Sweet and Spicy...life as a Preacher's Wife

My other posts have been sweeter in nature and I feel badly that I am about to drop the bomb and show you the sassy side of me. In my premarital counseling session eleven years ago Jonathan was asked to describe me in two words. These were his words: sweet & spicy. Thanks baby, I try not to disappoint.

There are certain demands and ideals of false perfection on PW’s (Preacher’s Wives). I try to keep a tight lip, but seriously every week I get another laughable example of why ministry doesn’t pay near enough. Not that it’s about the money because no one in their right mind pursues ministry thinking “I’m going to be loaded!” Here’s what happened to me just a few Sunday’s ago.

I walk into the church. My children are happy and ready for staff pictures sporting their matching dresses, bows, and boots. They have curls and smiles on their adorable faces. I purposely decided to skip Sunday school since I was exhausted after my travels back from Deeper Still that weekend. The minute I walked through the doors of the church, I was greeted with the sweetest smile from an older man in our church that I adore.

“You are very late for Sunday school.” He smiled with a twinkle in his eyes.

Busted. I immediately went into why I “purposely skipped.”

Just so you know, I will never ever call you or comment when you skip church or Sunday school. It’s not an immediate ticket to flames and gnashing of teeth. I’m just sayin. Later that evening, we had the privilege of hearing our youth pastor speak. I got to sit with my man during church with his arms wrapped around me. I loved it.

The message came to a conclusion as our youth pastor lead us to the altars where a large, trash receptacle was. We were to write something on a small piece of paper that we needed to hand over to God, something between us and God as a symbolic sign of surrender. I love a good illustrative sermon and I was proud of our little youth pastor for bringing a dumpster into the main sanctuary and making our deacons nervous.

As I prayed over my piece of paper, one thing came to mind. I needed to hand over my idea of a normal life to God. As Erma Bombeck so brilliantly put it, “Normal is just a setting on a dryer.”
As I placed my paper into the dump and went to pray one of our deacons, who shall remain nameless, tapped me on the shoulder and said, “I’m just curious about what you wrote.”

You’ve got to be kidding me? I assumed that he was, smiled politely and sat down to pray.
He slid in beside me, “No, I’m serious. I want to know what you wrote down.”

I had a decision to make. I could either be sweet or spicy. I chose the latter. Spicy won and he had no idea what was about to come out of my mouth.

“Well, I sacrifice a lot to be in the ministry.” (Like my stinkin privacy.) And then I gave examples. I was honest and it immediately put him on the defensive as he tried to tell me how good we had it at our church. And we do, but I was annoyed.

Some people lack the proper filters. We all say things we shouldn’t and I assure you this man probably won’t ever ask me personal questions again.

I sat down besides my husband later that evening and said this, “Here’s what went down tonight, I’m really sorry if you hear about it at your next board meeting.”
Thankfully, he laughed and said, “Good for you.”