I am asking you as Pastor's Wives if this is a section you think is worth keeping and would you be willing to contribute to it, both with questions and answers? Just use the contact page to give your input. Everything is updated and current. By the way I live in Oklahoma, so we're on Central Time. I'm in and out of the office, because we have a part time staff. So if you call, be sure you leave a message on the answering machine. I'll be faithful to get back to you asap. I have a question for any of you to respond to. I have had several PW's whose husbands have cheated on them and they found out about it. Two or three have had situations where the church found out about it. What advice would you give these hurting women?

Hi, I'm a new pastors wife, about a year 1/2 now. My question is, How do I meet all the different ideas the people in our congregation have of how I should be? First of all, there are some who think I should play the piano, and I don't, there are some who think I'm supposed to be the chief babysitter for the nursery and teach a class for women and one of the kids classes. I work a full time job and I have children. I barely manage to deal with my household let alone be superwoman to the people in our church. What do I do! Signed....Frustrated in the Mid-West. P.S. I love the people of my church but I just don't know how to be everything they want me to be. ANSWER: Dear Frustrated, YOU DON'T! You don't try to meet every one's idea of what THEY think you should be. You have to meet what you sense in your heart God wants you to be. Your first obligation ofcourse is to your relationship with the Lord. Next would be to your husband, then your children, your job and finally to your congregation. I know that may sound strange to some, but when you have a husband and children and a job and a congregation, something has to give. You're not going to give your best to anyone if your relationship with the Lord takes #19 on your "To Do" list. Your marriage will struggle if hubby is low man on the totem pole while you're trying to please the congregation. The truth is, even if you please some in your congregation there are going to be those who want you to do more, be more and like the donkey with a stick and carrot in front of it it's never quite enough. You and your husband decide what your role is. Hopefully, he's not one to expect you to be every ones rescuer. Hopefully, too, the 2 of you will lovingly train the congregation as to what your role is. My husband and I really didn't know what my role was and I had a very difficult time deciding what and who I was. When it came right down to it, once I decided what my role was, everybody fell in line with it after a while. Now with me, I found that when I didn't have a clear idea of what I wanted to be as a pastor's wife it was difficult for our people to have any confidence in me. So...it sounds like you have a full schedule being a wife, mother, and wage earner besides your church obligations. There are tons of answers as to how to approach this but the easiest in my opinion is make several things clear in a loving way. One: That you love them and want to be involved as much as your schedule allows. Two: You have confidence that those in your congregation have talents and abilities that need to be used and you are more than willing for them to do so. Three: Give them a sense of what areas are your strong points and what you are willing to do. Then be a leader that recognizes and helps them to develop the talents they have. I've given a few pointers but I'm sure there are other wives who have some input so ... how about it? If you are reading this and have some thoughts send them in and we'll include them in next months replies. Samantha

QUESTION: One friend of mine wrote this question and answer for me: QUESTION: HOW AM I GOING TO HANDLE CRITICISM? HER ANSWER: Well, it will come. You will handle it with LOVE. You need to ground yourself in LOVE. Get the scriptures on love built into your spirit...spend time reading on LOVE and meditating on LOVE. You can walk in love with feelings of anger raging in your soulish man. Yes, their words and actions will hurt, but love will rise up bigger in you if you cultivate love in you. You need to start now with the little things, because you will need love to be able to succeed. Love will not fail. People's accusations will fail in the face of God's love. As you build your life on the rock-God's Word-the storms of criticism will come and blow vehemently against your house, but you will not fall or fail...the storm will come to an end and you will be left thanding on God's Word of Love. Samantha's Comments: Boy! Isn't that the truth! Criticism does come. In many ways and often from unexpected sources. The one thing that must remain constant in our lives is the love walk. My friend mentioned the battle that rages between the soul and the spirit. Your mind (being the soul) will try to go crazy. You want to kill 'em all and tell God they died! I certainly did. Thank God I didn't. One of the biggest things that helped me was the scripture that says to bless them that curse you and pray for those that despitefully use you. (Luke 6:28) Every time I found myself wanting to do bodily damage to someone (maybe not that drastic), you know what I mean, I would pray for those who had wronged me. I didn't pray "GOD! GET 'EM!" I prayed for God to bless them and cause them to prosper and be blessed. My mind would yell, "They don't deserve to be blessed and prosper. They deserve to be sent to the pit of hell and NEVER come back! My HEART would say, "Bless them that curse you and pray for those that despitefully use you." Very quietly, very patiently, teaching me to love and not curse. After a while it became automatic to pray for them. Then there came the day that my feelings caught up with my praying and I really truly wanted them blessed. I felt bad for them; because they were hurting. Hurting people hurt people. Then I really prayed for them; that whatever was causing them to act ungodly would be seen and they could deal with it and change. Love ALWAYS thinks the best, always ready to forgive, hardly even notices when a wrong is done to it. I love to read 1 Cor. 13:4-7 in a lot of different translations. It helps me stay on target. Again ladies. this is an inexhaustible subject. I'm sure many of you have stories and solutions. Lets have some input. Love Samantha