Confessions of an Inadequate Pastor's Wife

I have a confession to make. I do not relish the role of the pastor's wife. For some, that may be a shocking fact. For those who know me well, that information is about as earth-shattering as the concept that water is wet.

Here are a list of my vocational inadequacies: I am not demure. I don't always defer to my husband. I am, unfortunately, not pure of heart. I don't sew or play the piano or scrapbook. I don't listen to (and don't care for) much Christian music. I can't name all the books of the Bible in reverse order, and I don't understand Biblical Hebrew. I am sometimes outspoken. I have lots of opinions about lots of things, and I don't always keep those opinions to myself. I can be sarcastic. I very much appreciate off-color humor. I am sometimes a doubter, a pessimist, and a cynic. I am not closer to God than anyone else. Oh, and check all of the above for my children as well.

You see, if it were up to me, I would rather slip in the back of the church unnoticed on Sunday mornings -with my husband. And I could do without the hurt feelings and anger that go along with a job change. Ditto that for the very literal divorce, even in the best of circumstances, that must take place when one pastor leaves a church and another one takes over. It's painful. I very often feel like a spiritual vagabond, an employee of the church, but not a member, and without a true home.

But here's the thing. I immensely respect my husband's vocation and am honored to be a part of it. He is doing exactly what God wants him to do, and with God's help, he is really good at what he does. While internally I fight against the title of "pastor's wife" and all the connotations therein, I know that this is as much my calling as it is Dave's calling because we're in this together. It is not comfortable, but a true calling beckons us out of what is comfortable.

When God calls us, he changes us, whether that be in character or perspective. He is changing my perspective and is opening my eyes to the ways I can be used as I am. I'm not saying that some of my rough edges couldn't use a little polish. I'm open to a little refinishing. A lot of refinishing. But I am realizing that I don't have to be the pastor's wife. I just have to be Sarah, the lady in the third row whose slightly feral four year old occasionally flashes her undies to the congregation during the children's message. And who, incidentally, just happens to be married to a pastor.

Nine Years

Nine years ago today, I woke up with a smile on my face and butterflies in my stomach. I woke up thinking about the marathon first date I had been on that began at noon and lasted until almost midnight. He brought me a Ken Burns Jazz CD that I still haven't opened, and I greeted him with a hug which invaded his personal space. We walked together in a Relay for Life event, we attended a graduation party for a family friend (with my ENTIRE family), and we shared a long dinner over paella and tres leches cake at the Cuban restaurant down the street from my apartment. He held my hand on the way home, looked in my eyes, and said, "I'm not going to kiss you tonight, but I am going to kiss you." A week later he did kiss me. A month later he told me he loved me. Six months later we were engaged, and a year later we were married.

Nine years later, I woke up with a little girl putting stickers on my face and asking for breakfast. I kissed my exhausted husband before he left for a meeting, nursed a sick baby, put braids in Amelia's hair, made lunches and beds, and ran errands at Target. Yesterday, Dave brought flowers home and asked me if I remembered the significance. Then we laughed about what that night may have been like if we had known the path our lives would take. It might have made for an awkward first date, but I wouldn't have changed a thing.

Nine years from now, I know I'll have two teenagers, a few strands of gray hair, and some additional crow's feet. But aside from the inevitable, the future remains uncertain, as it should be. In the meantime, I love that nine years ago Dave Burgess became a part of my life. I love that he used cheesy lines to get me to like him and I love the path that we are on, mostly because we are on it together.