The thing that makes being a pastor's wife weird is not that pastors know people intimately, deal with them in high-pressure situations, or end up being hated by some people. These things happen in lots of other professions. The thing that makes it weird is that many people love their pastor. Doctors offer healing, police and lawyers and soldiers and Thrivent dudes offer protection. To them we are grateful, and their services are as reliable as the bills they incur. But pastors offer comfort, and comfort garners more than gratitude; it garners love.
So we who are left home alone on Sunday afternoons or Christmas or whatever other inconvenient times sheep are taken ill, alone, and comfortless cannot begrudge them their need for our loved one. He is their loved one too. He has cared for them in their indignity, respected their fear and pain and anger and doubt and sorrow by taking it seriously, even learned to see thestrals with them; of course they love him. And when we are the sheep in need of comfort, how dear is the shepherd who tends us, who leaves his dearest flock to rescue one lost.
3 comments:
You know, I never thought of it like that. I'll be praying for you and also my pastors and their families.
Thanks so much!
Pastors and their families sacrifice much for the rest of us. I am truly grateful.
And the ways the members in turn love and care for their pastor and his family make it hard to begrudge those "off-hours" calls.
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