The Hard Life of a Minister’s Wife
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During the 15 years that her husband has been minister at High Hope Missionary Baptist Church in Newark, New Jersey, Bernice Grant has brought God’s word everywhere from jails to hospitals. “It’s not always easy,” she says. “Young people want to do things their way when we want to do things the Bible way.” Her husband, Lewis, was a construction worker when she married him 25 years ago. “When he told me he wanted to become a minister, I said to him, ‘Are you sure?’ Maybe if I’d known, I wouldn’t have married him. Talk to any minister’s wife, she’ll tell you the same thing.”
Last week Grant and hundreds of women like her attended the 59th annual convention of the International Association of Ministers’ Wives and Ministers’ Widows at the Hyatt Regency in Rosemont. “Our husbands, sometimes they think we put this before them,” says Grant. But of course, that’s the point–to let one’s hair down and take a much-needed break from the daily regimen of being a minister’s wife. “Some problems we can talk to our husbands about and some we can’t. So the wives come here to talk to each other.” When the teenage girls in her Bible study class ignore her advice, Grant may not feel comfortable venting her frustrations to a member of the congregation, but she can always talk to Mattie Woods, the minister’s wife from Bright Hope Missionary Baptist Church in nearby Montclair, New Jersey. “Mattie and I can talk about anything.”
Plenty of study aids are for sale at the convention, particularly paperback books (The Healthy Church, Humor for Ministers and Lay People in the Church–Everyday Jokes!). Still, says Woods, those only go so far: “That’s why we need the fellowship and support of our sisters.” Grant seconds that: “This is special because it gets us away from the telephone, the work, the church. It’s nice to get away from the church sometimes.”
