You go to a meeting. The leader welcomes everyone and says, “As we get started, I’d like us to go around the room and have each of you quickly share three things:  your name, where you live, and your current role/job title.” When it’s my turn, I say, “I’m Deanna Shrodes, I’m Director of PF Women and I live in the Tampa Bay area.”

Boom. Done.

For most people in the room who know how to follow directions and have emotional intelligence, it’s the same type of answer. But in my experience, at least one person will completely veer off, pretty much wrecking the entire first portion of the meeting. It will go something like this, without coming up for air and said waaaaaay too slow for anyone’s liking in the room…

Hi everyone. I’m Sylvia Smyth. When I was about three years old, I sensed the Lord’s call to pass out peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in my neighborhood. I was always a giving person but I didn’t see the fulfillment of that call until a few years ago when I began to do it in my neighborhood in Orlando. Right away, God poured His favor out on me and we began to see people come from the north, south, east and west for those PB & J’s. Oh, I should have mentioned, I have one son that lives in Orlando. His name is Byron. His wife is Tawny and they have two little boys, my grandsons Max and Myron, ages 3 and 4. The light of my life. So, anyways…. they sometimes help me make the sandwiches, after all they live in Orlando unlike my daughter who moved away to New York to be with her husband’s family who are from Buffalo. They have three daughters, Ashley, Brittany and Nicole. I don’t get to see them much, and that has been difficult for me to accept. Speaking of emotions, I’ve been going to therapy for a while because I’ve been depressed…I thought God had healed it but apparently it can come back. I have been struggling this past month a lot. It’s been bad, not as bad as back in the day when I found out my husband had a porn addiction, but yet it has been difficult nevertheless. Almost as difficult as when our other son let us know he identified as a teradactyl. It all started when he heard an updated rendition of I’ll Fly Away at a campmeeting, and he actually tried to do it. My God, that was a terrible day after he tried to leap off of the Christian Education building at church flapping his arms to no avail. So if ya’ll could pray for me, it would mean a lot. I mean, I know I’m just meeting you all for the first time but hey we are all in Christ, and we are all leaders, so I feel safe to ask. So back to the sandwiches. God gave me this ministry of sandwiches. I’m a giver. Always have been. A lot of people don’t understand what I do and why I do it. I’m a different sort of leader, my ministry is out of the box. I mean, quite literally we are distributing PB and J’s in a box, so there’s that. And the fact that back in 1972 somebody prophesied over me at a tent meeting that I would carry the bread of life, in a box. So that’s how I knew I was called. But I’ve been going through terrible spiritual warfare just trying to make a sandwich. It shouldn’t be this hard, but you know the devil comes to steal, kill and destroy bless his name. He’s a sly ol’ fox. If I could catch him I’d put HIM in a box. But that’s okay, God’s the one who called me and these weapons will not prosper against me. Halleluiah! God is the one who keeps me making these sandwiches on the hard days. When I think I can’t take one more step, He gives me the grace.  Know what I mean? Of course you all do, you are leaders. You know exactly where I’m coming from, I’m sure. Thank God we’re here to support each other. I’m so glad to be part of this group. I could go on and on, but I won’t. Thank you for inviting me.

Note that this was all in one run on paragraph because Sylvia NEVER. CAME. UP. FOR. AIR.

[Cue me getting up to get another cup of coffee at the table in the corner to further medicate myself with caffeine for the rest of this meeting that has now officially gone off the rails.]

And the perplexing thing is, there will usually be other leaders in the room who will nod their heads graciously as Sylvia talks and say things like “Amen sis…amen…” tracking along like they get it and they are so blessed by what she’s saying. But later on, on the down low, at least one or two of them will tell you, “Oh my word…did you ever think we’d get through those introductions? Dear God…”

When I’m not the leader who is running the meeting and this happens, I sit there thinking, “WHATTTTT is happening in this room?” I want to save the train wreck, but I’m not in charge. Props to the leaders of meetings who refuse to amen meeting hijackers and who will dare to rescue the group from this type of insanity, stopping Sylvia one or two sentences in and redirecting her and the meeting. God help us raise up these kind of leaders who have nerve. I tell ya what, we don’t just need better systems or time management, we need NERVE! This type of thing is why a lot of people don’t like to come to meetings…Wasted time watching things unfold that are more life a Netflix reality show than a meeting.

I promise you I have sat through a few hundred introductions JUST LIKE THIS.

Why have I taken time to write this out? To get the frustration out of my system.

May God save us all.