Between Us Pastors' Wives

Okay, I’m not a great cook anyway. But it’s also frustrating that the second I try to think of something to put together for a meal, I feel every ounce of creativity drain out of my being. 

One afternoon, I opened the fridge door and the ketchup bottle fell out and exploded. So I did the only sensible thing. Drew a chalk outline around it and left to get pizza. Murder mystery party!

That would’ve been the most creative thing I’d ever done in the kitchen except that I just made it all up. Do I at least get creative points for that?

Confession: sometimes I have cereal for dinner. Even though it’s essentially the “I give up” of domestic achievement. I told my family a few nights ago I could make them anything for dinner they wanted. As long as they wanted canned soup and grilled cheese.

When I finally do come up with a dinner idea that’s halfway interesting, it’s sad that it so often takes an evil turn. I tried a meat casserole-thing one time. Let me just call it what it was—it was a log of meat. What was most fascinating was that every time I warmed it up, it looked different than it did the day before. Creepiest leftovers ever.

When it comes to your husband’s leftover time, it can be even tougher to deal with the feeling that others are getting the creative and fresh part of him. He’s logging in extra hours (yeah, different kind of log) and you start to feel you’re sort of getting the table scraps.

The majority of churches in America have less than 200 people. That usually means small staff—often a staff of one. Then there are those people who don’t respect his time—or your time with him—and expect him to drop everything to be at their beck and call. Balancing being available and guarding family time can be a tough call.

Sometimes our husbands really are too busy for too long and we need to honestly, yet with a heaping helping of grace, let them know we’re feeling a little too far down on the list of priorities. There may be some things he can rearrange or others he can delegate. Some seasons in his ministry, though, are busier than others and there are times we simply need to ask the Lord to help us patiently wait it out. Mostly the “patiently” part is about asking the Lord to make us gracious when he doesn’t have a moment to spare, and to ask Him to be the one to change our husbands’ schedule. The other part of “patiently” is getting through it all without trying to whine, nag, guilt, or otherwise manipulate the changes ourselves. 

Chances are your husband is already struggling to juggle the stress—the guilt from being so often away from home, plus the extra stresses of dealing with people and their “stuff.” It really is a tough balance between showing understanding and patience while still letting our husbands know we need some honey-time. I’ll confess I don’t always get the balance.

When a family calls with an urgent crisis and needs my husband, there’ve been a few times I wanted to grab the phone and interrupt with, “Excuse me, but could you possibly reschedule your grandfather’s passing for another night? I made soup and grilled cheese here.”

There are things that take him away from home—sometimes at freaky or incredibly inconvenient hours—things that he simply can’t reschedule. It’s those times we have to lean hard into Jesus, asking Him to help us guard against manipulating. And we need to ask the Lord to help us never, ever see the church as our competition. His ministry? It’s our ministry too. We need our hearts fully in it. Only Jesus can keep them there.

If it becomes about what we’re giving up, we lose sight of ministry. We have to constantly ask the Lord to fire up our hearts to see changed lives—asking Him to keep fresh our yearning to see the hearts of people turn to Him—to let us see ministry making a difference because of what He’s doing through our husbands. It’s got to be about what Jesus is doing or we’ll be right back around to whining and manipulating. Hearts freshly on fire. No warmed up leftovers will do. They’re just creepy.

When it’s all about what the Lord wants to do in the lives of people, then encouraging our husbands in all their busyness happens a whole lot more easily.

I’d say as easy as falling off a log, but we’re really not over that yet. Still just too soon.  

~ By Rhonda Rhea