April 18, 2012

on being a PW.


We've been going to our church here in Michigan for about 7 months, but we're still running into people in the congregation whom we have not yet formally met. This past Sunday I was able to meet a few new people, and one older gent I was talking to was delighted to learn that my husband was in seminary on the journey to become a pastor. "That's wonderful!" he said. "You're going to make a lovely pastor's wife, I can already tell."

The only way that this man could have been able to tell this was if he had been blessed with the gift of prophecy. I mean, we only talked for 3 minutes. How can you gauge a woman's level of Pastor's Wife Prowess by only talking with her for 3 minutes?

I have no idea what kind of a pastor's wife I'm going to be. I'm perfectly aware of the stereotypical PW who plays piano and runs the kid's programs and runs the youth programs and runs the <enter whatever term you want here> programs, who wears matching pantsuits with matching cardigans and drinks tomato juice and has naturally well-coiffed hair and home schools all the children with patience and kindness (truthfully, I don't think she actually exists). There's also the other end of the spectrum -- the rebel group of PWs who have absolutely nothing to do with their husband's calling whatsoever and tell their friends that he's a motivational speaker on weekends.

I don't like tomato juice. I can play Fur Elise on the piano really well -- but that's it. That's the only song I've learned. I'm a lousy teacher -- like, really lousy -- sorry, children's ministry. Sarcasm is my main teaching method... keep me away from the 5-year-olds. But I'm also not shying away from the fact that Wayne's going to be a pastor. I think it's a beautiful and rare honour to be called to ministry -- a challenging call, yes, but an amazing one. I'm going to try to embrace it, and grow in it, and gather all the wisdom and advice that I can... when I'm not feeling lazy, that is. Sigh.

There's more reasons why I'm not going to be the best pastor's wife in the world. Endless reasons. Just the fact that I come from the line of Adam means that I'm going to be a terrible pastor's wife. It's that annoying sin thing.

I recently received an email from the landlord who rented out her basement to me during my college days, and who also happens to be a pastor's wife. She was inquiring as to how we were doing, and wrote, "the wonderful thing about you being finished with school is that you can pray for [Wayne] more consistently and with lots of knowledge for his needs as he studies."

I think this is probably exactly what the best kind of PW is. I heard somewhere that a pastor's wife is the closest thing that a pastor will ever have to a pastor, if that makes sense. If I'm praying for him and his work constantly, keeping him accountable, asking him hard questions, and knowing that God is at work through me to benefit him, it won't matter if I can't put together the Christmas Pageant or accidentally tell a 4-year-old that her Sunday School craft is kickass. A pastor's wife is just that -- a wife. And by the grace of God, I pray that I'll remember that throughout our ministry together.

1 comment:

  1. As long as you don't let yourself become his unpaid staff, you should be fine.

    ReplyDelete