our PW power...

Back when my husband was in seminary, I remember spending an afternoon at the tennis courts with another pastoral couple we'd met. After a few doubles games, the other wife and I took a breather on the sidelines. And she started telling me how much she hated being a PW.

"It's like all these people expect me to say Hi to them at church, when I don't even want to be there! And I HATE having people in my house! And think I want to listen to their problems. Can't they tell that I don't care one bit?"

I really didn't know what to say. I felt that God called my husband to be a pastor, and since he'd called me to be my husband's wife I'm called too. And I have the power to make him happy at home, to make him feel loved and honored and respected. To give him the courage to live out his divine calling. Even when it's unpleasant.

Being a PW is personally invasive. You share your husband with dozens or hundreds of other people who feel their claim to him is as valid as yours. You serve more than you are served.

But it's not just a job. It's a calling. From God.

And as wives, we can either choose to embrace that calling, or we can make our PH's existence a living hell. No godly man wants to choose between making his wife happy and rejecting the call of God. But when we as PWs can't support God's calling to our husbands - our men are faced with an excruciating set of options:

• leave the ministry
• leave the marriage
• live in misery

A wise PW told me that her dearest friend was a doctor's wife. They could relate. Both had married men with callings. Both shared their husbands with large audiences. Both endured times alone while the men worked unusual hours. Both had to learn how to entertain and cook and hostess groups in their homes because of their husbands' work - whether they naturally loved it or not.

Sometimes as PWs we all wish we could just be normal. Just sit through church. Just be a member. But how realistic is that?

Every woman married to a man of influence has unique duties. Senators' wives. Lawyers' wives. Executives' wives. Doctors' wives. Pastors' wives.

We hold the power to make our "men of influence" happy, safe and secure in their marriages so that they are free to serve God and others. It's that very calling that makes our husbands different, special.

It's what makes them the men we love.