The Rebel Pastor’s Wife

“I am not the typical Pastor’s wife you know…I make alibis so I would miss prayer meetings…I find fulfillment shopping but feel bored during bible classes… I bring along my PSP every time I attend church services and play with mobile games when the Pastor, my husband delivers the sermon…I love mingling with party folks but frown at church members.”
These are revelations of Shiela, who claims she did not really like the life of a Pastor’s wife. For almost fifteen years, she said, she really hated being called a pastor’s wife. Sheila admitted she did not really fit the expectations that other people had for her. She had responded with the expectations with shrugs of the shoulders to tears to mark defiance.
“I tried being one, doing responsibilities that pastor’s wives do like listen to people’s problems but I always end up feeling down after, I feel like so irritated. I tried to be civil with every church member who smiles at me but I really do not remember being the first to smile at them. I feel uneasy leading prayers, even during small gatherings. I tried my best to control myself and not to butt in when I disagree with my husband’s teachings. The effort of trying exhausted me, emotionally, physically and mentally, she said”
She confessed, though, that she is far blessed, materially, than other pastor’s wives. But while she admitted she is happy that her husband takes joy in his calling, except for the fact that he knows she struggles with it, she still could not reconcile with her life. The young housewife spent inordinate amount of time trying to figure out why the Lord has put her in this kind of life, when she feels she clearly does not have what it takes to be one. Sometimes she would beg, threaten and coerce her husband, but out of love for her, he would just hug her without saying a word.
Sheila knew all along, that the Lord chose her husband to be a pastor and she really loved him. So after her occasional tantrums, she would just back off, stop the fight and let peace restore itself.
“There are worse things I could tell you about”, she recounted. “Even before we got married, I had a crisis of faith, I could not deny the Lord’s existence but I found myself denying His love. At times I committed blasphemy, which tore my husband’s heart, only to find him the following day preaching to me because somehow, he saw the struggle that was still there with me. There were so many incidences of gossips, lies, judgments, assumptions that lashed my husband in pain.”

One day, Shiela attended church service but she felt really bad because for one reason or another, she forgot to bring her PSP with her. Having nothing to do during the sermon, she had no choice but to listen to what her husband was preaching at the pulpit. She felt bored at first but to her surprise, her eyes and ears were glued to what her husband was saying. “It was the story of the Lord appearing to Thomas”, she said.
Thomas’ struggle, his lack of faith is not foreign to most of us. We all have struggled with our pain, doubts and misery. But one of the truly amazing thing was that Thomas remained in the room with the others who had stronger faith than he. And because he was there, Thomas was able to hear the Lord’s words of comfort, he was able to feel the nail holes on our Lord’s hands as well as the scar on His side, to embrace Him and proclaim “My Lord and my God!”
Often, when people despair or doubt, they disappear from the Lord’s house. They stay home or do something that will ease the boredom. They go away, so they are not even there to hear the words that would bring them comfort, the message of the Gospel that the Lord wants them to hear. These people need the same gentleness that our Lord showed Thomas.
“And the Holy Spirit took all of these and smacked me in the head with the Gospel, and I literally wept,” Shiela confessed. It seemed unbelievable but in a wink of an eye, she went through a metamorphosis. She realized that she was worse than Thomas. At that very moment, she was totally stripped of her old self. She realized that the Lord did not make her a pastor’s wife because she was strong but the exact opposite. He made her a pastor’s wife because she was weak, terribly weak, and the Lord put her in this place to protect her and to shelter her.
With this was the realization of how her husband loved her so much, of how he cared for her and how much he desired to bring her close to the Lord. After this significant moment, Sheila emerged as one of the best-loved pastor’s wife in their community.

The Lord works miracles in each of us…even when we do not want to hear the His Words… He, in His infinite wisdom puts us in a situation where we will be able to hear.