Posted by Patti Johnson

Patti has been volunteering with Care for Pastors with The Confidante for Pastors’ Wives for 7 years after she and her husband received counsel from Care for Pastors as a way to give back to the ministry. She joined the Care for Pastors staff in January 2020. Patti is one of the administrators of The Confidante Private Facebook group for pastors' wives and is a regular contributor to weekly blogs. She loves to use her gifts and abilities to support the needs of the ministry. Patti has been married to her Pastor husband Keith for 36 years. They have 3 adult children who all to their delight live in Florida.

Posted by Patti Johnson

Topics: For Pastors' Wives · Resources for Pastors' Wives

Thriving as a Pastor’s Wife

Monday, May 30, 2022

“Don’t just Survive…Thrive…” Don’t you want that? I do. Is it possible in the role of being the wife of a pastor? A pastor’s wife? Thriving?

I recently came across a book that addresses this very question. Thriving as a Pastor’s Wife by Christine Hoover

The author of this book grabs your attention from her first words written. She had questions after 20 years in ministry and a year and a half of “crisis leadership” with her pastor husband during COVID. Some of her first words in the book captured my attention and my own topsy turvy heart with all the shake-ups in ministry.

“I’d felt lost for a while, or rather as if I’d been in a snow globe and someone had been shaking it endlessly.” Pg 20

Isn’t that a great visual image?

Those are words of survival, not thriving. She recognized it and started on a journey to restore things to their proper peace and place.

She doesn’t just journey to survive, but strives to understand how to thrive. She does this through seeking wise counsel, learning how to properly lament when things are turned upside down, to rest in the fact that God sees each of us in our intimate struggles even when we are seemingly invisible to others.

So, sit in a comfy place, grab some well-deserved “soul care” time and open the pages of this book to start your own journey towards thriving as the wife of a pastor. I believe it’s possible. Do you?