Beneath The Surface
The name Georgia Therese Tear is perhaps unfamiliar to many who read this blog yet for me it is a name that I will never be able to forget. The name invokes the memory of a young grade 9 student at IGGS who sadly passed away in her sleep in 2008. I conducted the funeral before at least a thousand family and friends at the IGGS auditorium. It was perhaps the most emotive and moving experience of my pastoral life.
Yesterday at the request of the school and Georgia’s family I helped conduct a short memorial service where a seat was dedicated to Georgia’s memory.
I stood there in front of the hundred or so gathered in the freezing outdoor cold – memories and tears flowed freely as we remembered being in the same place this time last year.
I stood there as a pastor – a shepherd helping in some way a group of people continue their journey of grief and love. Sometimes in the busyness of life it is so easy for me to forget the real attributes of a pastor and shepherd. I know that my role includes being a ‘jack of all trades’ – amongst them leader, visionary, finance expert, strategist, human relations management and marketing guru – none of these I feel absolutely comfortable mentioning. Perhaps it is because I don’t feel competent in many of these areas. Now I hear pastors using terms to describe themselves as change agent, entrepreneur or culture setter – again perhaps none of these are entirely misplaced.
Yet I didn’t feel like any of these terms applied when standing with a grieving family whose sense of loss and sadness was just as real as it was twelve months ago.
My essential calling as someone with a pastor’s heart was very real to me. I cared deeply for the people before me, they wept I wept, my compassion seemed to be bottomless, my love for these people whom I do not really know was profound and real. My heart cried out to just make things the way they were before this tragedy happened.
Then I realized that this is the part of me as a pastor that no one truly sees. People see the supposedly confident communicator on a weekend where mere fragments of a sentence or even a single word can create a misinterpretation and misunderstanding of gigantic proportions that erodes confidence like a mud slide tears a hillside apart.
The invisible and vulnerable side of the calling as a pastor is often hidden from sight. This is the unseen heart that believes in people, loves people, trusts people, wants the best for people, grieves with people, cries with people and encourages people. It is the heart that hurts and scars far too easily at times, gets discouraged too often at times and realizes the weight of responsibility is sometimes too heavy to bear.
Yet yesterday in the midst of all the emotion, with my heart so heavy for the family of Georgia, I wouldn’t have swapped being there for all the influence, wealth, prominence and status of a person who thinks they have all those things.
For that is truly the pastor’s heart in action at its rawest level – perhaps the glimpse into this unique heart of a shepherd helps you understand me more!
