"Hey, you're Mary Kay's husband, aren't you?" the fellow sitting at the cafe breakfast counter called out to me.
I'm a pastor and it's Monday morning. My day off. My head was buried in the morning paper. If I thought I was hiding out from the masses who needed my help, I needn't have worried. I'm Mary Kay's husband, after all, and more folks are looking for her help than mine.
"Yes I am."
"I need to talk to her today. My son is off his meds again and got into some trouble. I thought she could help me get his medical records shipped out."
I give him her number and then listen as he tells me about his son's latest problems. He tells me that Mary Kay helps him get things done for his son. "She knows just who to call."
For ten years Mary Kay has been the director of our county's National Alliance on Mental Illness, or NAMI. She tells me that 1 in 4 Americans are impacted by a mental illness in the U.S., and I believe it.
When we meet a new couple and we all introduce ourselves, we do the typical American thing by telling what we do. I tell people that I'm a pastor and receive some positive affirmation usually. Mary Kay tells people she advocates for people who have a family member with mental illness and most often the conversation just stops.
Or maybe it would be better to say the surface, polite, getting-to-know-you conversation stops. One of our new friends will lean in, sometimes with tears, and share their struggle with a son or daughter, a brother or sister, a mom or a dad, who suffers from mental illness. Schizophrenia. Bipolar illness. Depression.
This conversation can last several hours. I've learned over the years that many people are walking around with deep hurts and great frustration. Mental illness, it seems, carries with it a stigma - a certain knowing that this is one topic we don't discuss in polite conversation. So when a new friend discovers a welcoming "I've been there too" reception from a person like Mary Kay, the floodgates open up.
When I was in college I studied to be a businessman, not to be a pastor. In my real estate class I learned about the principle of the highest and best use. One can make a profit by purchasing property that is underutilized and converting it to its highest and best use.
Over the past ten years I've changed the main purpose of my life to what I hoped would be my highest and best use - to be a pastor. I love encouraging people with the good news of Christ, with the difference He can make in one's life. I love what I do. The writing. The thinking. The sharing. The leading.
Some mornings, like this morning, I wonder if my highest and best use is really being Mary Kay's husband. I have no doubt of people's need for the good news message of Christ. I have no doubt that people need the encouragement of authentic Christian community.
For many reasons, though, the church is not where most people are turning. Loving, caring, front-line advocates for human kindness - like the kind Mary Kay offers - is where today's hurting person will turn first. Why? Because Mary Kay has been there herself. Because she has practical advice. Because she knows the people who can help, and the ones who can't. And because she genuinely cares.
Maybe the next time we are in one of those meet-new-people situations, I should just introduce myself with my highest and best use - as Mary Kay's husband.
