Posted by Rodetta Cook

Rodetta Cook has been a pastor’s wife for over 40 years. She and her husband, Ron, have actively served the Lord together in ministry during the entire time and are co-founders of Care for Pastors. She understands the expectations, loneliness and how hard it is to find balance in ministry as a pastor’s wife. Rodetta also leads the pastor’s wives initiative at Care for Pastors called The Confidante and ministers to hundreds of wives each week. She strives to share blogs with other pastors’ wives that will help them in their ministry walk.

Posted by Rodetta Cook

Topics: For Pastors' Wives · Balance · Expectations

My Identity in Christ

Monday, November 07, 2022

As we begin a new month, I want to talk about a subject that I think we all struggle with as pastors’ wives and that is our identity. Who am I? Where do I belong in ministry? Am I called to ministry too? How do I not live in my husband’s shadow? How do I learn to say, “No?” These are all questions we have asked ourselves at some point in our ministry journey.

I personally feel that as a pastor’s wife we have a calling just like our husband, but it is just in a different way. If we aren’t called to ministry, it is going to be a long hard road. Our calling is different than our husband’s while at the same time we are called to be his helpmate in his calling, but our involvement in the ministry will look different at different seasons of our lives.

If we have small children at home our time in ministry is limited because we must keep our priorities in order of God, family and then the church. And when one of those gets out of balance, our life will be out of balance and it results in chaos. As children get older, we can be more involved. Or if God has not blessed you with children, your ministry will look different than those who have children.

Remember it is God that calls us and Him that we are serving, so don’t let others put unrealistic expectations on you as to where you should be serving and how much you should be involved. That is between you, God and your husband. Also, don’t put unrealistic expectations on yourself!

As we ask ourselves who we are or where we belong, we cannot forget who we really are in Christ. I want to remind you of your “Identity in Christ” taken from the book Search for Significance by Robert McGee.

My Identity in Christ

Because of Christ’s redemption, I am a new creation of great worth. I am deeply loved, completely forgiven, fully pleasing, totally accepted by God and absolutely complete in Christ.

Once we have accepted who we really are in Christ, our ministry involvement will take on a whole different look and be full of enjoyment. I want to encourage you to keep this statement in front of yourself so that when you start believing Satan’s lies you can keep yourself from believing them and remember who you really are.

We do having a calling and let’s not let anyone or anything rob us of that calling!