Challenges of the Altar – Living with strangers

Are you ready? Let’s take a quick trip to 1995. Just married, happy to be serving my Lord, and in an unknown world.

They were my new family, but it was all so strange, just a day before I saw the pastor and his wife only in the church, and now I was living in their home, I did not know what to do, where to stay, what to do, I was half loss.

Perhaps this was the first challenge I faced in the work of God, I had never lived with anyone except my parents and now I was sharing a home with other servants of God, besides my husband, of course. People that I respected a lot, but which I didn’t have the slightest intimacy.

Being young, and new in the work of God, I put myself in a “sponge” position, I wanted to absorb as much as possible from the pastor’s wife who I lived with and learn from her.

It was pretty funny, of course at that time it did not seem funny, but now it makes me laugh out loud only to remember! It’s like a little movie in my head.

I did not want to bother, so I did not know whether to stay in my room, or sit in the living room with them, or do something in the kitchen. I never liked being nosy, I always expected instructions from the pastor’s wife and I settled into what she was guiding me to do. I confess that even to open the fridge I was embarrassed, I had not really come to the realization that this was my house too, so I felt like I was at their house and not in “our” home.

As everything was new and for the first time, it seemed that everything was a challenge, every day I waited for my husband anxiously to came home from church, with him around I felt more comfortable, and safer. Of course, all this happened in my intimacy, because the pastor’s wife always left me at ease and helped me in everything; it was a situation I had to overcome myself.

I also had in mind, I must overcome my shyness, I can’t do what I feel, I must do what is nice, If I do not know, I ask, I put myself at disposition and everything will flow.

That was what I did and it worked, thank God our fellowship was always wonderful and I learned a lot with her. Thanks for your patience!

I’d like to leave a tip, never make your house a hotel, if you divide your home with other servants of God, adopt them like family, Share with them, do not isolate yourself in your room, be helpful, sensitive to their needs.

That way the environment can be comfortable at home, there will be harmony and everyone will be happy.

I’ll expand this a bit, next friday I will continue this topic with some tips for a good living at home.

See you then!