The role of pastor’s wife is not one I am used to. It is growing on me but for almost a decade my husband was a youth pastor. So I was a wife of a pastor but I guess teenagers don’t really have expectations for my role. Or if they did I did not know so I did not feel a pressure to be something. I was just myself.
But planting a church changes things like now working with adults. It is funny, prior to planting I always joked that we would not do the church planting thing because it so unknown,risky and scary but I also joked that Jeremy should not do the lead pastor thing because adults are so much scarier than teenagers. Perhaps because I feel comfortable being my dorky self with teenagers.
Early on this church planting journey Jeremy bought me a book for Christmas, You Can Still Wear Cute Shoes. This was just a fun book written by a pastor’s wife and what she learned has encouraged me to be myself.
Most often it is the negative chatter in my head that makes me feel inadequate. It has not been really from people’s expectations but what I fear people feel like I should be as the woman who is married to the pastor.
One silly thing but it is still something that I can feel inadequate in is not being a hugger. My images of a pastor’s wife is a hugger. The one who hugs everybody with a warm hug. Hugging is something I want to grow in but totally not naturally a hugger. Of the five love languages(click here to find out yours 5lovelanguages) physical touch is not one of mine. I instead feel loved by acts of service or gifts or even words. So I am not anti-hugging, I just don’t often think about doing it. But if I know it is someone’s love language(like my sister and some friends) I try to be mindful and give them a hug because I want them to feel loved.
I can sometimes feel inadequate because I worry I am not doing what others may want me to do. Some of the roles that can be expected of a pastor’s wife:
- leader of our women’s ministry(not even sure what that even is but it is not me)
- leader of community service projects
- the one who visits sick people in the hospital
