I learned yesterday from a follower that people miss this media. I abandoned it because during quarantine I was making videos, and they are easier to make. However, I do get a lot of shade for how I look, which I don't get here. I've just been frustrated, distracted, and discouraged, and so I have opted to do other things with my time, because I thought that nobody read this or cared anymore for blogs, especially mine.
So, now that I know you care, so here's the skinny. I've been in a bishopric now for about two years, and it has been the most frustrating thing in my life. I took this calling knowing that it would require sacrifice, but I had no idea as to the width and bredth of sacrifice it would actually exact of me. Whether we're talking about my job, my health, or my other private concerns, this calling has cost me in many avenues of my life, and may culminate in me losing my membership or at least some privileges thereof.
First off, it hurt me professionally/vocationally. I had to take a significant pay cut to be in the bishopric, and that staffing option has been filled by someone else who was willing and AVAILABLE. As soon as I was no longer willing to do whatever it took, the administration started looking for OTHER PEOPLE to put into my slots. For the first time in a decade, they took a class from me last term and gave it to a new hire who is a member of the HDTV+ community. Students were upset. Administration was aloof. Meanwhile, the other bishopric counselor has been promoted twice, and he's unlikely to be at weekly activities, summer camp, or stick around very long after church. His career is far more important than the Lord.
Secondly, it has hurt me socially. As a member of a bishopric, I'm supposed to work with the youth, but there are also a crapton of widows and widowers, and I have adopted them and cared for them. So, my friend circle is predominantly filled with septa- and octagenarians, who are old enough to be my parents. On the other end of the spectrum, I work with teenagers, who are young enough to be my children. Some of their parents don't like me because the kids listen to me and not to them. So, I ended up in a social no mans land where the people my age are married already and/or hate me.
Finally, it has hurt me psychologically. I find that church leaders are reticent to help with or dismissive of my concerns. Yesterday in church a Stake Leader used abusive language toward three youth and although the Stake President and Bishop were there, I was the only person who pushed back or pointed it out. I was so ticked off that I was about to punch the dude for mocking teenagers, so instead I tripped over my chair and left. My pulse was 117bpm. I was angry. Church leaders expect me to "plow and sow and reap to glut the avarice of those who would riot in my blood and hunt me from the face of the [ward]". They expect me to get these kids to seminary and prepare them for missions and then allow other adults to mock them publicly in front of their peers. I told the Stake President that I expect him to back me up if the youth matter, otherwise I'll surrender my temple recommend and resign from the bishopric.
At the end of the day, none of these kids are mine. Nobody will make much mention of lessons I taught or times I stood up for them if other priesthood leaders drive them away from the church. If stake leaders aren't going to stick up for the kids and push back against the Adversary's methods, what good will my feeble efforts achieve? I am only one man, and half the time I'm sure I'm overreacting and being over the top because I lack a female influence to calm me down and temper my reactions. I don't know if God talks to me, if I hear Him at all, or if I misinterpreted His messages. Plus, what do I know about raising children? Nobody seems to want to have any with me, so what do I know about raising them? I just about attacked a priesthood leader who was bullying the youth. Imagine what that might have cost me if I physically assaulted him in a church building!
I don't know why, but I care about these kids. I know that five to ten years from now, if past is prologue, most of them won't remember me, talk to me, or talk about me even though in the digital age keeping in touch is easy, even for someone sans social media such as myself. Two years ago, I attended wedding receptions for two young men I taugh back in 2018, but I haven't heard a peep from them since. I know God sees what I'm doing, and He hasn't struck me with lightning yet or closed my mouth so that I cannot speak, so I keep being me because that's what I was told to do was be me. Yet, I feel so often like I am the 506th Parachute Infantry, surrounded in Bastogne, and the Allied leadership is dickering about helping me while I give ground and lose confidence. I know that paratroopers are supposed to be surrounded, but we also rely on other parts of God's Battalion to come to our relief. Nuts!
Maybe I'm just complaining. Maybe I'm just not cut out for this job. Maybe I'm not supposed to win. I mean, sometimes God sends people to proclaim repentence knowing they won't actually repent, but I hoped that I might be able to make a difference. Now I have to go spend six hours this week doing damage control with vulnerable youth because some high school football star continues to bully those who are weaker than he and gets away with it because priesthood leaders "believe in God's mercy". I refuse to let the kids be bullied, and I refuse to put my arm to the square to sustain men who think there is virtue in using the adversary's method to achieve the Father's plan. I managed to walk away, but I cannot do that forever, and I don't know how else to respond. I don't have time to raise other men's kids, and why would God trust me to do that when He gave me none of my own?
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