The Show Must Go On

What Are You Willing to Sacrifice for One Day a Week?

Sunday doesn’t care about your feelings or how your week went. It doesn’t check and see if you need a few more days to get your message ready. It doesn’t come with a pause button.

Monday arrived, decked out in three burnt shots of espresso disguised in a mocha suit. Six dollars never tasted so painful as you dream of an afternoon filled with acid reflux. A digital melody stomps on the silence of a morning drive to the office as his name flashes across the dash display, tasting worse than the coffee you can’t afford to spit out. Answer or ignore? If only life were that easy. The conversation always starts out sweet but always leaves you with that cheap frosted donut film in your mouth. The onslaught continues in your office, opening an email with the subject line: “We need to talk,” knowing it’ll be a one-way conversation with you paying the bill at the end.

Tuesday loves meetings. It just does. It’s in the Bible. It’s spent combing through every detail of last Sunday, celebrating how seamless the transitions of the service were, how many new families came, and how important comas are in the announcement slides. There are calendars to go over, events to plan, visions to be cast, problems to be solved, services to prepare for, and a marriage with no pulse, in need of a defibrillator.

That “We need to talk” email wasn’t from your friendly self-appointed prophet; it was from an aching wife: Yours to be exact. By “we,” she means you, her, and a licensed referee with a boxing ring in their office and one set of gloves. There was a church to build, leaders to grow, and people needing saved while she raised Clark Kent’s children as he flew around anointed spandex. Now the bill’s come due, and your costume doesn’t impress her anymore.

Wednesdays are the tush-push of life where the prize is just getting the ball over the line of mid-week activities. You’ve developed a nervous twitch every time your phone buzzes on this volunteer driven day. Some teacher’s kid is always sick on a Wednesday, that’s in the Bible too, somewhere in Ecclesiastes. You’ve thought about offering cash prizes to every volunteer who shows up, but then they’d have to report that as taxable income and the next thing you know everyone’s negotiating for a new Name, Image, and Likeness contract. It’s hump day, get over it.

Thursday is the hangover you never asked for as you, yet again, volunteered to ride the tornado known as the fifth-grade boys’ class last night, waking up not even sure what week of the day it is. Staring blankly out the window, waiting for the fog to lift, you’re forced to admit it’s how you escape the pain. Some turn to alcohol, others to porn, but you did something even stranger. You made the church your mistress while she suffered at home, alone. It’s been two years since the cancer took your daughter and her room still looks exactly as it was before the treatments. Now it’s covered in the tears of a mother unable to move on.

Activity numbed the pain wielding crowded calendars to distract you from the agonizing process of grieving. The hollow applause from a church who heaped praise on your strength through adversity, now lost as you stare out into the mist of a marriage on life support.

Friday is an extended version of the silent game with your wife winning in straight sets. Otherwise known as your day off. An improvised schedule of who enters the kitchen at certain times or who takes the car out for errands has developed as each has done their best to give space to the other, avoiding any kind of unintended interactions. She gets ready for the day while he drops the kids off at school, then zips home to sweat on a treadmill for an hour while she runs to Costco. It’s her weekly therapy to reminisce through the aisles in the same pattern her daughter always insisted, stopping to model the coming seasonal fashions for her. She would’ve loved this year’s colors. She daydreams toward the book section, watching her thumb through any mystery novel she could get ahold of. She always buys her chocolate ice cream cones on the way out. She loved chocolate.

Afternoons are spent alone soaking in the silence. Nothing like breathing in unresolved tension to release the stress of the week.

Balancing the monthly budget is a Saturday ritual only meant for nerves of steel. Especially when the math isn’t math-ing and hasn’t been since the diagnosis. If only following God’s call came with health insurance. Unlike your sin debt, Jesus hasn’t washed away those seminary loans necessary to fulfill the qualifications of your current job, with the consolation prize of no retirement. When God said go, you asked how far, you’ve been a good soldier, and haven’t been able to afford a vacation in four years. If you would’ve just taken that staff job at the large church this wouldn’t have happened, but you weren’t willing to sacrifice your soul at the altar of performance. Now it feels like you’ve offered up your family instead.

Never mind any of that now, Sunday’s knocking on the door and it doesn’t like waiting.

Sundays are always served best with a smile. Always.

The media team custom designed all the graphics for your new series launching this week. Musicians gave up an extra night of the week fine-tuning all the songs for this very moment. Baristas started working their magic in the lobby over an hour ago. Welcome teams came early to stand at the doors with bulletins and big smiles. Ushers are clearing the way in the auditorium, guiding people to the best seats in the house. Somewhere a volunteer coordinator is hiding in the fetal position over the trauma of rounding up enough Children’s Ministry staff to make this morning happen.

Lights are flashing; singers are hopping and the band is bringing the heat as contagious energy surges through the room. It’s the hit of adrenaline you needed to make it to the end.

She sits through your entire message, dutifully smiling on cue. The empty shell she sees at home is now pouring all his energy into an audience that will never love him the way she does. Her pain remains tightly sealed, never endangering the vibe he’s putting out.

You created this beast, now it’s time to ride it.

The stories are connecting, the jokes are landing, the points are sticking, and the dopamine is flowing. There’s nothing like it. It’s a rush until amen.

Monday is two plane tickets on a desk, with an all-expense paid marriage intensive itinerary sitting underneath. It’s the one she keeps sending you reels of.

On top of the tickets is a note simply stating: “Your ministry is only as good as your marriage is healthy. We love you.”

Sunday can wait.

---