SEVERAL YEARS INTO a harried ministry, I began to break down. No mentor had ever explained to me how to handle the stresses of a growing church and a growing family. One Saturday evening I sat behind the orange couch in our den and began to cry. When I got hold of my emotions, I called Steve, our counselor on staff, and said, “I’ve been crying. I am no psychologist, but I know enough to know I need help.”
“I saw this coming,” Steve said. “I have contacted a counselor who specializes in management-level stress. His name is Jerry. He is waiting for your call.”
During my initial consultation, Jerry gave me a battery of simple tests. He scored the results and said, “I can help you. Ten sessions ought to do it.”
I checked with my insurance company and discovered the sessions were not covered in our policy. I told my wife, “I don’t think we can afford $500.”
She replied, “It will be worth every penny if he can get you fixed for only $500. It’s worth that much to stay in the ministry.”
I made the investment, and at the end of the third session Jerry said, “One of your tests shows that you are very angry.”
Shocked, I said, “How can that be? I’m a pastor. I’m gentle and kind and tenderhearted and patient.”
Jerry said, “I don’t know about that, but I do know the test indicates that you are a very angry man. I want you to read The Angry Book by Theodore Rubin.”1
The book was all about me. Rubin’s premise is that properly processed anger does not accumulate; however, most people have never learned to handle anger properly. As a result, many build up a large reservoir of unprocessed anger that remains unnoticed until the reservoir overflows.
For about twenty chapters, Rubin details the “anger poisons” that ooze out disguised as anxiety, depression, guilt, over-eating, over-sleeping, over-sexing, over-exercising, over-working, obsessive-compulsive thinking, self-sabotage, bullying, super-sweet talk, insomnia, thinly disguised contempt, exhaustion, and temper explosions. These conspicuous displays can be standalone problems, but Rubin conjectures many are the outward manifestations of an inward, unprocessed, overflowing slush fund of anger.
Rubin’s book began for me a journey to explore the anger I had accumulated in my soul from the hurts I had experienced in pastoral work. Anger and unresolved hurt can erect barriers between us and God. It was a turning point for me that helped me begin to process the inevitable pain of ministry.
Weeping with those who weep
I read The Angry Book in vain for a clear-cut plan on how to process my anger and to clean out my anger slush fund. Rubin gave helpful suggestions for how to prevent a slush fund buildup: For example, I now cry to dissipate anger, before it accumulates in my slush fund, by recognizing I am angry, talking about it, and processing it rationally. However, I did not find full relief until Julie and I attended a conference on marital intimacy. God spoke through Dr. David Ferguson about the relationship between hurt and anger. I learned not only why many pastors seethe with unresolved anger but how to heal from past hurts while still on the front lines.
“People get angry because they get hurt,” stated Dr. Ferguson. “Think about it: Why do we get angry? People may stand in our way and keep us from getting something we want. Or they say nasty and untrue things about us behind our backs. Or they hurt those we love. There are many ways to get hurt. When we do, we get angry.”
Getting hurt is an occupational hazard of pastoring. Sometimes I feel like a marine recruit crawling through the mud while bullets whistle overhead. At any moment, someone in the congregation can lower a machine gun at me and fire. Guns come in various shapes and sizes, and bullets vary in velocity and effect; however, they all have one thing in common: they hurt. One of my primary pastoral goals is to survive.
People shoot at me because I fail to meet their unrealistic or perceived expectations. I was shot at once for saying the wrong thing at a wedding, and I was fired upon (which I deserved!) when I forgot to show up for a wedding. I have been shot for not returning phone calls, for not being evangelistic enough. I have felt the fire for spending too much time with the congregation and not enough with my staff—and vice versa. I stood still while a close friend slid a knife into my side while announcing that I was leading the church away from God and, as a result, he and his family were leaving to find a church with a pastor they could trust.
One morning I raced to cover surgeries at three different hospitals. One was scheduled for six and the other two for six-thirty. At five-fifteen I prayed with a patient at Tucson Medical Center for his six o’clock surgery. Then I drove to El Dorado Hospital and prayed with a woman scheduled for surgery at six-thirty. After that, I ran to my car and raced across town to St. Mary’s Hospital, hoping and praying the other six-thirty surgery would be delayed. It was not. I apologized to the family and tried to explain, but the wife would hear no excuse.
“The truth is,” she said, “if you were a good pastor, you would have been here.”
Her words hurt so badly, I went home and wept.
I’ve also seen firsthand the hurt felt by pastors’ wives. One of our staff counselors gave the Taylor-Johnson Temperament Analysis to our ministerial staff and their spouses. Several weeks later, at a retreat in the White Mountains of Arizona, Steve took each couple aside and shared the results. All things considered, I had normal problems like everyone else.
Then he pulled out my wife’s test results and asked Julie, “Have you been raped recently?” She was startled. She thought a moment and said, “No, I’m just a pastor’s wife.” We spent a long time discussing why her responses fit a pattern called the “rape victim’s profile.” We struggled to the conclusion that the sense of vulnerability, isolation, and violation that often accompany the pastor’s wife role could easily parallel the reactions of a rape victim. (Julie has long since been healed of the hurts of those early years. Now her TJTA results reveal nothing more than normal, everyday problems.)
At that marriage retreat, Dr. Ferguson taught that unprocessed hurt produces tremendous anger. No wonder I was an angry pastor, I thought. I looked back over years of enjoyable and fruitful ministry that were mixed with a multitude of unprocessed hurts. Who had time to heal when ministry was so consuming? Besides, even if I had time, I didn’t know where to begin.
“Heal the hurts, and you’ll heal the anger,” explained Dr. Ferguson. “God revealed exactly how to heal our hurts in Matthew 5:4: ‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.’ Mourning people are people who have been hurt. Hurts are healed by mourning and comforting.”
As a pastor, I never felt I was allowed to mourn. I had to be strong for everyone else. Unfortunately, neither did I know how to give comfort.
At a staff retreat in northern Arizona, one of our youth interns began to weep. He was recently married and was departing soon for seminary. He had no job lined up, did not know if he could do the schoolwork, was afraid to leave home, and was questioning God’s call. The rest of us felt uncomfortable watching this twenty-four-year-old man come unglued. We tried to encourage him: “Stop crying, Bill, you’ll be okay. You’re well trained. You will succeed in whatever you decide to do.” Someone hollered, “Bill, relax, there are plenty of jobs there. You’ll find one!” Another said, “I can think of three reasons why you shouldn’t feel this way. …”
Nothing helped. Finally, Jennifer, one of our female counselors, shouted, “Would you all shut up! You are not helping him!” At the time I knew she was right but had no idea why.
Now I know: Hurting people do not need advice; they do not need encouragement. They do not need three reasons why they should not feel the way they feel. Hurting people need comfort.
Giving comfort is weeping with those who weep: “I am so sorry they teased you on the bus. I can’t imagine how you felt when they were saying those things about you. My heart is filled with sorrow because you were hurt deeply by those kids.” It takes emotion to heal emotion, not reasoning, facts, or advice. Comforting words are feeling words that convey love, acceptance, security, and understanding.
It was time for lunch. Dr. Ferguson sent us to the dining room with two instructions: Eat alone with your spouse, and allow your spouse to bring comfort while you mourn an unprocessed hurt. Julie and I found a table alone in the restaurant.
“It’s been eighteen years since Jessie died,” Julie began. “I’ve kept my feelings buried for so long.” That was true. Julie and I grieved differently after our firstborn daughter died. I wanted to talk about Jessie, to look at her pictures, and to savor the good memories, but not Julie. We buried Jessie on a Friday afternoon, and on Monday Julie enrolled in a Master’s program at the University of Arizona. She hardly ever mentioned Jessie again.
That afternoon in the restaurant, Julie continued, “I can’t tell you how badly it hurt.”
She began to cry as the waitress arrived to take our drink orders. The young woman took one look at my weeping wife and quickly turned away. The depth of Julie’s emotions shocked me. I had no idea she hurt so badly.
I followed Dr. Ferguson’s suggestions: “Julie, I am so sorry you feel like this. I know it hurts. I can’t imagine your feelings as a mother watching your firstborn die in your arms.”
Then she really began to cry. The waitress returned, and I gently motioned her away. She nodded and left.
Julie wept for twenty minutes. When she settled down, I asked, “Why don’t I sit here and let you tell me how much it hurt.” So she did. For over an hour, she detailed the hurts, the unfulfilled dreams, the feelings of failure and guilt that come with the death of a child. We never got lunch. Instead, we got something better: Julie began to heal.
Forgiveness for a tub of hurt
The same principles are at work in healing from painful ministry wounds. Unfortunately, when I am wounded in ministry, I never have the luxury of going behind the lines to get well. Every other day seems like Sunday. People need counseling, and problems need solving. Couples keep falling in love and wanting to get married, and somebody always seems to be dying. Failing marriages need strengthening, and angry people need soothing. Bible classes need teaching. Elders need presentations. I find it impossible to call a halt every time I need to lick my wounds and heal my hurts.
The only option, besides bailing out of ministry, is to process the hurt and anger while still serving others in ministry. I’ve developed a model for healing when I am unable to withdraw to lick my wounds:
First, I find someone safe who knows how to comfort. Few things are more frustrating than to pour out my heart to someone who does not know how to comfort. I find bringing emotions and feelings to the surface difficult. I want to know that the people to whom I reveal my pain will not look at me blankly and wonder what to say, so that I wish I had never said anything. When I mourn with people who do not know how to comfort, I suffer a double hurt: I feel bad because I suffer the deep-seated hurts all over again, and I hurt because the pain I brought up does not go away. I need people who know how to put their arms around me and weep when I weep—as well as rejoice when I rejoice. Of course, the process must be reciprocated if the relationship is to flourish.
It takes time to cultivate safe, trustworthy relationships, but the investment must be made if the hurts are to be healed. The only two females I open up to are my wife and a spiritual woman in our congregation who is old enough to be my mother. The other five are men.
Second, I identify hurt and anger as soon as possible. When I feel angry, I analyze where I have been disappointed or hurt. A hurt lurks behind every anger. I want to process my hurts before they get buried. When painful hurts arise in my mind, I try to pause to process them, trying to feel their hurt. I find it useful to sit quietly and pray for God to bring to mind those long ago, unhealed hurts that lie just below the surface of my subconscious.
Third, I mourn the hurts and allow my comforter to comfort. Crying and expressing verbally how much I hurt used to be hard for me—especially in front of someone. However, since I have been working to do this, mourning like Jesus recommended feels too good, and accomplishes too much, to keep my hurt and anger bottled up inside.
Sometimes when I am wounded I call my next-door neighbor, Pete, and invite myself over. We sit in his living room while I pour out how I feel and what went through my mind when someone hurt me with their words; I reveal what I wanted to say but did not. Pete is a sensitive Christian man who knows how to comfort.
Jesus said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” Like many pastors, I find it hard to receive. I have learned how to give, because giving is a built-in necessity of ministry. However, I have to work at receiving. It feels awkward to ask someone to listen to my hurts and comfort me so I can heal. However, no one has ever refused. People seem honored to be asked. So I receive the comfort and thank them for it, and praise God for the healing process.
Fourth, I close the loop through confession and forgiveness. I learned about the importance of this when I was young, foolish, and newly married. I labored in my first full-time pastorate for three years without a day off. I had a church to build and people to reach. One Monday Julie suggested we take an overnight trip to Phoenix, about one hundred miles north of Tucson. I told her that if I worked hard I could get my sermon done early, and we could depart by noon on Friday. So the trip was planned and the hotel reservation made for our much-needed mini-vacation.
At 11:45 a.m. on Friday, my phone rang. Kyle, one of my deacons, had heard that Julie and I were driving to Phoenix. The repair shop had just called to tell him that his car, which had broken down in Phoenix the previous weekend, was ready to be picked up.
“Could you give me a ride to Phoenix?” he asked. “The repair shop is near the interstate.”
I had no choice: How would it look for the pastor to refuse aid to a deacon in distress?
I picked up the phone and called Julie: “I’ll be home and ready to go at noon. Oh, by the way, Kyle called and needs a ride to Phoenix to pick up his car. You don’t mind, do you?” The silence was deafening. Click. She hung up on me.
I hurried home, loaded the suitcases into the trunk, and opened the front passenger door for Julie. She refused to get in. She opened the back door and slid into the seat, as I said, “Oh no, Julie, Kyle can ride in the back. He’ll understand.”
“No. He can sit in the front with you.”
Julie cried all the way to Phoenix. I know, because I kept looking in the rearview mirror. She never spoke to Kyle or to me. In fact, she hardly said a word the entire trip. Late Saturday afternoon, back in Tucson, I opened the trunk to unload our suitcases and said the only thing that seemed appropriate. “Look, if you want a divorce, it’s all right with me.”
She looked me hard in the eye and replied, “Divorce is not an option. We will work this out.”
Realizing I had hurt her, I apologized profusely. She told me she forgave me and not to worry about it. Deep inside I knew she still hurt, but I had no idea of the depth other hurt.
Over the years I brought up the Phoenix trip several times: “I don’t feel like we really settled that issue. Will you forgive me for what I did that weekend? Please?”
She said on every occasion, “Yes, I forgive you.” But I knew the wound was not healed.
My perspective was that Julie had about a “quart-sized bottle’s worth” of pain. So I showed up occasionally and asked for about a quart-sized bottle’s worth of forgiveness. Unfortunately, she was carrying about a ten-gallon tub of hurt. It was hard for Julie to forgive a lot of hurt when I was asking for only a little bit of forgiveness.
One day I said to Julie, “Sweetheart, I really want to talk about the hurt and pain of our trip to Phoenix. I want you to take however long you need to tell me about your feelings of hurt, betrayal, rejection, sadness, fear, and aloneness. I want to hear how badly I hurt you.”
It was like I gave her a gun and said, “Shoot me.”
So she did.
“I felt deeply betrayed,” she began. “I feared for what our future would be like. I wondered if you really did love me at all. I was terrified I would spend the rest of my marriage in loneliness. I felt so neglected. I tried to imagine what I had done to deserve such rejection.”
The more she shared her pain, the more I understood how deeply I had hurt her. Then I began to cry as I felt for the first time the agony I had put her through. Finally, I asked one more time, “I am so sorry, will you forgive me?”
For the first time, I made a request for forgiveness based upon a true understanding of her pain. Through tears, Julie said, “Yes, I forgive you.” The hurt was healed. I have never again felt the need to ask her forgiveness for the Phoenix trip.
A ten-gallon tub of hurt requires a ten-gallon tub of understanding and forgiveness. That is the final key to healing from pastoral hurts while remaining to fight on the front lines for Jesus Christ.
Theodore Rubin, The Angry Book (New York: Simon & Schuster, Collier Books, 1969).
Copyright © 1998 Roger Barrier
