I have always been an emotional person. This has very rarely seemed like a good thing. I cry too much, I get too angry, I laugh too loud in movie theaters. But a few years ago at a Vineyard conference, I heard God whisper in my ear that he made me this way and he likes me this way. The tears and the laughter are real, intentional.
At the time I was leading a prayer ministry with all the solidity and permanence of a sand castle. And not those cool, professionally sculpted sand castles, either. My propensity to cry when moved by something felt like a giant liability. When I officially started coordinating the Sunday morning prayer team, I was warned to “hold it together,” so the congregants could feel confident that upper leadership were strong, stable people. While I don’t agree with that premise, the advice was not unwarranted. I had once totally lost it while teaching a prayer class and was left to snuffle awkwardly through my notes. And too often when praying for an individual, far too much of my energy was focused on not crying. That ministry fizzled until I left it and I have no idea what state it’s in today.
About a year ago I started leading a women’s open share group at Celebrate Recovery. This is a group where women come together and everyone can say anything they want for five minutes. No one is allowed to say anything in response without permission from the woman doing the sharing. It’s magical. While leading that group, I became pregnant after trying for a year, and lost the baby a week later. I couldn’t stop crying. I would calmly, even cheerfully read the rules for open share, listen intently to the other women, and then unashamedly bawl through my five minutes. That felt good, like open share is supposed to feel good. I could be as angry, grief-stricken, and irrational as I truly was and the women would listen and refuse to judge or fix me.
Almost all the women in my open share group decided to get into a 12-step group (where a closed group of people actually work through the 12 steps, as opposed to just sharing). It seemed natural for me to lead that 12-step group. For the first time in my life I heard not one but three people say, “I’m so glad that you’re going to be leading my group.” In the 12-steps, of which we have completed five, I’ve continued to be honest and vulnerable with my group, and the group has continued to prosper. I’ve seen more wonderful, positive, life-changing God stuff happening in that group that I’ve seen in any other ministry I’ve led. I thought only special people got to do that stuff. And I honestly think that a big part of the success and the main reason I’m comfortable leading at this level is that my emotionality and my leadership are no longer at odds. They are helping each other.
As it turns out, people feel more comfortable with an authentic, open, honest leader who is dealing with real stuff in their lives, than with a totally-okay-all-the-time leader. Or at least they are in Celebrate Recovery. What’s more, I think I’m a much better leader this way. This way, I spend no energy trying to put a choke-chain on my emotions. The things I do well – structure, follow-up, organization, prayer, all function better when I know it’s okay to cry. I am more trustworthy, more honest, less judgmental, a better leader when I can say, “I’m really angry right now.” And I am a hell of a lot happier when I can laugh and joke and be ecstatically happy without worrying that I won’t be taken seriously. This may seem obvious to some and sheer folly to others, but this is my hard-won conclusion.