Genesis 21:6

"And Sarah said, God hath made me to laugh, so that all that hear me will laugh with me."

I'm laughing. Or at least I'm trying to.

On March 24, Ronnie and I had a date night. We went out to see the Hunger Games movie after he got home from EMT class. I'm not really sure when he told me, but we had a conversation about why he got home late. He had been talking to a classmate and when he told me the topic of discussion, I was more than a little shocked. He explained to me that he had been feeling the call to preach. I never saw it coming. He had been fighting, ignoring God, for a couple of years he told me. But when God calls you, you can't run forever. He'll get  your attention and He had Ronnie's.

I'm proud of my husband. I'm honored that God has found him favorable to be His servant and I pray that God uses him in a mighty way, but there's a catch: if he's a preacher, that makes me a preacher's wife.

Whoa! What? You have GOT to be kidding me! But God doesn't joke around like that. So here I am, a preacher's wife.

I actually told Ronnie that it was great that he had been called. But he needed a new wife. (Note: We believe that a preacher should be the husband of one wife, meaning no divorce, so I don't know what I was getting at.)

Ronnie told his parents, then mine. The response was fine, until they realized what I had already figured out - that I'm now the wife of a preacher. My grandmother felt the same shock. Everyone was cool with Ronnie being a preacher, but they couldn't believe, nor had they ever expected me to be a preacher's wife.

He announced his call at church this past Sunday. Everyone was really supportive and I'm grateful for that.

But there are comments about me being a preacher's wife. "You? That's a shock!" "Never saw that one coming." "You know you're going to have to be nice, right?" "You better treat him right."  

At first I was okay. I brushed the comments off. After all, I had had the same response they were having. But it finally hit me hard last night. Do people really think I'm that mean? Do they think I don't love my husband? Or give him the love/respect that he deserves? What have I done to make people think I'm such a bad candidate for a preacher's wife?

I know that I'm not worthy of anything that I have. I have so many blessings in my life: a great husband, three awesome sons, a wonderful family, a good job, a roof over my head...more than I could ever deserve. We all have more than we deserve and God trusts us with so much even when we're unworthy, but I don't know what I am doing that makes people think I'm a less than desirable preacher's wife. I know I have room to grow, but the comments started to sting.

I prayed and asked God to please show me something that would help me. This morning I was reading in Genesis and I read verse 6 of chapter 21 and I smiled. It was like God pointed that verse out to me and it hit me that I needed to laugh it off. Sarah was ninety years old and God told her that she would bare a son for Abraham, but she thought having a baby was impossible. She lacked the faith that God would provide her a child. But with God nothing is impossible and He knows what's going to happen to us before we're even born. Things may surprise us, but God is never surprised. If God had told me before March 24, that I was going to be married to a preacher, I wouldn't have believed it. I would not have had the faith to believe that it  could happen. I would have come up with so many reasons why Ronnie becoming a preacher was "impossible." But God makes no mistakes and he knows what he is doing. He knew that Ronnie was going to marry me and He knew that Ronnie was going to be called to preach. So I am a preacher's wife and there is nothing anyone on Earth can do about it. I'm human and my feelings still hurt, but I'm going to try my best to be happy in our calling, to laugh while we do God's work. And, in the process, I pray that my happiness in my "impossible" situation makes others happy as well. Maybe we'll all share a laugh together.