One of the best things I’ve ever done was follow God’s prompting for Biblical counseling for myself. Over the years, my husband and I have been in some challenging and hurtful church situations in various churches as we served in both volunteer and bi-vocational ministry. Every time the leadership lied or gossiped behind our backs, they chipped away at my view of who God is. I had no idea my response of bitterness and anger at the leadership’s refusal to address their sins was draining my spiritual reserves. I had not been prepared for the hurt in ministry and soon found my carefully crafted spiritual foundation crumbling while I grasped at protecting myself, wishing they would acknowledge and repent of their sins.
My years of growing up in church and attending a Christian school did not prepare me for handling the deep hurt I felt about being betrayed not just by spiritual leaders but by close friends in ministry. My sweet husband consistently suggested I needed someone to help me get back on track and help process the pain, but I did not want to hear him. I had spent my life seeking after God, reading my Bible, and giving spiritual wisdom to others. Surely, I had this situation under control. How could a pastor’s wife and leader in the church say she couldn’t handle things anymore? The very Scriptures I poured out to others each week rang empty in my own heart.
Looking back at that time, I can genuinely praise the Lord that He, piece by piece, broke down my pride and self-sufficiency so He could build me back up to reflect Him better! Another church in our city had a robust Biblical counseling program and quickly got me in to see one of their pastor’s wives to listen, encourage my heart, and strengthen my understanding of Scripture. God’s Word is alive and active, yet I had taken to reading it as a historical reference instead of something to teach, train, rebuke, and correct (Hebrews 4:12; 2 Timothy 3:16-17). I knew God’s Word was sufficient, but I no longer saw it as enough for me. Of course, God was good, but in soul-crushing times in our ministry, I did not see Him as good to me. God brought me to my knees so I could seek out the help I needed to realign myself and start healing from the layers of church hurts I had tried to simply move past over the years.
Even in the middle of Biblical counseling, the hard times in that specific ministry were far from over. Every Sunday I walked through the church doors, unable to hold back the tears as I served, wishing with my whole heart that God would remove us from this situation. I begged my husband to be done and leave, but he reminded me that God had not yet told us to go, and we needed to be faithful. My heart did not want to be faithful; it wanted to grieve and get as far away from the people who were hurting us as we could. Through Biblically-centered counseling, I started answering essential questions about my part in the situation. Even if I was not the one sinning, did I feel my response was sinful? What did my heart want? How was I pleasing God in these circumstances? Week after week in counseling, I filled up with the truths of God’s character and plan for my life. My circumstances did not change, but my heart did. Those who were hurting us questioned how I could be filled with joy as my counselor directed me to seek out from them any sins they saw in my life and humbly repent for my bitterness and anger that developed during this time. I could find joy in humbling myself because I finally saw the situations in my life were not happening to me; they were happening for my good and God’s glory (Romans 8:28; Genesis 50:20). The pain was still there, but the purpose gave it meaning and gave me a renewed determination to continue pleasing God where He had put us.
Gratefully, after about a year of heart work in my life through counseling and then being trained myself to do Biblical counseling so I could be better equipped in my ministry, God moved us to a wonderful small, rural church in Illinois. Here, we are well loved, and my husband is going into his fifth year as lead pastor in a village of 400 in the middle of corn fields. Biblical counseling helped me get back on track to finish well at our last church until God called us to serve somewhere new and gave me valuable tools to continue sharpening and strengthening myself in the easy and hard times. Biblical counseling also helped root out things in my life that would have eventually hurt my new church, allowing me to now serve in a healthy, God-honoring way.
I don’t even have to ask if you have been through some church hurt. As wives in ministry, I can guarantee you have. But I will ask this: What have you done about that hurt? I would encourage you that it is not only okay to seek out Biblical help for yourself; it will make you a better pastor’s wife if you do. Biblical counseling retaught me how to swim in the deep waters of Scripture when I was drowning in hurt and gave me a renewed skill set to help those I am serving. Since that spiritually hard place, I have been to numerous Biblical counseling conferences, read more theology and counseling books than I can count, and just finished my first year of online classes for a Master in Biblical Counseling through Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Equipping in this way prepares me for other hard times, helping me deepen my faith and giving me valuable tools to help those around me.
As a pastor’s wife, we must be as spiritually healthy as possible for ourselves, our families, and our church. We all need help at some point and can’t let our pride, hurt, or appearances stand in the way of getting filled back up with the spiritual truths of God’s Word. Getting that help will heal ministry hurts and give us the wisdom needed as we continue to pour into others. “Listen to advice and accept instruction, that you may gain wisdom in the future” (Proverbs 19:20).
