The preacher’s wife! No one but another preacher’s wife could really know what that means. We have
come to depend upon them so much, we preachers have sometimes failed to let them know how much we really appreciate them.
Few women would be willing to give up the security of having a home of their own and instead live in a home under constant scrutiny of a multitude of people. Few women, that is, but the preacher’s wife.
Few women are willing to part with their husbands for long evenings week after week and to have their husband on 24 hour call, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Few women that is, but the preacher’s wife.
Really preacher, how many women in the congregation where you preach would put up with the things that you know your wife is accepting as part of her job? Few women are married to, their husband’s job, but a godly preacher’s wife certainly is. But then, it’s not a job to her; it’s a way of life, a life centered in Christ, a life steeped in service, a life moved by love. If anyone knows what sacrificial living is, it’s the preacher’s wife. If it were not for the dedication of preacher’s wives, the preachers would only be half preachers.
One of the greatest assets a preacher has is that woman who is willing to share with him the sorrows and blessings of being the preacher’s wife.
The preacher’s wife is not an unfeeling machine that is programmed to respond in just the right way every time a button is pushed. She is a living, breathing human being with the same feelings and emotions of every other woman. She has the same feelings and emotions of every other woman - but she must be very careful of expressing them. She has the same aspirations and weaknesses of other women. Maybe that is what makes her so unusual; she is willing to give up that security that women need in a stable home to share her life with a man who feels compelled to preach the gospel. She is willing to share her husband with others who need his help even it if means that she or her family will suffer.
Young wives with small children pay the greatest price for their husband’s work; but they do it knowing the importance of his work.
The preacher’s wife serves, not in the limelight, but in the shadows. The preacher gets the pat on the back for the good he has done, but she, well... whoever notices service done in silence.
If ever there is a special place in heaven, it won’t be for the preachers of the world. It will be for those good women who have followed in their husband’s shadows, who have held his hand when he cried, and bolstered him when he is weak, that woman who knows his shortcomings and his strengths, that woman called the preacher’s wife!