Me and my boy were discussing Saul just yesterday. We were talking about the “beginning of the end” of Saul’s reign with the disobedient/arrogant/manipulating sacrifice he made in 1Sam. 13. He used the things of God (the sacrifice) to try to save face and maintain his show of power with the people. Sounds like we’ve been discussing similar topics — just on different ends of Saul’s reign.

I know there are others, but the one that hurts the most probably happened 6ish years ago. My husband was on staff at a large church as the Worship Pastor. As long as we have been married we had always done worship and other church music together so I joined him as part of the worship team on many occasions. After a few years of noticing that most of the other team members were asked to do “special music” for the services on a regular basis but I never had been asked (and he did the scheduling) I went to him curious about it. After a lot of digging, he finally admitted to me that he had been asked by those above him to not schedule me for those kind of things. Why? Because I didn’t fit the mold/look that they wanted to highlight. I wasn’t young/thin/pretty enough and they wanted to highlight people that wouldn’t be “distracting”. He was told that I could sing “back-up vocals” but nothing else. None of it was related to my ability or gifting, but purely based on my appearance.

To say that it emotionally devastated me would be putting it lightly. I felt hurt, betrayed, ashamed, angry….you name it. Knowing that my husband had been put in this position was hurtful, but then knowing that he didn’t tell me (because he didn’t want to hurt me) and let me continue to be part of the team was more hurtful.

I have not been able to help him lead worship without fear or shame since that time – and I HATE that. I haven’t really figured out how to move past it. I’ve only done worship a handful of times since then and each one has been a struggle.