I confess, one of my favorite activities is to look at my Site Meter (TM, I'm sure) and see where all of you are from (for a while, I thought most of you were from St. Louis, but then I realized that it just puts the dot in the center if it can't tell where you are from. I was thinking "I know it's the Lutheran 'holy city' but, come on!"). What really intrigues me is not only where you are from, but how you found me.
I get about ten hits a day (and sometime more) from various searches for the term "pastor's wife." This can be "how to behave as a pastor's wife," "I hate my pastor's wife," "I hate being a pastor's wife," the mellower "tired of being a pastor's wife," "what should a pastor's wife wear?" " and I could go on and on. Some of them I find amusing. Some I find sad and I wish I could reach right through my screen and give a hug.
Sometimes it makes me think that I should write more about the daily ins and outs of being a pastor's wife, but in the end, this blog isn't about the ins and outs of being a pastor's wife, its about ME and life in general (well, to be entirely truthful).
Maybe because I am so NOT the stereotypical pastor's wife that I run screaming from anything that seems "stereotypical pastor's wife-ish." Maybe because even though it occasionally intrudes on me and smacks me in the forehead, overall, I still consider it one of my minor roles, at least when I am happy, which is most of the time. Even on Sundays, 90% of the time anymore, I am simply a sinner in the pews rejoicing in God's forgiveness. If any "role" actually dominates my waking hours its that of being a homeschooling mom, and the pervading desire to have an occasional 20 minutes alone that leaves me fleeing to the computer room and cursing that there are no locks on the doors....(ok, joking. well, kind of joking).
So, since I don't want to write about it a lot, I do consider it part of my responsibility to point out when others write about it. Emily, over at The Children of God has written an excellent post, and if you want to know about how to view "pastor's wifedom" go check out what she has to say.
5 comments:
Feeling like an idiot...
Thanks for explaining all my St. Louis area visitors too!
I think my mom was a rather atypical as a pastor's wife.
I know what you mean about "pastor's wife" being a small role. When I'm introducing myself to somebody, I'm much more likely to describe myself as a homeschooler than as a pastor's wife. Also, when we tell our kids that they should "behave and live up to expectations" it's because we don't want to give homeschoolers a bad reputation. What's it matter whether they're pastor's kids or not?
I just read another piece on this topic that you might be interested in:
http://www.mfth.org/publication.html?ID=126&pagename=mfthjournal&phrase=women%20in%20ministry
I hope you can follow the link.
Another pw here. I am interested to know if you share this blog with anyone in your church?! :)
Hi Betsy,
I guess what I'd have to say is that I don't make my blog an issue at church. There are one or two people that I know who know about it, though I don't know if they've ever even checked it out. (no one even saw the Time article I was in...I thought that was a HOOT).
I blog as if anyone I know could read it, though I do find some comfort in the fact that it is still private. I know that when I found out I had been discovered by a few people in our previous congregation I couldn't blog for 2 weeks till I got used to the idea that I wasn't anonymous.
It is always entirely possible that someone can say "oh...you go to that church? I read your pastor's wife's blog (in fact, I have had that happen with one of our seminary field workers). Our denomination despite having over a few million members can at times be a very small world.
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