The Real Life of a Pastors Wife – Well Worth It!
Writer Author Filoiann Wiedenhoff
Christian Column
:
Christian Living
- Fiction No
Honestly, I am technically a newbie when it comes to being a pastor’s wife. This month it will be eight years. Wow! Time flies when you are having fun. I say that facetiously. What people don’t see on the outside are all the late nights and early mornings our faces are on the floor praying, tears, sacrifice and at times the pain pastors and their wives go through.
Some pastors’ wives have their own careers and work full-time and others are full-time mothers and serve in full-time ministry. Regardless of what career choices these wives have made does not make their position in supporting their husband in his ministry any less hard or difficult.
We are still their ear to listen, shoulder to lean on and their biggest supporters. When they hurt we also hurt and vice versa. We take care of the home and make sure our children are not neglected and hold down the home fort when the pastor husband has to leave at night for bible studies, home visits and whatever else the ministry calls them to. The ministry is often consuming and everything we do as a family revolves around the ministry.
I can only speak for myself on this but becoming a senior pastors wife has been the most humbling, difficult and challenging position I have ever experienced in my life. When my husband served as an associate pastor at our former church I loved it. I served in women’s biblical counseling, women’s ministry and enjoyed being able to use my gifts that the Lord has given me without having the pressures of being scrutinized. I was appreciated and never judged by what I wore or how I spoke or for what I looked like. It was great.
As a senior pastors wife it has been a completely different experience for me. I have been challenged, attacked, mistreated and misjudged for either what I do or what I’m not doing. I have been judged by what I look like and how I dress. One evening at a ministry meeting I was asked if I was available on a certain day for a future meeting date and when I looked at my phone to check my schedule a church member laughed and asked, “What do you do?” Ugh!
For the record, in spite of the trials we have endured in this position I wouldn’t trade it for the world. We believe God has called us to this ministry and also that everything we have endured is allowed by God and also part of God’s sovereign grace to draw us closer to Him and keep us solely dependant upon the Lord for everything.
Personally, my husband and I believe that all the hardship and all the trials we have experienced are well worth the cost. In our congregation we have witnessed people being healed of addictions, marriages restored and people coming into the kingdom of God. It makes everything we go through worth the temporary afflictions we experience here on earth and it reminds us that our home and rewards are not of this world but in heaven waiting for us.
You might be asking if we ever want to quit or do we get discouraged? Of course, I would be lying if I said we are happy all the time and never get down. The key is focusing on God, forgiving others and our selves and moving forward by faith that God is good all the time. God allows all things for His glory and goodness and through the fiery trials we are being refined and transformed into His image. This concept alone makes it all worthwhile.
If you are going through a trial or an affliction right now, I hope you are encouraged to know that you are not alone; God is with you and promises His children that He will never leave us nor forsakes us. God is faithful and He will do it!
Closing Scripture 1 Peter 1:3-7
“3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you, 5who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. 6In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.” NIV
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State:
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United States
Email:
filoiw@yahoo.com
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