Lessons From My Pastor's Wife Who Is Now With The Lord
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In January of this year, we got one of those calls that nobody ever wants to receive. Our beloved pastor’s wife had just suffered a massive stroke, and the outcome didn’t look good. A few minutes later, another phone call confirmed that she was now face-to-face with the Savior.
We were shocked and devastated (at least for us - we rejoiced that she was with Christ, which was far better for her!). Aside from a semi-recent broken arm, Mrs. S had seemed in perfect health. There was no indication that she didn’t have much time left here on Earth. Her fingerprints were on everything; from teaching Children’s Church to singing with our mini choir to selflessly serving in a dozen capacities, she left behind a huge hole, as most beloved people do.
As I thought about the million and one little ways I would miss her, I began thinking of all the lessons she had effortlessly taught me during our years together.
In memory of her, I would like to pass on her bits of wisdom to you, my sweet readers, in the hopes that they minister to you as much as they have blessed me.
Laugh At Yourself
The first time we visited the congregation that is now our church home, we received a VERY warm welcome. In fact, the pastor’s wife walked up to us and asked my husband, “Are you Jon? We’re so glad you’re here!”
We stared at one another in shock. As far as we knew, this church had no idea we were planning to visit that Sunday morning. How on earth did she know Jon’s name?
A bit of confusion and a lot of laughter later, we figured out what had happened. A missionary family that the church supported was due to visit the same Sunday we arrived. The missionary family, who hadn’t been in the States for many years, had several little blond boys just like we did, and the husband’s name was John. Mrs. S saw tow-headed toddlers and assumed we were the visiting missionaries!
Mrs. S laughed right along with us over the hilarious situation. And I learned a lesson from her that day: don’t take yourself too seriously. Be able to laugh at yourself. Enjoy the funny moments in life. Smile lots.
Decrease Yourself In Order To Magnify God
A year or so after we started attending our church, I began filling in occasionally for our regular pianist when she was on vacation. But I struggled with a problem I’ve had ever since I began piano lessons in grade school: I get tremendously nervous, no matter how much I practice beforehand, and it leads to lots of mistakes and blunders when I play. In fact, I once did so poorly in a hymn-playing class in college that my professor wrote, “I’m sorry, but this just won’t do if you’re accompanying a congregation.” She gave me a failing grade.
I had to wonder - had that teacher been right so many years earlier? Should I give up playing at church all together?
I decided to press on. After all, I knew it was an area I could fill in and be a blessing even though I didn’t always play well. I also knew that most of the time, I really was giving due time for practicing and that my nerves weren’t from a lack of preparedness. Slowly, things began to improve a little as I got more used to playing and figured out ways to make some of the difficult hymns a bit easier to play.
One Sunday after I played, Mrs. S came up to me and gave me a squeeze. (She gave the BEST hugs.) “I just love it when you play for us because I can completely focus on singing the words without even thinking about you being up at the piano!” Then she suddenly added, “I hope that didn’t come across rude!”
But I was beaming. She couldn’t have given me a higher compliment…or taught me a deeper lesson. Because I suddenly realized that all my fretting over missed notes or awkward chords was really just a form of selfishness. I was dwelling too much on myself and not enough on God and what He could do through me. I needed to focus on Christ and not on my playing ability. In short, I needed to decrease in order to let God shine more fully.
It was a lesson I would not soon forget.
Welcome Everyone As A Blessing
I once shared with Mrs. S that I was embarrassed about the state of my house. Because Jon was working nights and sleeping days and we had 2 toddlers and an infant at the time, it was difficult, if not impossible, to keep up with dishes, vacuuming, and noisy house cleaning tasks (plus - let’s be honest here - homemaking wasn’t my strong suit even in the best of situations).
She gave me a hug and shared a secret with me.
“I’ve learned that when someone shows up at my door when I’m still in my bathrobe, with my hair up in a towel and dirty dishes in the sink, it really doesn’t matter. I try to welcome them with the biggest smile, as though I were completely expecting them, and I try to make them feel as warm and comfortable as I can. I don’t even mention the dishes or my attire but solely focus on serving them to the best of my ability.”
What she essentially was expressing was that every person is a blessing and should be viewed as such. It didn’t matter if we weren’t ready to receive that blessing. I might have had plans to take a shower and scrub dishes, which are good and necessary chores, but sometimes, God has a different plan for us that day.
Love People More Than Things
The story goes that when her kids were little, Mrs. S invited a mom and her daughters over for an afternoon visit. The mom and her girls were new to the church, and she wanted to welcome them and get to know them better.
Somehow, one of the girls got her foot stuck in the slats of a dining chair. It seemed that no amount of twisting and rearranging was going to set her free. Concerned over the little girl’s well being, Mrs. S headed out to the garage and returned with a hand saw, fully intending to cut off the back of the chair to free the little foot.
Before she was able to destroy the chair, the little girl’s mom suggested they try butter, which worked beautifully, and both the little girl and the chair were rescued.
It’s a hilarious story that has echoed through our little church from both Mrs. S’ perspective and the little girl’s mom’s view (who is now our church pianist) - hearing the two different sides of the story only adds to its charm.
But the big takeaway from that true-life story is that we all need to love people more than things. Mrs. S wasn’t going to hesitate to ruin one of her matching dining chairs. Her only concern was for the girl’s safety. Would it have been sad to lose a dining chair? Sure. But things are replaceable, and people are not.
Tend Your God-Appointed “Weeds”
When our oldest wanted to be baptized, we had Pastor and his wife over to our house so that Pastor could talk with our spark plug about what baptism was and why he wanted to participate in it. While they were over, Mrs. S commented on my front “flower” bed.
I say “flower” in quotes because actually, it was a mess of dirty gravel in which a bunch of succulent-type weed-like volunteers were growing. The shoots produced a lovely purple-pink flower, but for the most part, they were a nuisance. They grew with all the vigor of a weed, were difficult to uproot, and spread like wildfire throughout not only my garden bed but all of our neighbor’s yards as well. I hated them but was losing the battle to keep them out of my front bed.
When I sheepishly explained to Mrs. S that the “flowers” were actually weeds that I couldn’t uproot, she just looked at me and asked, “Since they’re so beautiful, why not just cultivate them?”
Um.
I hadn’t ever thought about that before. I viewed them as weeds; we were always taught to dig up weeds by the roots. But leave them in? Let them grow? Allow them to flourish?
It made me wonder: what if those “weeds” were actually God’s flowers in disguise? Perhaps they weren’t begonias or petunias or Gerber daisies (my favorite), but did that make them any less valuable if they were God-appointed?
And I gleaned an even deeper lesson after pondering the idea of tending my “weeds”: what if some of the things in life - the things I saw as interruptions, the annoyances - were also God’s blessings, just unrecognized?
And so, I began to tend what used to be my weeds and let them bloom into the flowers that the Lord had destined them to be.
Remember Your Sabbath Rest
“Isn’t it funny that we still try to uphold all of the 10 commandments except the one about Sabbath rest?” Mrs. S mentioned in passing one Sunday morning. Although I’d never given it much thought, I realized how right she was. We all know not to lie, not to keep idols in our hearts, not to steal, and not to commit adultery. Most of us have tried from a young age to honor our parents, and we know not to covet or to take the Lord’s name in vain.
And while we know in our heads the commandment to rest on the Sabbath, far too few of us actually make arrangements for true rest one day a week.
Now, I certainly don’t keep my Sabbath consistently every week, but after her insightful remark, I’ve been focusing more on ways I can truly rest and am making it a priority. Depending on my family’s needs and activities, sometimes I’ve rested more on Saturday and other times more on Sunday, but I do make it my aim to stay off of social media and avoid any computer work at least one day a week.
It turns out that Sabbath rest has been very, very good for me. Especially as an introvert, I need a day to mentally unwind, to catch up on my love of reading, and to rest both my body and my soul. I am grateful that Mrs. S thought it worth commenting on.
Count Your Blessings, Not Your Trials
Last summer, Mrs. S miss-stepped on a curb and fell, shattering her right ulna. Both the injury itself and the surgery that followed were severe. Her swollen fingers and immobilized elbow deeply impacted her freedom and ability for many months.
One Sunday, I asked her how she was adjusting to her limitations while she waited for her arm to heal.
“Well,” she explained, “last week, I was feeling pretty sorry for myself. This is my dominant hand, after all, and it’s been very difficult to get around and to do the things I once did. And I admit that I was feeling quote frustrated. But then I started praying about it, and suddenly a thought came to me: the way I fell, I could have easily landed on BOTH my elbows and could have equally damaged the other arm, too! Suddenly, all I could do was praise the Lord that I’m no worse off than I am.”
In life, it is far too easy to succumb to the “woe is me” syndrome. That’s not to say that there aren’t times of great suffering and grief or that we always have to be happy about every circumstance. But Mrs. S was choosing not to dwell on her hardships and instead was focusing on her blessings. That didn’t make her arm hurt less or her injury improve, but it did demonstrate the heart attitude that the Lord asked her to have.
I want to follow her example in deliberately thinking on the blessings we have. While the good things won’t necessarily erase the hardships, they can offer a sweetness that can help get us through the difficulties.
Go To Jesus
At her memorial service, my friend E (Mrs. S’ daughter) shared this: “I’m so used to going to my mom and asking for her advice. I couldn’t begin to imagine not being able to do that anymore. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it’s okay if I can’t call her up at a moment’s notice, because I know what she would say. She’d tell me, ‘Go to Jesus, sweetheart. Take every question, every burden, every concern straight to Him.’”
E was right. I myself had called Mrs. S to talk with her about things on my mind. And every time, she’d tell me to take it to the Lord, and she would pray with me.
There is no greater advice that anyone could ever give than to say, “take it to the Lord in prayer.”
Our church will never be the same this side of Heaven without Mrs. S (or without any of our other members who have preceded her, for that matter). But she (and they) have left behind a legacy of lessons that we can take with us for the remainder of our journeys here on Earth. Instead of being brokenhearted that we must continue on without them, we can focus on the wisdom that they have passed on to us. We can rejoice that someday, we will be reunited with them before the Lord, and that in the mean time, we can carry on the sweet truths that they have left behind.
