In my shoes...

"In my shoes" is a weekly series that is updated every Thursday. I hope you enjoy the following post and that like me, you will learn more about a different walk of life, which will help you to love better! We love comments or likes and would love to have you follow this series with us. We have some amazing women and amazing topics to share. If you have something YOU would like to write about, please contact me!

Being a pastor’s wife – it is the best of times it is the worst of times – just kidding!  Of course there have been many ups and downs along the way, but I must say – it has been an adventure! 

I can’t remember when, but sometime along the way I thought I would be a pastor’s wife.  I don’t know why. My Daddy wasn’t a pastor, my granddaddy wasn’t a pastor. I didn’t really know much about pastors or their wives or their families.  I guess somehow I just knew God wanted me to walk alongside someone who would be serving God as a pastor. Did that frighten me?  Did it excite me?  Well really it just seemed like it was to be, and when I met and married Marty it has been for the last 31 years.

When we first met, Marty was a student pastor in a nearby town.   Enter – Marty Mosher! He was a cocky 20, I was 22.  He was a senior in college; I was out of college and working as an accountant.  We first met at a tiny church in Jefferson Texas and the first thing he ever said to me was “will you marry me?”  Little did I know that 10 months later I actually would!  Marty was a youth pastor and almost all of our dates revolved around church or youth activities.  This was great preparation for being a pastor’s wife.  I learned to share my boyfriend as I would later learn to share my husband.  

Shortly after we married we moved near Fort Worth where Marty was a part time youth and music minister and a seminary student.  We had a great ministry there with the students and our first son, Brett was born during that time.  This was also the place where I learned how much you can be hurt as a pastor’s wife.  We had a wonderful preacher there, but he had a personality conflict with Marty.  (How dare him!) The difficult part was that we didn’t know it until the pastor had already decided that we needed to resign.   No working things out, just time to move on.  We had a 3 week old baby, I had quit my job to stay home – I was hurt!  I was angry!  He didn’t know Marty like I did.  He didn’t know his heart. I was wounded because someone was misjudging someone I loved and it wasn’t right.  I left Brett with Marty and marched right over to the pastor’s home and told him he was making a huge mistake.  I was bawling my eyes out, but I was standing behind my man.  Even though I was very emotional I truly don’t think I sinned in my anger.  I just spoke the truth.  It didn’t change anything, but it is something I will never regret doing.

Marty took his first full time position in Lufkin Texas a couple of years later.  Even though the new position was full time, it didn’t really have full time pay.  Marty had to drive a school bus and substitute teach just to make ends meet.  The church had offered to let us put a trailer on the church’s property and we ended up buying a double-wide even though there were only 3 of us.  God knew that we would be adding twins to our family while living there and would enjoy the extra room!  We also had teenagers at our house a lot!  When Lindsey and Scott were born, teenagers would come over to help me carry them to church – since I had only two hands and 3 children.  I remember one week I walked into the living room in my bra and half slip and found one of the teenage boys who had come to help, sitting on my couch.  I’m not sure which one of us it embarrassed the most, but I was always careful after that. 

One of the best things about being a pastor’s wife was ministering as a family.  I was always very involved in Marty’s ministry and pretty much went on every event.  Our kids were able to do a lot of fun things like go to Disney World, and to the beach, and to lock-ins, and to water parks.  We went to the nursing homes and sang as a family when Marty preached. (We’ve got some great stories to tell from those!) We let the kids take turns going to youth camp with us and often one or two of them tagged along when Marty went to make a visit.  Sometimes Marty got called out and had to miss something, we had planned, but because he made family a priority, the kids (and I) understood.  Marty always put the kids’ events on his calendar so unless it was an emergency he never missed.  His flexible schedule actually allowed him to be a part of some things that other dads had to miss because of their work.  See there are some perks!

Probably the hardest thing about being married to a pastor was moving.  It seemed like no matter where we lived someone was always trying to get Marty to join their staff in another city or another state.  Since I am a settler and always grew to love wherever we were, I NEVER wanted to move.  I usually didn’t even want to talk about it.  I loved my friends, my home, my church and once I started teaching , I loved my job.  Whenever we got these calls Marty and I would start praying, but not in agreement.  He was always praying for doors to open and I was always praying for them to close.  These were very hard times for me and I was filled with doubts, fears and questions.  Would we be able to sell our house?  Would we be able to find another?  Where would the kids go to school?  Could I get another teaching job?  I mean, I wasn’t even a certified teacher!  Didn’t God know that?  It seemed like I always went through the same cycle – fear, fighting (Marty), fighting (God), bargaining, surrender, and finally trust.  Every single time God proved Himself faithful.  Every single time it was the right thing to do.  In the short run it was never easy.  The double-wide that was such a blessing didn’t sell for months and months and we finally had to pay about $1500 to the people who bought it.  (Isn’t there something wrong with that picture?) There was also the night, after night, after night that I would go to tuck Lindsey into bed and would find tears on her cheeks because she had been crying about missing her friends.  If she had thrown a fit about it I think I could have handled it, but when she was trying so hard to be good and brave, it about tore my heart out!  And then there was the personal adjustment of making new friends and dealing with all of the old insecurities that I didn’t think I had anymore.  But the good part of the moves was that they always brought our family closer together, they always drew me closer to God, and they always reminded us that God is in control and He knows how to take care of what belongs to Him!  Several months after moving I always wondered why I fought so hard, why I had such a hard time trusting, and promised myself that the next time (if there was a next time) I would trust Him from the beginning.

One of the most exciting things about being a pastor’s wife is seeing how God uses your husband in the lives of others.  There is nothing like hearing your husband preach and knowing that when people hear the message and respond they will never again be the same.  I have been at his side when he has performed wedding ceremonies for couples who had been living together, yet after meeting with Marty chose to begin doing things God’s way and separated and stayed pure until their marriage.  I’ve seen their joy as they’ve whispered “we did it”!  I was with Marty when he went to tell a woman that her husband had been killed in an accident and then again when he shared with the two young children that their daddy was now in heaven.  To see his compassion, to see his strength, to see him totally relying on God has strengthened me more times than I can count.  I have seen people spread rumors like poison  because of something my husband said or did, but later I’ve seen those same people thank him for standing up for what was right.  He may not have done things exactly right, but he always had the right motive and over time people usually came to understand that.

I know some women hate being married to pastors.  They feel like they live in glass houses and that people are throwing stones.  I’ve never really felt that way.  As far as the glass house maybe we were on display a little more than others but that was OK.  We weren’t perfect people, our kids misbehaved and we had fights sometimes, but we are real people and that’s what real people do in real families.  I think it was helpful that people saw we were just regular people trying to live for Jesus just like they should be.   As far as having stones thrown at you, that happens to everybody sometimes.  People are going to hurt us and be cruel at times (yes even in church), but we are not responsible for what they do, we are responsible for how we respond to them.  I have to admit that this seems to be a little easier for Marty than it is for me.  He gets over things quickly and I often want to nurse my wounds for a while, but God doesn’t let me get away with it for long.  He always makes me see that it’s not all about me, and I have some repenting of my own to do.

One church we moved to Marty was like a square peg in a round hole.  After only 2 months we knew this was not where we needed to be.  Marty had always dreamed of being a church planter and I had always felt it was too risky.  So even though Marty was making more money than he ever had, I knew it wasn’t worth being where we didn’t belong.  Finally I was open to church planting.  God knew we weren’t ready so he sent us to an awesome church for 5 years where we learned from the best.  We thought we would stay only a year or 2 but ended up staying for 5.  After 2 ½ years I was hired as the children’s ministry coordinator – and I loved it.  As Lindsey and Scott began their senior year of high school Marty was feeling strongly led to plant a church.  Brett was in college at the time.  (You’ve got to be kidding – we will have 3 kids in college – what could be more unstable than planting a church!)  I was hoping he had gotten that out of his system.  But guess what we did?  We planted a church.  I had finally agreed, as long as we didn’t do it from scratch.  So guess what we did – we planted it from scratch!  Never say never.  Will I never learn that! 

My plan was to wait until the twins graduated, but that was not God’s.  Marty begin officially working on the church plant in January and we would move on March 15^th.  We couldn’t move our kids at the end of their senior year and I couldn’t bear not to have them with me.  What could we do? (We worry about all of those things, especially as moms, but there is no need – God always has a plan.)  Our youth pastor and his wife (along with their 1 year old) offered to have both Lindsey and Scott live with them to finish the school year.  We knew this was God!  I now call this time my weaning period.  We were able to see them at least once a week and I was able to gradually adjust to having an empty nest.  I don’t know if I would have been able to make it if Lindsey had gone college in California if we hadn’t had this gradual separation.  Scott and Brett would both be at HBU – I could handle that, but California – no way!  God knew I needed this, and His plan was perfect.  We got to skip all of the grief that seniors usually give their parents that makes them almost happy to have them leave home, and the best part of all was that their “young, cool, parents” reinforced everything we’d ever taught them.  It was wonderful!

So off we went to the world of Church Planting!  Now I was a REAL pastor’s wife, right?  Well many things were the same, but I did learn that a senior pastor carries a lot more weight on his shoulders.  Other pastors may do as much work, but the lead pastor has a LOT more responsibility.  I quickly learned that planting a church is much like having a baby.  At the beginning you are not really sure what you are doing.  Things are not nearly as easy as they looked -  it is exhausting -  but  very exciting.  You watch the baby church grow and mature right before your eyes and you thank God daily for giving you such an amazing gift.  Marty and I fought more at the beginning of that first church start than we had ever fought in our married lives.  We were both working out of the house with no kids around and I found out that I had been my own boss for too long.  It was hard to take directions from Marty.  It was hard to separate when I was the wife and when I was the employee.  (We did find some ways to deal with this so this time it has been much easier.) As the church grew and matured we learned that every season has its challenges and its rewards. It was exciting seeing children who had been born while we were there coming to know Christ.  It was exciting seeing adults who had come to know Christ there now baptizing their children!  It was amazing.

Then we bought land for retirement.  Within two weeks Marty told me he felt like God wanted us to build on our lot, move to the area, and plant a church.  I couldn’t believe he could be serious.  I think I laughed out loud.  Church planting was the hardest thing I had ever done.  I loved my home, I loved my friends, I loved the children’s ministry and my team.  Surely he wasn’t suggesting that we start over.   He asked me to pray about it.  I didn’t want to pray about it.  I thought it was ridiculous.  I said “why don’t we just have another baby, it’s about the same thing.”  (I was 53 at the time).  He thought I was kidding but it seemed THAT crazy to me.  Fortunately I did pray about it and it wasn’t long before I realized that it really wasn’t my decision.  It was God’s decision and if He wanted us to do this, I didn’t want to be fighting Him on it. And we did.  So here we are living in Rocking J Ranch and I am a pastor’s wife at The Crossing, a new baby church in Spring Branch.  God brought into our lives two amazing people, Mindy and Jason Carlettini and their 3 beautiful children to journey with us.  So what is is like to be a pastor’s wife?  It is the worst of times, it is the best of times, and I love it!

Written by Lori Mosher.