went to get her tubes tied. Now, the little Wombie she is growing is having issues and she's in fear of miscarrying, which is an emotional nightmare for her (she feels she's wished that child gone at times - and now it might happen.) Her middle son was just diagnosed as Autistic and she's stressed out.
Duh.
As I was speaking with her, another woman (no Mom - not THAT one) was waiting to talk to me. Sis. Overwhelmed let me go saying something like, "I need to quit bending your ear - Sis. Eager is waiting to speak to you."
I turn to Sis. Eager who wants to share with me how I can better decorate for the Ward Christmas party and how she'd like me to let someone know that we should not have as much food at church functions. Also, she feels there should be more focus on service at church activities and women who have had multiple children should not be receiving baby showers. These things have been on her mind and she needs to get them off her chest as she is no longer enjoying church on Sunday and has thought about not coming back because of it.
Aaaaaaaaalrighty then.
So talk to me, Good Peeps. How do I make every sister feel like she can share and she has support - but at the same time - help folks to see that there is a bigger picture and maybe, their dramas shouldn't be as overwhelming as they have let them become? So far, I've tried:
- explaining that life is meant to be a time of growth and learning, not of pedicures and spa visits.
- helping them understand that real life doesn't look like TV.
- encouraging them to serve others so they have a clearer perspective of what real problems are.
- setting them up as Visiting Teachers of sisters who are having a hard time (that went over like a lead balloon and is another post all its own.)
- telling them, nicely, to knock it off.
- giving their problems lots of attention so they feel better. BIG MISTAKE
- praying for them.
- practicing inner eye-rolling but otherwise, plastering on the Look of Concern I was issued when I took over this job.
Help?
