Hurt…

The wounds a pastor carries from loving, serving, and bearing the weight of people. It rarely gets named.

1. Pastor hurt is pouring years into someone, then watching them leave without ever having one conversation with you.

2. Pastor hurt is finding out someone you loved like family has been talking about you with everybody except you.

3. Pastor hurt is being expected to understand everyone's bad day while nobody considers that you can have one too.

4. Pastor hurt is counseling someone through their darkest season. Answering their late-night calls. Praying them through a crisis. Then being treated as if you never did a thing.

5. Pastor hurt is watching people interpret correction as rejection because they wanted affirmation more than discipleship.

6. Pastor hurt is having your motives questioned by people who have never carried the weight you carry.

7. Pastor hurt is being criticized for decisions by people who don't know the information behind those decisions.

8. Pastor hurt is hearing "God told me to leave" from someone who never once came to you and said, "Pastor, something's bothering me. Can we talk?"

9. Pastor hurt is watching someone get offended by one moment after years of experiencing your love.

10. Pastor hurt is being there for births, deaths, hospital rooms, marriages, funerals, financial crises, and spiritual battles, then discovering one misunderstanding was enough for them to write you off as a demon.

11. Pastor hurt is seeing someone you trained, encouraged, promoted, and gave opportunities to suddenly treat you like the enemy.

12. Pastor hurt is investing in someone's calling, only for them to dishonor the very house that helped develop it.

13. Pastor hurt is people demanding access to you when they're hurting, then vanishing when you need them.

14. Pastor hurt is carrying confidential information that keeps you from defending yourself. You know every detail of what happened. Integrity requires your silence.

15. Pastor hurt is smiling from the pulpit while privately processing something that would have kept most people home.

16. Pastor hurt is preaching faith to everybody else, then fighting for your own faith after the service ends.

17. Pastor hurt is preparing messages while exhausted, praying while wounded, leading while grieving, and showing up because people depend on you. Knowing that if the shoes were on the other feet, they wouldn't show up for you the way you've shown up for them.

18. Pastor hurt is realizing some people loved your gift more than they ever loved you.

19. Pastor hurt is discovering some people celebrate you as long as your pastoring never challenges them.

20. Pastor hurt is forgiving people who never apologized, because bitterness would cost your calling more than their offense ever could.

Shepherding sheep sometimes means getting bitten by the very sheep you're trying to protect.

Pastors hurt too. Pastors bleed too. Pastors get tired too. Pastors need prayer too.

Love your pastor. Pray for your pastor. Talk to your pastor.

Behind that pulpit is a person carrying more than you will ever know or experience.