The pastor's family: transparency...frightening or inviting?

I’ve been married to a pastor for twenty-three years.  In our second year of marriage we attended a ministry conference and I participated in my first “pastor’s wife” breakout session.  It was explained to us in that session that being married to a pastor came with a huge responsibility.  I was told that our family now lived in a fish bowl and people would be watching everything that my husband, my children and I were doing, saying, and even places we were going.  I walked out of that class with wide eyes and scared to death.

The pretending game began.

There was no room for error.  We had to look and play the part…whatever exactly “the part” was…we had to pull it off with excellence.

After several years of painting on a false perfection, our oldest son Drew came home after church one Sunday crying.  When I asked him why he was crying he said, “I’m so sorry mommy…I’m so, SO sorry!!”  Why in the world are you sorry?  What did you do?  “Someone asked me a question about the Bible and I didn’t know the answer.  They said, ‘Drew, your daddy is the preacher…you should know the answer!’” 

He was devastated.  He was eight years old.  EIGHT.  

Thus began the freedom the Lord gave as He taught me how to not only rip off those masks, but to rip them to shreds…to the point they could never be used again. Therein also came the first of many apologies I would make to Steve, Drew and Abbi (Aubri and Kyle were babies) for blindly, and ignorantly placing unattainable expectations on our family.

Twelve years later and we’re still in ministry.  The masks have long been gone, yet some of the scars remain…most apparent on our children. Steve and I have willingly embraced our “fish bowl”, only we don’t look at it as a bad thing.  We have seen it as an opportunity to show that ministers/pastors, have the very same circumstances as everyone else…some are easy, some are tough.  They involve marriages, children, finances, health…all manner of things. Our desire is to walk through them not in denial, but facing reality with hope, not despair.

We’re walking through some of those tough circumstances right now.  One of our daughters is struggling with making right choices.  The lure of this world is strong.  It seems as though the enemy has come calling for our children (‘ours’ meaning everyone’s, not only the Chamblee’s) with much force.  Thankfully, our mighty Savior is greater than the evil that is in this world. (1Jonh 4:4)  We know that good, and not harm is ahead…even if it doesn’t look exactly the way we want it to look.  His ways are best.

It’s no cliché. It is Truth. 

We welcome you to look inside our fishbowl.  We hope that as you look and see our struggles, it will not be the struggle that catch your attention.  We hope and pray that it will be the peace and strength that we gain from our great God while in the midst of the struggle that impacts you the most!

So, my husband is a pastor, and in this pastor’s home the masks stay off.  Transparency runs deep, yet so do the struggles.  Does that transparency invite you closer, or scare you away?  We hope it draws you near…not only to our family, but to our one true God.  Now, “to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.”