Lesson in Patience

The last post I talked about the fact that we got a new puppy. I think this is one of the greatest lessons of patience anyone can ever have. We have had her for over a week now and she is learning a lot. We are having a lot of fun, but there are also a lot of frustrations. Just when we think she is learning, she has an accident again. But, so it goes, she is only 9 weeks old.

Everyone we talk to says it is good practice for having kids. Well, then I guess I am happy we have a puppy first. It would be interesting to have kids without ever having gone through something like this. It is such an adjustment. But it is still fun.

It does make it hard to work sometimes. But, I am learning how to get things done when I can, and also to still have time to take her out and train her a little. It is a fun adventure, but we still need much patience!

New Puppy

Well, it has been a while again since I wrote. Things have been a bit busy since we got home from Ontario two weeks ago. Last week I was golfing at a Christian School golf tournament and a Pastor from another church had a heart attack and died on the course. It was pretty tragic. As a result, I was asked last week to do a wedding this past Saturday. It ended up being a good thing.

But the other things that will keep us busy for the next while is the fact we got a new puppy. She is only 8 weeks old and she is a Weimaraner. So now we have the fun task of house training her. I think it will go okay as I work out of the house, but we need to train her to be okay when we are not home as well, that will be the interesting part. Anyway, this is a fun time now for us. I am looking forward to it! Another new challenge.

Interesting

I haven't posted in a while due to some unexpected travel. My wife's grandfather passed away and we went back for the funeral. It was a good time to be with family and to see how the Christian community really supports people during a death in the family.

While there, we had the visitation with the family at the funeral home. This is when family and friends come and visit the family and also to witness the body of the one who has passed. It is tradition there to line up as a family to receive people as they come. Something we noticed which we thought was kind of funny was the number of people that commented on my height. It is funny to me, because if someone is short, people don't go up to them in a place like that and say, "Oh, your a small one!" I just find that funny....

Anyway, the one thing that I really wanted to comment on was the other thing people would say to me, that was: "Oh you are her husband, the minister." The reason this sticks out in my mind is because I guess, I haven't gotten my mind completely around the idea of the "specialness" of being a Minister. To some people it is very "special" to be a pastor. The reason I think that people feel this way is because you didn't hear people saying about my in-laws: "Oh, you are her husband the manager/dispatcher." Or, "You are his wife the nurse."

Being a pastor has a lot of different expectations from people. It isn't always easy to accept the role as representing Christ. As Fredrich Buechner puts it in Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy & Fair Tale, "...not because of anything he knows or anything he is in himself but because, as an ambassador is revered for the government he represents, he is to be revered for representing Christ." (pg. 40) This is hard to accept at times, but I think as a pastor I need to think of it in this way as well. It is not because of a degree I hold from a certain Seminary. But it is because I am representing Christ that people think my job is "special."