Listening, Loving, Waiting

I was debating between two possibilities for today’s post: Daughter or M, a young woman who has sought out my ministry over the years. Then I got a comment from Process asking to hear more about my ministry, and decided that I’d write about M.

I remember the first time I met M. We were in town for the interview. M was 10, about a year older than Daughter. M came up to our car as we were ready to pull away from the curb, and I rolled down the window to speak to her. She was excited to think that maybe Daughter could become her friend. She was obviously lonely and a little bit different. I was pleasant and encouraged the idea of a friendship.

Shortly after we moved in, she explained to me that she was reading Winston Churchill and wanted to read some of the passages to Daughter, because they were so intriguing. I knew then that she was in a completely different league than Daughter. Her family is interesting to say the least. They delight in being different. Both of her parents are exceedingly intelligent and well educated—we have joked that there is more education in our two houses than the rest of Tiny Village combined. M is the youngest of many children. I think her parents were worn out by the time she was born. Mother is a screamer. She once screamed at her husband because he mailed some checks she had sealed into envelopes and ready to go. She didn’t want them mailed yet and he should have known that. M tells me she was awakened by the sound of her mother screaming at her father because he’d made his own dental appointment. What if she’d wanted him to do something at that time? Father is a professor, lacking in social skills, common sense, and an awareness of his surroundings. He reminds you of an overplayed and exaggerated nerd from some sit-com.

The brother closest to M’s age was hospitalized shortly after Columbine. He had made out a hit list of classmates he wanted to kill. (Talk about an interesting challenge in ministry—some of those listed were members of the church, as are his parents!) His parents were outraged. There was nothing wrong with him and he was being unfairly persecuted. He was sleeping in a coffin he’d made in shop and claimed to be a vampire, but that was just his unique personality coming out! He is very verbally abusive to M. When she is talking to her parents, he will tell her to shut the f___ up and that no one wants to hear what she has to say. Her parents will let him rant and rave at her without intervening. Most of the time her parents aren’t at the house; they spend a great deal of time at their second house in a tourist area.

There’s more, but I think you begin to get the picture. M has had a rough life, and she has turned to me at various times for guidance and conversation. I find this interesting, because M is an atheist. I have welcomed her into our home, taken her out to eat so we could converse (at breakfast with her less than a year ago she tasted scrambled eggs for the first time in her life.)

M is within a few classes of finishing her undergraduate degree. She is working third shift stocking shelves for a local retailer. She has been involuntarily committed twice in the last year for severe depression. I encouraged her mother to take her for counseling when she was a young teen, but her mother dismissed her need. I’m just so relieved she’s now getting help. With both hospitalizations, her mother has ranted and raved over perceived mistreatment of M. This past time she contacted her state legislators. M and I have laughed about it later, but as I pointed out to M, at least it shows her mother really does care about her. M’s psychiatrist thinks she is autistic, so she’s practicing looking at people now when she talks to them.

M is a brilliant writer, but her writings are very dark, and usually focus on death. I have been allowed to read excerpts from the young adult novel she is writing. My comments have been well received and led to revisions. I have been encouraging her to finish those last few college classes so she can go to grad school. Right now she’s feeling trapped in Tiny Village. One of her professors suggested she consider becoming a librarian (I know, it’s called something else now). She dismissed the idea, but I told her I thought it was a great idea and a perfect match for her gifts and interests. Once I encouraged her to look into it, she did, and decided it was what she wanted to do.

Yesterday she sent me a disturbing email. She had found out something about her most recent psychiatric admission that had her questioning whether she could trust her psychiatrist. I told her to come over so we could talk. She was on her way to work, so she couldn’t then. I suggested she stop in this morning, and she did.

I listened and empathized. I pointed out why this discovery about her psychiatrist had been so hard on her and how it connected to her family experiences. I suggested what she might want to include in a letter to the psychiatrist. I praised her, and pointed out how well she’d dealt with this. She hadn’t gotten drunk. She hadn’t abused her prescriptions. She hadn’t run away. I pointed out her progress. I suggested that feeling trapped here was going to make things like this hard, and encouraged her (again) to take the first step towards finishing her degree so she could get on with grad school. I told her that would be a good way to escape this place.

As she left, she said, “You’re awesome, I love you!” I was blown away—I’ve known she connected to me and that I was offering something she needed, but it’s the first time she’s expressed it in quite that way. The memory of her parting words will carry me through my next few frustrations.

Now here’s the thing: M recommends books and lyrics regarding Christianity. She sends me articles about how a minister handled a particular situation with the subject “What would RM do?” When she first told me she was an agnostic, I told her that was fine, because when she did come to faith all the questioning she had done would make her faith stronger. I think everyone else she told had been horrified or argued with her. She has told me things she has done that have horrified me. I'm careful, though, not to let that horror show through. I can make suggestions and offer guidance, but it's her life.

On one of her school breaks she was filling me in on all her friends at her out of state college. She told me she didn’t think any of them were happy, with one possible exception. She had earlier told me she thought this young man would end up a priest. I told her I could explain to her why this young man was the happiest of her friends, but she wouldn’t like what I had to say. She became silent and reflective. She didn’t pursue it, and neither did I.

I have no doubt that M will become a Christian. I also know that if I push her about Jesus, she will run away, and a door will close. So I listen to her, I love her, and I wait. Sometimes it seems that much of my ministry comes down to listening, loving, and waiting.