Weekend thoughts...........

"Experience has made it certain that the clergyman's wife must either throw in her lot unreservedly with her husband's difficult and distinctive career, and reap her reward with a range and depth of personal influence which are unequalled in the case of any other married woman, or she must separate herself from his work and life with consequences ruinous both in his success and to her own credit, and, we must add, to the happiness of both." Herbert Hensley Henson, formerly the Bishop of Durham, in the Bishoprick papers.

Reading for a group I belong to a book called Glittering Images by Susan Howatch. Written in 1987, this is a series of 'church books' that Howatch wrote about her own experiences of the Christianity journey. In Chapter Five, she quotes Herbert H. Henson as I've written above.

I used to have great respect for the military wives, especially the Navy's, who have to put up with long separations and short visits home. They have to switch gears from single parenting to joint parenting. They realize that their husbands can be wisked away at a moment's notice and possibly never come back. I still have that respect, for those on active duty who love those who are constantly in harm's way, and those, unfortunately, who have a somewhat blissful civilan life with weekend interuptions that are being torn apart as one or even both are sent to the war zones.

And there are those who I am developing a great respect for too....the minister's wife. The struggle is there and so clearly evident in the lives of any who are married to a pastor, minister, chaplain, or any lay person in the church who follows God's call.

I believe this is where the Proverbs 31 chapter comes into play, because too often those wives who cast their lots with their husbands find;

She is clothed with strength and honor,and she can laugh at the time to come. She opens her mouth with wisdom,and loving instruction is on her tongue. She watches over the ways of her household,and does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children rise up and call her blessed,her husband also praises her:

"Many daughters have done valiantly,but you surpass them all!"

Charm is deceitful and beauty is fleeting,but a woman who fears the LORD will be praised. Give her credit for what she has accomplished,and let her works praise her in the city gates. (Proverbs 31:25-31 NET.)

The wife of noble character....not only do they serve in the military alongside their husbands, in the dynamic of the family, but also in the success of the ministry to which their husbands have been called......

It is well that the husband remembers such noble character.....