I’m often involved in decision making and conflict management, yet I have never attended a board meeting or had the “restoration” conversation over coffee. Perhaps the ultimate frustration in this pastor’s wife journey is the responsibility of leadership coupled with no actual authority or position.

It’s not about the power or status of a leadership position; those things aren’t of real interest. I do have a interest and desire to lead. I like to organize and plan. I’m a leader trapped in a wife’s body. We do ministry as a partnership, but in reality, he’s the pastor and I’m his wife.

I’m busy, too. I have my own full-time problems (I mean job) and someone has to care for the children while these meetings are taking place. Perhaps I am in part jealous that I don’t have have an official voice. Perhaps, I don’t fully understand the impact I can and do have on the direction of the church. I probably just need to get over myself.

And to be completely frank, the hardest part is when conflict comes (and we all know it comes) is that I have to work through the forgiveness part by myself, sometimes with great difficulty and prayer because it’s not my responsibility to be there to heal and restore relationships…I’m just the wife.