I HATE YOUR WIFE [Sun, 5-31-20]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter

I HATE YOUR WIFE   [Sun, 5-31-20]

I know I have told this story before, so I apologize. Sort of. I’m not sure why we apologize for re-telling a story. No preacher ever says, “There was a man who had two sons, and the younger one took his inheritance…now stop me if you’ve heard this one.” No, we need to hear that story over and over. Granted, some stories are not as interesting. When families and friends gather, though, it is important to tell the stories that everyone already knows, as well as the new ones, because it means that we who are many are one. So, I take back my apology. However, since I mentioned gatherings of friends…

Wherever we lived during the years of ministry, we tried to build community among the preachers, along with their families, because being a preacher, or a preacher’s wife, or a PK, can be lonely. So from time to time we would invite the preachers—all of them, from all denominations, although some would not associate with us—and their wives [it became necessary to say spouses instead of wives only in the last years of my career] to our house for a pitch-in supper.

One night I had taken a bunch of dirty plates to the kitchen after supper, and Barbara followed me. She was the wife of Dirk, the Lutheran pastor. Despite being Lutheran, Dirk and Barbara were extremely classy. They were young, and dressed expensively and hiply, and were really good looking, like a movie couple. Dirk was dark and chiseled, a Montgomery Clift type, and Barbara was a tall, elegant model type.

So, I was considerably disconcerted when Barbara wiped her eyes and sniffed and said, “I hate your wife.”

Nobody hates Helen. It’s impossible to hate Helen. It’s not unreasonable to be jealous or envious of her, but nobody hates Helen.

But Barbara went on. “She makes being a preacher’s wife look so easy, and it’s not!”

All I could tell her was, “Barbara, she makes being a preacher’s wife look easy because she doesn’t try to be a preacher’s wife. She just tries to be my wife. She’s just tries to be herself.”

I hope that Barbara learned how to do that for herself. I don’t know. But I do know that Helen has been herself, and made it look easy, for the sixty-one years, come 2:30 today, that she has been the wife of this preacher.

John Robert McFarland