What my pastor’s wife does for him better than anyone else

“He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord.” (Proverbs 18:22)

And, may we add, the minister who finds a woman called by God as a pastor’s wife has found a  very good thing indeed.

The role of a pastor’s wife is a unique ministry. Nothing else like it.

My friend Iris, the widow of a beloved pastor, sent me a note this week that went something like this:

“This pastor’s wife had some interesting conversations with God when my college-age daughter burst into the house saying God had called her to be a pastor’s wife.  Later, when she began dating Chris, who was majoring in criminal justice and hoping to work with the border patrol, I asked her if she planned to tell him he was going to become a pastor. She smiled, ‘No. I’m going to let God do that.’ And lo and behold, He did. Chris is going to become a pastor.”

Iris has more than an inkling of what her daughter has in store.  And so, she prays.

My pastor’s wife is Terri and, as I write this, she’s out of the country on a mission trip and can’t stop me from doing this. (smiley-face goes here)

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To the young fidgety pastor’s wife

“Not that we are adequate to think anything of ourselves; but our adequacy is of God” (II Corinthians 3:5).

The “fidgety” in the title refers to the young wife, not to her pastor-husband.

You’re just not sure you are cut out to be a preacher’s wife.  You wonder why in the world the Lord in Heaven thought you of all people had what it takes to be the (ahem) “first-lady” of any church, large or small.  You are so overwhelmed by all the inadequacies you bring to this assignment, you find yourself wishing most days that your man would walk in and announce he was mistaken, that God wants him to run the State Farm office with his father back home.  A normal existence.

You’re normal, young sister.

Every minister’s wife on the planet has felt this way, including the best ones, those beautiful put-together women you admire from a distance who seem to have developed “pastors-wife” into a career and a calling.

“Not that we are adequate for these things.”

1) You are not adequate for this assignment, let’s say that up front.  You do not have what it takes.

This has nothing to do with anything.

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