The Accidental Pastor's Wife

Well, you have struck a chord for many pastor's wives and many church members. I struggle with this, and I'm sure many, many other pastor's wives do as well.

We are to serve our husbands and families and churches just like other church members do. My husband reminds me all the time that the best way I serve our church is by serving here at home. Good words, but at times hard to remember due to my own fear of man.

I think that's great! And totally appropriate. Our church emphasizes that mothers with young children should only participate and mothers with grown children should organize.

Yet, I think everyone should do what you are called to do. I don't have children, yet I don't especially feel called to serve in the children's ministry either. It's good to know your own limitations and do what you have been called to do!

Thanks for sharing. It sounds like you've got a lot of things on your plate and it must be so exhausting!!

May you have a week full of God's abounding love and grace as you minister to your family.

I hope that God will give you really neat, personal touches of sheer joy and encouragement this week :)

thanks again for being real and for sharing your heart!

Good for you, I'm with you 100%

That's great. Too often people get in the mindset that the pastor's wife is supposed to xnumber of things, when in reality, she can only handle so much. Good for you that you are not giving in to other's demands and stressing yourself out in the process.

I applaud you and say stick to your guns. I have told my husband that the next church we move to I am not joining any committees, teaching classes, taking on any projects. It's so easy to start with one committee, oh, and then there's this, and that and "you would be perfect for... would you mind..." and sooner than later the pastor's wife is looked to and doing a majority of what was done by others. I know!
I would love our church to have the pattern of younger mothers taking in and older women giving out but (and I'm quoting here) the older women have said it's "our turn" to sit and be served and the younger gals to serve because they did it when they had to do it all when they were younger. It's a yucky, yucky attitude. I just want to let activities and circles and committees die. Sorry, I'm venting here. But seriously the PW is silently expected to be THE woman of the church and that's wrong. I need boldness to step down, regardless if the traditions continue and get snubbed because I seemingly don't care for them. Thanks for your post and the room to rant.

Tami-sounds like you have a very wise husband :)

Anita-I'm glad your church wants to serve younger women who have less time to be in charge of stuff. That's wonderful! And we all know there are plenty of areas to serve besides children's ministry (confession time: i have children and i love them, but i'm not the best children's ministry person...)

Finish-Thanks for the sweet comment. That really made my day. Now could you post some tips on how to shed the extra baby weight through diet and running? I'm getting the bug even though I'm still 30 weeks along...

Tara & Kelli-I think maybe all women are tempted to take on too much, even if you aren't a PW. There's just a lot of pressure, no?

IWJT-Boy, you hit the nail on the head! Stuff is so backward! What great insight! I hope you can find a place to scale back in your own congregation. You can do it (or not do it!) :)

i think you're a pretty smart woman :) it's so important to know what you can and cannot accomplish during each season of life.

I found your blog through WFMW, and wanted to say hello. I also am an accidental pastor's wife. I definitely never expected to marry someone who wanted to be a pastor. Mostly, I never expected someone who wanted to be a pastor to marry me. But thankfully my sweet husband (back when he met me) didn't mind that I was going to medical school and wanted to be a doctor. So even though I don't yet have children, I definitely identify with everything about what I can commit to do. Which isn't much. Thankfully, our little church seems to appreciate me for who I am and not expect me to be at every single meeting. Don't forget that you are just like any other church member - nothing more, nothing less. It shouldn't matter who your husband is.

Julie, I am standing and applauding this post. What wisdom I see and I hope it spreads!

Being in that older woman category, I want to tell you and your readers that I really appreciate your honesty about the bad attitude so many older women have,thinking their job is done and the younger women ought to take over. Thankfully, I think many older women are being exposed to some great teaching on this subject, like Susan Hunt's books that talk about older women mentoring younger ones. I think many of them just are doing what they saw done before them and they still need to learn what Titus 2 actuallly means.

Again, great post!

Hi-- I'd like to chat with you about contributing to a new blog for young pastor's wives. www.clutchtalk.blogspot.com. I couldn't find your email address on your blog, but would you mind emailing me. clutchtalk AT gmail.
We'd love to either interview you, ask you to be a guest blogger or repost something you've already written (and of course, link to your blog). Looking forward to hearing from you.

Delina