From the time I was a little girl my grandmother always had a plaque displayed in her home with one simple word on it: OTHERS. Though it is one word it encompasses a lot and demonstrates the heart that my grandmother has for others. She always taught us that we should love all those that God places in our path, and she knew from experience that that is not always easy!
She especially knew this because my grandmother has been a pastor’s wife for many years. Doris Farison was born and raised on an 80-acre farm in Wood County, near the small town of Grand Rapids, Ohio. She met her husband in their small town; then they got married and started farming together. God had other plans for them, though.
She relates the story this way: “We had been married for eight years, when my husband felt the ‘call of God’ to go to Bible School and be a preacher. We had always been in a rural/small-town church all our lives.” Upon graduation from Moody Bible Institute in 1960 her husband Bob was hired as a pastor for two small churches.
That began a ministry journey that has spanned nearly 60 years and many different states from Massachusetts to Missouri. Most of the churches were in rural or small-town areas, so the culture was “mainly what we had been raised in,” Doris says.
What did that look like? That often meant that the church was full of people who, though well-meaning, thought that they knew how her husband should do his job as a pastor.
“The first pastorate was difficult,” Doris goes on to tell, “There were two churches of the same kind. Everyone lived within a five mile radius, BUT they would not meet together, there was lots of jealousy between them…. They would never tell us when any[one] was ill or had died and we would read it in the newspaper that the pastor was to have the funeral.”
“The churches always voted every year whether they would keep you on as their pastor, which was stressful.… Everything that this pastor [my husband] would try to suggest they do, like support missionaries or have a missions conference, they would always tell him, that isn’t the way the last pastor did things. There were times that were very discouraging.”
It wasn’t easy to love people who thought they were supposed to let you know how to do your ministry, and yet that motto of “OTHERS” was always on the forefront of Doris’ mind. What did they learn in those times? “To have patience with tradition-minded, unlearned people [who] are not willing to learn.”
Even then, God blesses in ministry, too, and Doris shares about some of those, as well.
“Our greatest blessings came at our third pastorate. The people wanted to learn, the deacon board wanted the pastor to teach and help them make the church into a God honoring place where souls could get saved. They wanted to live godly lives to be a witness in the community of the Lord Jesus Christ. They honored the pastor in the position he was in. There was no jealousy between the people. People were so friendly and helped us feel like it was not a lonesome life by having us for dinner on Sunday. We had missions conferences and had many youth at the altar dedicating their lives to the Lord, and all but a few of the youth are still living and serving the Lord in many various places. I led the children with the help of others in the church. Besides helping with the youth, I was always by my husband’s side in his trials, sorrows, and blessings–whatever God allowed to come his way.”
“The blessings and joys that we experienced at this church have carried us through the rest of our lives until this very day that I am writing.” So, yes, sisters; serving as a pastor’s wife in a small place has its blessings, too.
Doris shares her heart with each of us in these words: “My advice to any kind of church, rural, small-town, or city, is this: ”Husband and wife [must] have good COMMUNICATION between them. [For] the trials…[that] come their way they need the support, love, prayers, and understanding from the other one. God made you ONE in Him when you married, and we feel this is very necessary to be helpful to each other, because it is not wise to be telling the church folks what is happening or troubling you…. [A]fter you lay it all at Jesus’s feet, talk and pray together; it strengthens your marriage and you can see God answer your prayers, for your good and His glory.”
That is wise advice from a woman who has learned what it means to love the flock of God with her pastor-husband. May we all have the grace to live for “OTHERS” as she has lived.
A poem she shares that she found over the years exemplifies the importance of a pastor’s wife ministry:
THE PREACHER’S WIFE
There is one person in your church
Who knows your preacher’s life
She’s wept and smiled and prayed with him.
And that’s your preacher’s wife!
She knows one prophet’s weakest point,
And knows his greatest power
She’s heard him speak in trumpet tone,
In his great triumph hour
She’s heard him groaning in his soul,
When bitter raged the strife,
As hand in his she knelt with him —
For she’s a preacher’s wife.
You tell your tales of prophets brave,
Who walked across the world
And changed the course of history
By burning words they hurled.
And I will tell how back of them
Some women lived their lives,
Who wept with them and smiled with them.
They were the preachers’ wives!!!
Author Unknown
