Domains for Sale -

The Heart of a Pastor’s Wife…

I did something yesterday that I rarely do. I went shopping for myself—by myself. I needed to get away. I needed time to think. And I needed new shoes. I also had the side agenda of meeting up with a friend to see the movie True Grit. I accomplished what I set out to do—two new pairs of shoes and visiting a dear friend. But as I left for home, I sensed the Lord quietly and gently reminding me that I am a pastor’s wife. I turned up the radio, flipping through the stations, randomly jumping from one genre to the next. I soon reached 70 mph in the northbound lane—trying to distract myself from what the Lord was showing me by focusing on the quickly passing dashed lines.

I find myself struggling with restlessness. There is a very delicate tension in my heart between what I long and hope for and what I know is best. I long for marriage. I long for companionship and friendship found only in marriage. I literally ache from this desire. And, yet, my primary ministry right now is in the home. Normally, I am quite content to be a mom and to be home with my children. I know I cannot afford to be distracted from this calling of motherhood. I must invest myself wisely in my children now. The opportunity to intentionally and purposefully parent my children is quickly fleeting. This is a job I am committed to doing well. And yet, there is that tug and constant undercurrent—the ache and pain of loneliness and longing.

The Lord called my late husband to be a pastor. He called me that same time to be a pastor’s wife. When the Lord called me, I gladly agreed to serve. I was thrilled and excited. Then for many bitter and disappointing months after Donald’s death, I grappled with the reality of my new ‘station’ in life— widowhood. Many “deaths” followed—including the death of the pastor’s wife in me.

But on the interstate last night the Lord once again reminded me of this calling on my life—to be a pastor’s wife. This has been a strange and gradual revelation to me during these past few months. I am a young widow with five children. My husband is dead and has been for over four years now. How on earth can I be a pastor’s wife?

Gradually, I am beginning to understand that I am not to divorce myself from who God has called me to be. It is strange to be thinking this way—to consider myself a pastor’s wife when I am a widow. This calling has nothing to do with my late husband. It has nothing whatsoever to do with my marital status—or lack thereof. It has everything to do with the Lord.

“Fear not, for you will not be put to shame; and do not feel humiliated, for you will not be disgraced; but … the reproach of your widowhood you will remember no more. For your husband is your Maker… for the Lord has called you, like a wife forsaken and grieved in spirit.” Isaiah 54:4-6a

“But you, be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.” 2 Timothy 4:5