Yes, You...

So... I've been thinking all day about this mis-identity crisis in which I currently find myself.
Being taken seriously by a professional strange to me personally should not really surprise me. In the context of my ministerial life it eventually happened as a matter of course, and I grew to expect it. After all, though I may not personally feel special I have been a foreign missionary, if not in the classic, supported-by-denominational-funds sense, for 30 years now. After losing all our US-based missionary support in 1991, I think I thought of myself more as a cross-cultural minister.

In this time period I have co-planted 2 churches in Austria and assisted others elsewhere in Europe. I had the primary responsibility of raising two children in a society foreign to the one in which I grew up, and practiced an "open home" hospitality policy for most of my first marriage, hosting up to 12 people at a time in our -- by American standards-- small home. I built up a worship sector in our 2nd Austrian church which has had a ripple-effect on many other European churches and their bands.
I've attended countless seminars, conferences and courses on almost every aspect of spiritual life, and have myself been a teacher at many of them. I've sat on several committees and leadership councils, some of which were ground-breaking in their time (the first inter-denominational Round Table in Austria, for example). We were in on the ground floor of developing the Vineyard movement of churches in the German-speaking world.
I've long preached, taught, and developed course materials in both German and English, plus translating reams more. I've pastored, counseled, prayed with, wept over, rejoiced with members of my congregation. I've "done the stuff": healing prayer, deliverance, prophecy, and taught it to others. I've led teams of novices into other foreign countries and helped them minister to, and learn from, the culture into which I took them. In my last 10 years of ministry I was in some demand as a public speaker, trainer, and minister. It sounds like a lot, but living it myself didn't seem particularly taxing; I loved much of it. None of the above is boasting, either; it simply describes my life as I have lived it.

Although I am aware of all these facts, somehow the penny had not dropped that through such life experience I am essentially qualified for --indeed, I have been exercising-- managerial-type position. Much of the above does describe management, or rather leadership. There is no question --in most peoples' minds-- of my competency. The issue has been in my own mind, failing to bridge the gap between my life of largely undefined "ministry", and a "regular job" in which I could imagine anyone willing to hand over cold hard cash for the life wisdom, skill set and experience which I have developed in another field.
Part of the unspoken agreement one enters when one decides for missions is that one will be seriously underpaid, and that has also been a fact of my last 30 years. With the exception of a privileged high-profile few, Christian ministry (apart from American mega-churches) is remunerated in rather more arcane coin --personal fulfillment, a genuine sense of being useful-- than actual funds. By itself, it generally does not pay enough money to live on, unless one is very fond of baked beans or ministers in a nation where the support/exchange rate is favorable. This is one reason why "tent-making" (having a paying job alongside ministry) is so popular in modern missions.

Another large factor is the repenting I need to do-- that is, the change of mind I need to develop-- about my competency levels where I have bought into what the most negative factors in my life to this point have told me about myself, rather than the positive or even neutral voices. At some core level I have believed lies from two main sources about myself and my abilities, indeed about my very identity.
I long received a message and impression of my own competencies from a husband who, for all his many other good qualities, also had an abusive mindset. I understand where it came from and I have great sympathy for the suffering that caused it in him, but the fact remains that P's not dealing with his own stuff damaged me for many years and in the end, made our marriage not worth fighting to keep. Part of this mindset is that he experienced it as his personal loss for me to thrive in areas he felt the need to control. Though he publicly supported "my ministry" and believed he actually did, emotionally I was punished when my increasing success in an arena outside his influence made him feel threatened or abandoned.
I only started to come out of the fog when what Dad was saying to me, not only in my personal dialogue with him but through Scripture, through teaching I received and through prophetic words from people outside my situation, consistently directly contradicted what P was telling me. In 1997 I vowed to start believing what Dad said about me more than I believed what anyone else did, including P or even myself. This process goes on to this day, and I believe I am moving into a deeper phase of it now.

The other main factor is that I listened to (and as a result, felt excluded from and disqualified for) a political and administrative system built on obfuscation. This is a downside of Austrian society and this negative factor is unfortunately not only the ruling factor in governmental hierarchichal administration, but was very present in the administration of VG-- an Austrian church. There were times, especially in the past few years, when I very much identified with St Paul's plea in Galatians 4:16: Have I now become your enemy by telling you the truth?
The bottom line is: I have received at least part of my identity built on lies, with the result that I am now surprised when someone unbiased states what seems to them to be an obvious positive truth about me.

This must change!