Pastoral Families Need Cheerful Hearts
“A cheerful heart is good medicine.” ~Proverbs 17:22 NIV
When my mother arrived at the hospital for my birth, she was accompanied by her mother because my father was miles away finishing seminary. (Please note, seminary.) My grandmother—whom I suspect was none too happy my father was, in her mind, AWOL—was so discombobulated that she told the admitting nurse the father was absent because he was at the cemetery. Mom hurriedly corrected the perception that her husband had elected to die rather than hang around to meet me.
This is just one of the funny stories from my family’s history. I grew up in a pastor’s home, and I jokingly tell people this explains a lot about me. But the truth is expectations and burdens experienced by a pastor and his or her family can cause sadness and hurt. That makes the humorous stories and experiences they cherish even more valuable.
Here are a few more of my family’s stories. Ready? Laugh with me.
When I was about three, my parents asked what was jingling in my pockets on our walk home from church. I nonchalantly told them I had taken up an “offering” for myself. I was apparently so cute with my patent-leathered feet planted by the front door, borrowed offering plate in hand, and a charming pastors’ kids can do no wrong swag, that some parishioners gladly gave me coins.
Then trust me when I say only grape juice was served for communion at all my dad’s churches. But as he uncovered the prepared elements at the altar one Sunday, my two-year-old brother shouted, “Look! Mogen David wine!” My mother clamped a hand over his mouth and sank down into her pew, probably as far as she dared. Both my parents realized then and there what a staggering effect a TV commercial could have, not only on their children, but on their standing as the first family of the church!
Then there’s this surreal experience, more humorous to me than it was to my parents. At another of Dad’s churches, we lived in a parsonage next door. We were right on Main Street, and because the two buildings had the exact same brick exterior, it wasn’t hard for passersby to surmise a minister lived in that house. And he had the power to marry them on the spot—like magic!
Picture this: We’re eating dinner like a normal family when the doorbell rings. We know the drill. Dad goes to the door, closing the French doors leading to the living room behind him. We hear voices and learn a couple has arrived, alone or with a crowd, marriage license in hand. If Dad decides he’ll marry them, the living room stays closed off, Dad goes upstairs to slip on a tie and suit coat, Mom acts as witness if necessary, and my brother and I are relegated to the back-of-the-house “TV room” with an order to be quiet. Really, who but pastors’ kids have to finish their meal on TV trays because a magical wedding for strangers is taking place in their front room? We were never allowed to peek to see what these couples looked like, but I always imagined bleached blondes and bikers, which today makes me laugh.
At church services, though, my dad was a fiery, pulpit-thumping preacher. One Sunday he got worked up and said, “If the shoe wears, fit it!” We were never allowed so much as a giggle during a church service, but holding in a snort this time was a new kind of torture. I think I remember my mother digging her nails into my thigh to keep us both from losing it. Then Dad said, “I’ll say it again: if the shoe wears, fit it!” Now people behind us were shifting in their pews and coughing, trying not to laugh at the pastor who was still preaching away as though everything was perfectly normal. That made Mom and me want to laugh even more, making for another favorite family story.
My family was blessed with unforgettable stories like these, and I hope every pastoral family experiences their own. Yet look at the second half of Proverbs 17:22 (NIV): “but a broken spirit saps a person’s strength.” Any pastoral family can experience times when they are broken—when they are sapped of strength—because of the challenges of ministry, making the fun memories and laughter they store up a gift.
As you love your own pastoral families and pray for their strength, also pray that God and all who know them will give them the good medicine of cheerful hearts.
is a champion coffee drinker and a freelance editor and writer for Christian publishers and ministries. She doesn’t garden, bake, or knit, but insists playing Scrabble is exactly the same thing. Jean and her husband, Cal, live in central Indiana. They have three children (plus two who married in) and five grandchildren. She blogs at bloominwordstoo.blogspot.com.
Photograph © Dan Park, used with permission
