THIS topic is as vast and as deep as Christian experience itself. One attempts the impossible when trying to confine it within the limits of a single article. Only a few issues will be touched on with hope that readers may want to study further independently.
"Help those women which laboured with me in the gospel" (Phil. 4:3). You, as a minister's wife, need a great deal of help simply because you are a woman. This has nothing to do with the fictitious notion of the so-called weaker sex. Rather, in facing facts, we find a woman's impact on her environment is far greater than some of us realize. In researching material for radio scripts dealing with momentous changes in people's lives, Eugenia Price noticed that out of two hundred and fifty cases studied, two hundred and twelve persons named a woman as the one most important influence in their life, whether for good or for evil.1 The implication is one of awesome responsibility. For this reason alone a woman needs help, supernatural help, the kind only God can give.
When we consideer all that is involved in our calling as Christian women, wives, mothers, and church workers, the need intensifies. "The potential problems are greater for a minister's wife than for other wives because of the never-satisfied demands of her husband's vocation, and her high degree of involvement in it. Unless she believes in what her husband is doing, respects him in his vocational performance, and finds fulfilment through support and encouragement of his work, frustration, emptiness and even bitterness will probably result." 2
Motivation
Your motivation plays a vital part here. Did you marry your minister husband without thinking about what your own church obligations would be? Or did you always hope to be a minister's wife, out of sincere dedication to God's service? Maybe his call to the ministry came after a few years of married life had already passed. Is it possible that some of you wish the call had never come? Whatever the answers are, they will inevitably affect your adjustment. One fact remains: There has to be a total commitment on your part as well as your husband's. Without this there will be very little fulfillment, joy, growth, or fruitfulness in your life. This commitment must be more than your marriage vow, your formal church membership, or your intellectual assent to certain Bible teachings. Above and beyond all else, your commitment must be to Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Saviour. This has to be settled first of all.
Easy to Be Religious but Difficult to Be Spiritual
Why mention it? Why not take it for granted? (After all, you are a minister's wife!) Because this indispensable relationship to God can never be taken for granted. Your husband may be a man of God, but this does not in and of itself make you God's woman. Our heavenly Father has no daughters-in-law, only daughters. Associating all day with religious people does not necessarily rub off any holiness on you. Being busy with matters of church, welfare, and good works may give you little time for a private life with God. It is so easy to be religious and so difficult to be spiritual. Still, this is the one quality that will make you a true shepherdess. You are not required to impress the congregation with beauty of face or elegance of dress nor even musical talent or sparkling conversation. However, any or all of these qualities might add to your performance as a minister's wife. Your chief work, like that of any Christian, only more so, is to attract people to the One who is altogether lovely. It ought to be obvious to all you meet that Jesus is your best and dearest Friend. You are to be a channel through which the fragrance of heaven may breathe.
Inexhaustible Resources
"The wives of ministers should live devoted, prayerful lives. ... If they would only lean confidingly, in childlike trust, upon God, and have their affections centered in Jesus, deriving their life from Christ, the living Vine, what an amount of good they might do." 3
"Abide in me. . . . For without me ye can do nothing" (John 15:4, 5). "I can do all things through Christ which strengthened! me" (Phil. 4:13). "I myself no longer live, but Christ lives in me" (Gal. 2:20).* "For God is at work widiin you, helping you want to obey Him, and then helping you do what He wants" (Phil. 2:13).*
Here are die inexhaustible resources open to you through your relationship with God the loving Father, God the redeeming Son, and God the indwelling Spirit. Claiming these treasures is first of all a matter of your surrender to God in being born again as His child and heir. Next comes the discipline of keeping the daily quiet time of communion in order to nurture the new life within you and to grow in grace. Without it your spiritual life will shrivel and die. It cannot subsist on theological crumbs from dinner-table discussions, nor family togetherness in worship, nor even your husband's sermons.
You as an individual are important to God. He wants to meet with you alone, pour out His love upon you, and accept you for what you are. His acceptance of you is not based on what you can achieve for Him, but on what you need to receive from Him. Your relationship to Him must be your most sacred intimate inner circle, your holy of holies. Only God and you can penetrate here. This is where you can find yourself, and fulfill yourself in a way never before dreamed of. No matter what image others may have of you as a minister's wife, no matter if their demands and opinions seem to squeeze you into a mold or surround you with a whirlpool of activity, no matter if the high standards of your church and its wealth of instruction on details of daily living tend to make you feel guilty when your normal human failings make you come short of the mark, from this inner citadel of faith you will draw the strength you need. Christ living within you will be your love, joy, peace, and all other blessings.
The highest tribute I ever heard paid a minister's wife was written to her by her daughter away at college: "Dear Mother, Thank you for making God real to me." Does anything else really matter? Your church members ought to be able to say the same. If they can, you will be happy to know that Christ has been allowed to have His way with you. This is the only true goal and reward of a minister's wife.
References
1. Eugenia Price, Woman to Woman, pp. 6, 7.
2. William Douglas, in "Pastoral Psychology," December, 1961. p. 36.
3. Ellen G. White, Testimonies, vol. 1, pp. 452, 453.
* From Living Letters, Tyndale House, Wheatori, 111., 1962.
