By Michael C. Mack
Christine Hoover has been a pastor”™s wife for 14 years and is author of The Church Planting Wife. She says when she and her husband, Kyle, started in ministry, she felt unprepared and afraid. After all, she says, “There is no training ground for ministry life for the pastor”™s wife, there is just the doing it.” If she could go back in time to the beginning of their ministry life together, she says on her blog at www.gracecoversme.com, she”™d tell that young girl these seven things:
1. Humbly yet boldly accept the opportunity to influence others as a gift from God.
2. Fight the destructive force of insecurity every day with God”™s Word. If you don”™t, she says, “it will create competitiveness, an inability to appreciate and celebrate others, a paralyzation of the gifts God intends you to use, an unteachable and prideful heart, and a concern with image more than a concern for the gospel and for people.”
3. Separate your role from your identity. Be sure to create a healthy life outside your role as “the pastor”™s wife.”
4. Be vulnerable and ask for help. Don”™t allow your role to isolate you. Seek out heart-level friendships.
5. Learn to go to, desire, and value God”™s Word first, before you seek words of affirmation and validation from others.
6. Learn to give and accept grace; you will be hurt and hurt others. Forgive and ask for forgiveness. Don”™t allow wounds given or received to be a barrier to what God wants to do through you.
7. Pace yourself for the long run. Ministry is a marathon, not a sprint. Keep your eyes on the finish line and the victory of your faith.
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