If you or someone you know is in crisis,
call or text 988
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or visit them on the web
988lifeline.orgThis service is free and available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. All calls are confidential.
It is important to note that suicide is not a normal response to stress. Suicidal thoughts or actions are a sign of extreme distress and should not be ignored. If these warning signs apply to you or someone you know, get help as soon as possible, particularly if the behavior is new or has increased recently.
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Guest Contributor: Cory Montfort, LPC-S and Beacon of Light Board Member
Growing up as a pastor’s daughter, I watched my father struggle to balance the needs of his congregation with his marriage and his own well-being. For him, someone’s crisis carried more weight than another demand on his schedule. He felt God was calling him to respond. When your work feels connected to a higher power, setting a limit can feel difficult to justify.
After listening, helping, and carrying other people’s burdens, my dad would become fatigued. Yet he understood his calling as being a servant, which left little room to feel justified in caring for himself. My mother faced her own version of that struggle. How could she ask him to choose her when doing so might feel like asking him to neglect something sacred?
I have compassion for both of them. Their experience captures something I wish more church leaders understood: a family can believe deeply in your calling and still feel the cost of your availability. A spouse may hesitate to ask for connection. Children may learn to wait until things settle down. Extended family may stop expecting you to make time. Their willingness to accommodate the work can make their needs easier to overlook.
Looking back through a therapist’s lens helps me understand how that distance can develop even in a loving family. Emotional availability requires some capacity to listen, tolerate frustration,and be curious about another person. You can walk through the door while still replaying a difficult conversation or watching your phone for the next crisis. Your family experiences the part of you that is available, however much you wish you had more to give.
That gap may show up in small changes: less patience, more canceled plans, conversations reduced to logistics, or a growing tendency to withdraw. Sometimes the quieter signal is that a spouse or child stops asking for your attention. These changes can have many causes and do not establish burnout, but they deserve a conversation. Asking how your family has experienced your availability, and listening before explaining the demands on you, can reveal needs that have gone unspoken.
What my perspective as a therapist adds to my experience as a daughter is an understanding that good intentions cannot replace opportunities to recover and reconnect. Love needs room to be expressed. If every request is treated as equally urgent, making that room becomes nearly impossible.
This is where healthy boundaries become a form of care for the leader and the family. A conversation with church leadership about availability, shared coverage, and what truly requires an immediate response can make rest possible without leaving the congregation unsupported. Clear expectations spare an exhausted pastor from having to reconsider those limits every time the phone rings.
That support gives a family a better chance to plan time together before the week fills up. A weekly conversation about when you have energy for a meal, a walk, time with your children, or a call to a parent gives those relationships a place in your plans. A weekly period away from ministry also needs room for rest. Regular sleep, meals, and movement are easier to sustain when the calendar acknowledges that you have limits. When an unavoidable interruption disrupts family time, acknowledging its impact and making a specific plan to reconnect helps preserve trust.
The transition to home deserves similar attention. Noting unfinished tasks and when you will return to them,with confidential details kept secure, can help you set work aside. A short walk or a few quiet minutes offers space to notice what you are carrying. If you need time to settle, let your family know when you will join them. With coverage arranged where needed, putting the phone aside makes it easier to listen to their day without immediately trying to solve it.
As leaders make more room for connection, they need places where they can receive care, too. Friendships outside ministry offer shared interests and companionship beyond being needed. A trusted peer or therapist can provide space to speak honestly about exhaustion and loneliness, so a spouse does not become the only source of support. The person who listens to everyone else needs someone willing to listen to them.
My father’s struggle has stayed with me because I can see the devotion behind it, alongside the strain it placed on him and his marriage. A calling to serve does not erase the need to receive care. Your family’s need for connection and your own need for rest deserve attention before either becomes a crisis.
Cory Montfort, MS, LPC-S, is a licensed professional counselor and founder of The Montfort Group, with more than 20 years of experience working with individuals, couples, and families. A pastor’s daughter, Cory brings both personal insight and clinical expertise to her role as a member of Beacon of Light’s Board of Directors.
Guest Contributor: Cory Montfort, LPC-S and Beacon of Light Board Member
Growing up as a pastor’s daughter, I watched my father struggle to balance the needs of his congregation with his marriage and his own well-being. For him, someone’s crisis carried more weight than another demand on his schedule. He felt God was calling him to respond. When your work feels connected to a higher power, setting a limit can feel difficult to justify.
After listening, helping, and carrying other people’s burdens, my dad would become fatigued. Yet he understood his calling as being a servant, which left little room to feel justified in caring for himself. My mother faced her own version of that struggle. How could she ask him to choose her when doing so might feel like asking him to neglect something sacred?
I have compassion for both of them. Their experience captures something I wish more church leaders understood: a family can believe deeply in your calling and still feel the cost of your availability. A spouse may hesitate to ask for connection. Children may learn to wait until things settle down. Extended family may stop expecting you to make time. Their willingness to accommodate the work can make their needs easier to overlook.
Looking back through a therapist’s lens helps me understand how that distance can develop even in a loving family. Emotional availability requires some capacity to listen, tolerate frustration,and be curious about another person. You can walk through the door while still replaying a difficult conversation or watching your phone for the next crisis. Your family experiences the part of you that is available, however much you wish you had more to give.
That gap may show up in small changes: less patience, more canceled plans, conversations reduced to logistics, or a growing tendency to withdraw. Sometimes the quieter signal is that a spouse or child stops asking for your attention. These changes can have many causes and do not establish burnout, but they deserve a conversation. Asking how your family has experienced your availability, and listening before explaining the demands on you, can reveal needs that have gone unspoken.
What my perspective as a therapist adds to my experience as a daughter is an understanding that good intentions cannot replace opportunities to recover and reconnect. Love needs room to be expressed. If every request is treated as equally urgent, making that room becomes nearly impossible.
This is where healthy boundaries become a form of care for the leader and the family. A conversation with church leadership about availability, shared coverage, and what truly requires an immediate response can make rest possible without leaving the congregation unsupported. Clear expectations spare an exhausted pastor from having to reconsider those limits every time the phone rings.
That support gives a family a better chance to plan time together before the week fills up. A weekly conversation about when you have energy for a meal, a walk, time with your children, or a call to a parent gives those relationships a place in your plans. A weekly period away from ministry also needs room for rest. Regular sleep, meals, and movement are easier to sustain when the calendar acknowledges that you have limits. When an unavoidable interruption disrupts family time, acknowledging its impact and making a specific plan to reconnect helps preserve trust.
The transition to home deserves similar attention. Noting unfinished tasks and when you will return to them,with confidential details kept secure, can help you set work aside. A short walk or a few quiet minutes offers space to notice what you are carrying. If you need time to settle, let your family know when you will join them. With coverage arranged where needed, putting the phone aside makes it easier to listen to their day without immediately trying to solve it.
As leaders make more room for connection, they need places where they can receive care, too. Friendships outside ministry offer shared interests and companionship beyond being needed. A trusted peer or therapist can provide space to speak honestly about exhaustion and loneliness, so a spouse does not become the only source of support. The person who listens to everyone else needs someone willing to listen to them.
My father’s struggle has stayed with me because I can see the devotion behind it, alongside the strain it placed on him and his marriage. A calling to serve does not erase the need to receive care. Your family’s need for connection and your own need for rest deserve attention before either becomes a crisis.
Cory Montfort, MS, LPC-S, is a licensed professional counselor and founder of The Montfort Group, with more than 20 years of experience working with individuals, couples, and families. A pastor’s daughter, Cory brings both personal insight and clinical expertise to her role as a member of Beacon of Light’s Board of Directors.
When the Calling Leaves Little Room for Care
Drawing on her experience as a pastor's daughter and therapist, Cory Montfort explores the impact of ministry on family life
Guest Contributor: Cory Montfort, LPC-S and Beacon of Light Board Member
Growing up as a pastor’s daughter, I watched my father struggle to balance the needs of his congregation with his marriage and his own well-being. For him, someone’s crisis carried more weight than another demand on his schedule. He felt God was calling him to respond. When your work feels connected to a higher power, setting a limit can feel difficult to justify.
After listening, helping, and carrying other people’s burdens, my dad would become fatigued. Yet he understood his calling as being a servant, which left little room to feel justified in caring for himself. My mother faced her own version of that struggle. How could she ask him to choose her when doing so might feel like asking him to neglect something sacred?
I have compassion for both of them. Their experience captures something I wish more church leaders understood: a family can believe deeply in your calling and still feel the cost of your availability. A spouse may hesitate to ask for connection. Children may learn to wait until things settle down. Extended family may stop expecting you to make time. Their willingness to accommodate the work can make their needs easier to overlook.
Looking back through a therapist’s lens helps me understand how that distance can develop even in a loving family. Emotional availability requires some capacity to listen, tolerate frustration,and be curious about another person. You can walk through the door while still replaying a difficult conversation or watching your phone for the next crisis. Your family experiences the part of you that is available, however much you wish you had more to give.
That gap may show up in small changes: less patience, more canceled plans, conversations reduced to logistics, or a growing tendency to withdraw. Sometimes the quieter signal is that a spouse or child stops asking for your attention. These changes can have many causes and do not establish burnout, but they deserve a conversation. Asking how your family has experienced your availability, and listening before explaining the demands on you, can reveal needs that have gone unspoken.
What my perspective as a therapist adds to my experience as a daughter is an understanding that good intentions cannot replace opportunities to recover and reconnect. Love needs room to be expressed. If every request is treated as equally urgent, making that room becomes nearly impossible.
This is where healthy boundaries become a form of care for the leader and the family. A conversation with church leadership about availability, shared coverage, and what truly requires an immediate response can make rest possible without leaving the congregation unsupported. Clear expectations spare an exhausted pastor from having to reconsider those limits every time the phone rings.
That support gives a family a better chance to plan time together before the week fills up. A weekly conversation about when you have energy for a meal, a walk, time with your children, or a call to a parent gives those relationships a place in your plans. A weekly period away from ministry also needs room for rest. Regular sleep, meals, and movement are easier to sustain when the calendar acknowledges that you have limits. When an unavoidable interruption disrupts family time, acknowledging its impact and making a specific plan to reconnect helps preserve trust.
The transition to home deserves similar attention. Noting unfinished tasks and when you will return to them,with confidential details kept secure, can help you set work aside. A short walk or a few quiet minutes offers space to notice what you are carrying. If you need time to settle, let your family know when you will join them. With coverage arranged where needed, putting the phone aside makes it easier to listen to their day without immediately trying to solve it.
As leaders make more room for connection, they need places where they can receive care, too. Friendships outside ministry offer shared interests and companionship beyond being needed. A trusted peer or therapist can provide space to speak honestly about exhaustion and loneliness, so a spouse does not become the only source of support. The person who listens to everyone else needs someone willing to listen to them.
My father’s struggle has stayed with me because I can see the devotion behind it, alongside the strain it placed on him and his marriage. A calling to serve does not erase the need to receive care. Your family’s need for connection and your own need for rest deserve attention before either becomes a crisis.
Cory Montfort, MS, LPC-S, is a licensed professional counselor and founder of The Montfort Group, with more than 20 years of experience working with individuals, couples, and families. A pastor’s daughter, Cory brings both personal insight and clinical expertise to her role as a member of Beacon of Light’s Board of Directors.
Beacon of Light is a 501(c)3 organization. All contributions are tax deductible.
Federal ID #933723580.
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