The Preacher's Wife...

Do you often wonder about her? Do you take time to get to know her? What is life like in the role of the preachers wife? Here is a snippit for you.

Each church is completely different. The people are always different, yet the same. The have a tendency to think that there are clicks with the wife, when in reality, nobody has truly taken the time to even get to know her. In two years she (alone) has been invited out to lunch five times, only once been ask to go shopping once. The years before that again less than five. You may see her with other people, but she has been the one to ask them if they want to do something.

She spends her time focused on her family. Why? Because most all of the time she is having to defend them and feels the need to protect them. She seems to have to constantly remind them of what they need to do or not need to be doing. Do you not think she knows that she has a very, very hyper child. Do you really think that she needs to be constantly reminded about it, even though you are laughing when you are reminding her, do you even think of how it makes her feel? In 7 years he has had a broken foot, 16 stitches an allergic rash to medication and a surgery for a staff infection - he received one get well soon card. She is a human being too, that is her child.

What are holidays like at her house? Does the family go back to their family? Sometimes they are forgotten. They are part of the church family, but very often overlooked. Sometimes they get to share events with others, and that does make them feel like they belong, a little. She will tell you that she has has two awesome vacations with church members, this in 19 years of ministry. Even she thinks back to what life was like before she was the preacher's wife, she was just a church member, and she realizes then that she too didn't take the time to get to know the wife, sure she had them both over for supper but she never really took time to know them. Most preachers are far away from their families.

What happens when her family is in the hospital? Who does she get visits from? Well when her mom was in the hospital, two families came to see her. Her mother went into the hospital on a Monday and died on Saturday. At the next church people from the church seemed to just wait as her mother-in-law was at the end of her life too (almost two weeks). They waited till after she had passed to bring the food and show they cared. Think about their suffering too. They are human, their needs are real too. They don't have a pastor to be there for them when they are in the hospital or have a death. She gives her husband to families over and over, because that is the right thing to do. She doesn't think back and say, but they didn't do it for us. She had a baby, how many people came to the hosptial to see her? Three.

This was just food for thought. And remember, she knows when you are being honest and sometimes that thought of "is this true or are they wanting to fish for information" will be going through her mind. Is it right? No, but that is just how it is.

Again I say, some churches are different, but some issues are the same. She knows that she has been truly blessed in every place she has been, that God has placed them there for a specific reason, and she can tell you exactly what that reason was. But do you even know about it? When was the last time she knew that you were not like the rest of the people, that you were genuinely caring about her and her family?

A book can be written about her journey along the way and probably does need to be written, as encouragement to that pastor's wife, There is Life being the Wife...of a Preacher. She needs to know that the church she is in is the place that God has for her, that He needs her to be there. He wants to use her and will use her. There are great people in the church and she needs to trust that God will put them in her life when she needs them most.