My biggest fear about being a pastor’s wife was that I would have to bake cookies for every church function. When my husband Brad and I candidated for our first ministry position, we met one night with the search committee. I wanted to weep when we were presented with a plate of fresh-baked cookies—straight from the oven of the pastor’s wife. So it was true! I was relegated to the life of boring Betty Crocker.
My reaction wasn’t about the cookies; I actually love to bake. It was about the assumptions regarding what my role would be. Leaving seminary, the expectations of being a pastor’s wife loomed large and intimidating as storm clouds.
“Betty” fit the image I had conjured up in my head—a woman in a beige dress, ever-smiling, with a lackluster personality as she scurried to and fro to meet the insatiable demands of a congregation. I feared being pressed into a mold that didn’t fit. I wanted life and liveliness in the Lord. How could I have that if these rigid requirements were forced upon me?
My self-protection turned into rebellion. In fact, at each interview for pastoral positions, I asked, “What is expected of me as Brad’s wife?” A legitimate question, but I meant it as a trap. If the answer was anything other than “nothing” or, “same as any other church member,” I was incensed. After all, it was Brad who was employed by the church, not me, right?
I don’t know where my husband’s patience came from. He was young and fresh out of seminary, but my prickly resistance didn’t seem to intimidate him. He didn’t insist on talking me out of my fears or forcing me to conform. I think he knew that I had to become reconciled to where the Lord had placed me, to find my own way. And I have.
Incredibly, I now enjoy my role. I can’t believe I am thankful to be a pastor’s wife, but I am. The softening of my heart was enabled, in large part, by the way my husband loved me. As I think back on our first few years of ministry, Brad did several things that helped me.
Not staking his image on me
As a married couple, the actions of a husband and wife do reflect upon each other. I guess that’s why I have to sit on my hands sometimes to refrain from picking lint off Brad’s shirt. The way he looks reflects upon me, and I don’t want to look bad.
I’m sure Brad doesn’t want me to make him look bad either, but I’ve often done just that. Soon after he accepted his first call (not at the cookie-baking church), I also accepted a full-time job. We didn’t have children yet and weren’t sure we were ready for them. I wanted to try the professional world for a while.
My position required me to represent the organization at health fairs, sometimes on weekends. One of the first was scheduled for the same Sunday as Pastor Appreciation Day. I felt torn, knowing that my first priority was to be at church with my husband, but I was stuck in a commitment I had made to my new job.
It wasn’t until Pastor Appreciation the following year that I realized what a big deal it had been.
This loving church sets apart the day to honor their pastors. A long table is spread with a potluck dinner. Enormous baskets are marked for each pastor’s family and filled with gifts. I cringed when they pinned a corsage on my shoulder, honoring me, too. The previous year, the corsage had gone unworn.
As Brad and I stood up front with the other pastors’ families, looking out at the proud and smiling faces of our congregation, I was so ashamed. Brad had done this by himself the year before.
What went through his mind, standing up there alone? I would have felt unloved and abandoned. I would’ve been mortified to have my spouse’s lack of support so publicly displayed.
There’s a reason I didn’t realize the significance of Pastor Appreciation until the following year. Brad didn’t emphasize what an event it was!
Whatever my husband felt that day, he didn’t pour the guilt on me. He didn’t give me a speech about my priorities. If he was concerned about my making him look bad, I never knew it. He continued to give me time to figure out my place even when it was costly to him. He was aware that my actions reflected on him, but he didn’t stake his image on me.
It sounds like a small thing, but Brad didn’t object when I painted the interior of our first house in traffic-light colors. The kitchen was “yield” yellow, and the red in the living room would stop you in your tracks. Brad gave me free reign to decorate our house, fully realizing that church members would be visiting us there.
Knowing how I recoiled against beige and boring, Brad didn’t insist that anything be subdued. The result would have made the author of my new paint techniques book proud. The den was the clincher as I tried a “dragging” technique with cobalt blue, resulting in what one friend called an “underwater effect.”
It was just paint. But it went a long way in giving me permission to be myself. Out of a home that was “me,” I was comfortable to show hospitality creatively. I didn’t have to do dinners a certain way for people we invited into our home. Fondue was okay and, because of that, I didn’t focus on the rules to follow but on the people we were getting to know.
I will add, however, that Brad selected the perfect shade of beige for his church office.
Time well spent
Another preconception I had was that the pastor’s wife was to accept without complaint all demands on her husband’s time, even if it meant she only saw him one night a week and an hour on Saturdays. I wondered what would happen to our marriage. We had struggled through being newly married while in seminary, and I knew that a good relationship required time.
I can tell when Brad is just trying to pacify me, and I didn’t want to be another item to check off his to-do list. Brad gave to our marriage, too, not just to make me content but because he wanted to.
Friday nights were almost always date nights—not having people from the church over, not spending time with other couples, but just us. On his day off during the week, Brad really was off. Instead of taking care even of personal business, we would plan something fun to do or have a lazy morning at home.
As a result, I didn’t resent his time spent with other people. I wasn’t put in the position of vying for a slot in his schedule; therefore, I was glad for him to give to others when they needed him. When something unusual came up that cut into “our” time, that was okay. He saw time together as important. Since I didn’t have to convince him of that, I could take my claws out (as he so tenderly calls it) and let him go.
Permission to relax, sir
Another way Brad helped calm my fears was by simply relaxing with our friends. First of all, he thought it was important that we have friends who really knew us. He knew that, being human, we couldn’t live without connecting with others on a deeper level. Brad led our weekly small group in such a way that he didn’t hold himself apart from the other members. He let them know him.
Although sometimes I was embarrassed by it, I am now proud to say that my husband was also notorious for lying on people’s living room floors. When we were invited to someone’s house for dinner, we would usually end up in the living room afterward, talking over coffee. Tired and full, Brad would grab pillows from the couch, throw them on the floor, and sprawl out. Hostesses took it as a compliment that he was comfortable in their homes (or at least I think they did!).
This way of letting down his guard made Brad approachable. And it gave me permission to relax, too. If Brad were always in “teaching mode,” holding himself at a distance, life would have been a lot more isolated for me as his wife.
Since he saw himself as preacher but also friend and fellow struggler, I had “permission” to struggle, too. I could simply live life with people rather than worrying about constantly maintaining my role.
When I’m his pastor
Brad jokes that I’m his pastor. But in a sense he’s also serious. It’s draining to be a pastor. At the end of a day, he’s often depleted. All day long, people have sought him out for help. So what happens when he comes through the door at night? Well, it’s not always pretty (but I’m focusing on my sin this time).
For the most part, Brad will let his guard down with me. He lets me share in his weariness, his burdens. He may be expected to have answers for everyone else, but he doesn’t have to have them with me. He lets me in on his weaknesses, which, ironically, takes incredible strength.
At times, Brad has been at the end of himself with no more ideas about how to solve a problem. In those moments, he lets me pray for him and minister to him. He is open to insights that I have. It might not sound like a big deal, but it is meaningful to me when he trusts me enough to make himself vulnerable.
As Brad’s wife, I want to be needed by him. It feels good for my opinions and my input to be valued. If he were altogether self-sufficient, keeping his doubts, fears and suffering hidden, much of my capacity for helping and loving him would go untapped.
At times the expectations of people are still overwhelming. But the Lord has slowly taught me what he wants of me and how he wants me to serve. Brad helped smooth that process by trusting my heart for God and looking to the Lord to change me rather than exercising his own control or coercion.
So, who wants a batch of cookies? I’ll whip them up for you right here in my yield-yellow kitchen.
Britt Staton is married to a pastor in Martinez, Georgia.
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