She's Off the Beat and Path: On Being A Missionary Preacher's Wife

My husband is a preacher, but I don't wear the title of a “preacher’s wife” as my identity any more than I would if my husband was a plumber. I don't mean to say that I don't care about my husband’s job or my status as his wife. I mean that the title is not my focus. Following Jesus is. I figure that if I'm really following Christ, everything else will fall into place. I don’t what anyone to look at me and say, “She is a good preacher’s wife.” That accolade is great and all, but if that’s all I am…a good “preacher’s wife,” there’s a whole lot left to be desired. It’s my goal that people will look at me and say “She isn't perfect, but she is a great friend and she loves Jesus.”

When you love somebody, you want to live in a way that brings honor to them. I love my family. So I speak well of them to others, and want to do something with my life that makes them proud. I love my husband too. I want the way I act, the way I work, the clothes I wear, and the places I go, to not only be approved by him, but be something he can be proud of. A good wife, according to Proverbs, brings honor to her husband, and makes him well known and respected throughout the city. I love Jesus too. So, I want to do like he said and let my light shine so that people will see my good works, and praise God about it.

I didn't choose my husband’s calling or his path in life. Instead, I chose my husband. I chose a young man who had the same calling as me, a kid who wanted to grow up and be a missionary. Now, here we are….we are living that calling in a little church in a little town in Arkansas. Someday, it may be somewhere else, but for now we are here. We aren't in the Congo or the Amazon. We've never witnessed to an Aborigine or preached to a Muslim. Our lives aren't threatened because we pray in public, and we aren't arrested for having church. But we are missionaries.

So, I may well be a preacher’s wife, but that just tells you what my husband does. He preaches. Because I am follower of Christ, because I want to bring Christ honor, because I want to bring respect to my husband, and my family, the person I am when my husband is a preacher, is no different than the person that I am when my husband worked at Wal-Mart. No matter what we do or where we are, we are missionaries. It doesn't matter what pressures and expectations may be placed on me. I can handle them because I know that any expectation that any person may have of me, pales in comparison to the expectations my Father has for me to live like Christ.