Written By: Patti Pierce
When I was a senior in college, I met my future husband. We began our “courtship” in January. He made it clear from the start he felt called by God to be a minister. I had no doubts about that calling. When he asked me to marry him approximately six months after we began our relationship around the end of June/beginning of July, I had no qualms about saying yes. When we first became engaged, we did not set a wedding date. Everything was new and exciting and we were still getting to know each other.
In October, we attended a nearby church on the first Sunday of the month. I will never forget the elder (that’s what ministers are called in the Primitive Baptist church) asked my husband to speak. Dennis, my husband-to-be, declined that day to speak. But we knew the calling was coming sooner rather than later. So we went to visit Dennis’ grandfather to discuss the calling. While we were talking, Grandaddy told us we had to either set our wedding date or walk away from one another. We both knew he was right, even if it was not what we wanted to hear. We went back and set our wedding date. The time before the wedding flew by and before I knew it I was a married lady.
The first year of our marriage, we did everything together. We went and visited family and friends often. When Dennis was called on to do something in his ministerial capacity, I typically went with him. It was an amazing time in our lives. We prayed together often. As time went on, the size of our family grew. The demands as a mother prevented me from going with Dennis like I had in the past. Eventually, I found my time centring around raising our children, cooking meals and doing laundry.
When we made the decision to go full-time in the Army Reserves, time for ministerial endeavours reduced dramatically. I needed to focus on my calling and responsibilities of being a mother to the children God blessed us with over the course of about 6 years. Starting in 1996 through 2002, every other year we were blessed with a new addition to our family. Once we were a family of six, we wanted to make sure our children grew up to know the Lord. So we undertook starting a Sunday School at our church. It started off small with very few children (and most of the children who attended were our own). But over the years, it has grown. Even though we have not been there for over seven years, it is good to know other children are learning about the Lord.
Sometimes begin a pastor’s wife involves sitting on the sidelines watching and supporting our spouses. Other times it involves jumping in and getting involved in what needs to be done. All in all, through the years, I have been blessed in countless ways by my husband’s calling and willingness to serve. One of the ways I chose to serve while we were at our last duty station was volunteering as a leader for our teens. As one of the activities, our teens led the worship service. None of the teens wanted to give the message necessarily, so I delivered my first and only message from the pulpit. It was quite an experience being on the other side of the audience. But I was definitely blessed by saying I would follow what the Lord directed me to do. All in all, being a pastor’s wife has brought numerous blessings to my life. I pray for the Lord to bless you today.
About Patti:
My name is Patti Pierce and my husband and I have been married for over 23 years. My husband has been an ordained Primitive Baptist preacher almost that entire time. We are a Military Homeschooling Family who lives in North Central Pennsylvania. We put our faith in the one true Sovereign God. We have been on our homeschooling journey for over 10 years now. We have four children – three sons ages 19, 17 and 15 along with a daughter who is 13. I blog about our life as a family, as homeschoolers, and our faith which guides our daily lives.
My blogs are:
https://truthandgracehomeschoolacademy.wordpress.com/
and
https://truthandgracewritingandlifecoaching.wordpress.com/
where I blog about the very beginning of journey to blog about my journey about being a writer and about working on my masters degree in Human Services with a concentration in Life Coaching. I never dreamed this is where I would wind up, but this is where I find myself being led to go.
Uniquely Yours Ministries 