Encouragement for Pastors' Wives - Ruby Conway

Well, this is a huge privilege

and I really don't know why I'm up here

other than God has plans and purposes,

but I feel real inadequate,

especially as I look around this room.

We're all in the same boat.

Mandy, what is it that you just told me?

(from the room)

Women in need of grace
helping women in need of grace.

Ruby: So that's basically
what's happening here.

I'm in desperate need of
grace and we all are.

We're all in the same boat.

I just wanted to share

after considering lots of different things

I would like to say and share

in hopes of encouraging;

I just thought I would share three things

that have been very
critically helpful for me

that I've learned over the years

and I'm still learning and growing.

Bethany and Michelle, these are things

that you have heard repeatedly from me.

They're very basic fundamental,

can be perhaps like Peter,

just reminders,

and hopefully it will encourage you

to press on in what you already know

and just to excel and abound

in these good things.

So, they these things
happen to all start with "H's."

It just worked out that way.
I didn't plan it.

But it's three things
that I narrowed down.

And I left one out,

but if I have time, I'll include that.

I only have twenty minutes,
so I'm going to speak really quickly

and make things very
brief, hopefully concise.

Hopefully, they'll be some help.

It's humility, helper, and heaven.

And those three things

kept in right perspective in our lives

and kept in the forefront of our lives

as pastor's wives -

really it's just as a wife,

it's really as a woman
if you're married.

We happen to be married to pastors.

So we're called pastor's wives,

but we're all in need again

of the same grace,

whether you're a pastor's wife

or what not, but these three things

apply to any woman across the board.

I think we just have as pastor's wives,

we have unique challenges

and unique blessings as well.

So I considered all these things

in light of what we go through.

And there's a number of things

Dale and I were talking
about the other night.

I actually looked online for a list

of what pastor's wives struggle with.

I had to look for a list.

I cheated.

(incomplete thought)

You know, we go through
really difficult things

in different seasons in a church body.

There's division.

There can be slander.

We have to endure sometimes things -

maybe members that are discontent;

they don't like the way the leadership

is making their decisions;

coming to their conclusions;

the way the sermon went;

the color of the carpet.

Whatever people can come up with.

In light of all those things

and also I thought too,

I guess, depending on
everybody's relationship -

your relationship with your husband -

we know more than anybody else

in the church pretty much.

If you have a plurality of elders,

well, the elders will
equally know everything,

but I know my husband
and I are extremely close,

and he shares and we share

and we work very, very closely together.

And so that takes a lot of grace.

And that takes humility.

And to be a good helper,

we have to respond well

in light of all that we know.

And then ultimately,

the last stage being heaven,

we have to keep an eternal perspective

at all times, or else, we can just

be crushed under the burdens that we know

and that we experience and we endure.

Two verses that are very real to me,

and I remember them because they both have

the word "apart" in them.

I'm sure they're very
familiar to you as well.

John 15:5, "Apart from Me,
you can do nothing."

And Psalm 16:2, it starts,

"You are my Lord..." the second part,

"I have no good apart from You."

And so, that should be

our disposition,

that we have a real sense of our ability

to do absolutely nothing

apart from Christ.

And that needs to go in really deep

and the Lord is very faithful to cause us

to experience certain things,

big things, daily little trials,

whatever it might be.

In His love as our Father to His children,

He's faithful to bring things

so that this goes deeper and deeper,

that we're nothing and we can do nothing

apart from Him.

So it's very, very, very important

that we live in light of this reality

that Christ is everything.

And in His power,

through the power of the
Holy Spirit within us,

we can do all things.

All things through Christ
who strengthens us

I think we heard this morning.

So, another thing in regards to humility

in Romans 15:1, it says,

"We who are strong have an obligation

to bear with the failings of the weak

and not to please ourselves,

and let each of us please his neighbor

for his good to build him up.

For Christ didn't please Himself..."

So, another thing is Christ

being our example to follow.

He was humility personified.

We know we walked perfectly.

Perfectly humble

every moment of His existence.

So, He is our example to imitate.

He was patient. He was longsuffering.

And as pastor's wives, this is the way

we need to deal with all that we know

and all the different situations

that come about in the church life.

And it takes a lot of grace

and it takes a lot of humility

because there can be sometimes

maybe a temptation to be frustrated

when brother or sister
so-and-so did that again?

Or how could they have said that?

Or how could this have happened?

But we're all in different places,

and we need to really, really be sensitive

to God's dealings with His children,

and never think that we're beyond

doing anything that that person is doing

that you feel perturbed
or frustrated with.

There's no place in the heart

of a pastor's wife or anybody -

I'm going to say pastor's wives
because this is who I'm addressing -

but there's no place
in a Christian's heart

for frustration, impatience, disgust,

when we understand who we are.

It's only by God's grace if
we're doing anything right

in a moment.

He gives us the strength and the power

to obey and walk obediently in the Spirit.

And that way in our lives,

He gets all the glory.

So we are to live a supernatural life

in the Spirit - not a natural life.

And the natural responses

to the difficulties we encounter

in the ministry would be

frustration - all these sinful responses.

But God is glorified in us

when we respond in a not natural way -

a supernatural way.

And so then He gets all the glory.

And that, again, maybe I'll just go

right into that is how we
can help our husbands.

The number one ministry that we have

as pastor's wives

is to be our husband's help.

His helper.

And that started way back
in Genesis, we know.

With Adam, God was very gracious

to bring Adam a helper,

and that is our number one ministry.

Don't let any other women's ministries -

things that are very, very good,

and there's nothing
wrong with those things.

It's fine to lead a Bible study,

lead a book study,

get together for coffee -

all those things can be in their place

with your husband's approval

after you've prayed about it.

It can be very profitable.

But always filter these types of decisions

with: is this going to take me away

or hinder my ministry

in helping my husband?

Because if you don't have that in order

and you're ministering outside your home

or with other women doing good things,

but your husband is
left to fend for himself

or he's having to bear more work himself

because you're neglecting the home,

then that's wrong.

Because the number one ministry

is to help your husband.

We're helpers.

And again, we have gifts

and God gives opportunities

and so there's nothing
wrong in serving and doing.

Women are very useful in the kingdom.

They have gifts just like men do.

But we have to, as wives -

and particularly, I am going to say

particularly pastor's wives,

have to be careful

because our husbands

bear an enormous load,

an enormous amount of weight.

Mack said it last night

and I had that in my notes.

Paul said in 2 Corinthians 11:28,

the second part,
"...the daily pressure on me

of my anxiety for all the churches."

And I see that firsthand in my husband.

It's not just his family -
the Conway family,

but then, it's the Grace Community Church,

and then the church plants,

and then out-of-the-country works.

These things weigh real heavy.

And even when we have set

a church plant to have their independence

and have a pastor,

it's typically a very young man

that's over that work,

and so he's still very much in need

and very much in contact.

And that's not always the case,

even older, new in the ministry,

whatever it might be,

he gets phone calls almost daily

of things pertaining to what's going on

in all the different church plants.

So I see the weight that my husband bears

on a daily basis.

So I try to keep my life

as simple as possible for his sake

because he is my number one priority.

And I want to maintain that.

There's so much need,

and I do try to reach out to the women

as much as I can

without violating this priority,

or just keeping my husband the priority.

So he's the number one ministry.

And the number one way of helping him

is abiding in Christ,

because it doesn't matter what we're doing

or not doing,

if we're not cultivating a close,

intimate walk with the Lord,

self-controlled, disciplined
time with the Lord

on a daily basis;

time set aside for
communing with the Lord;

time set aside for prayer,

for meditation.

You're cultivating a real relationship.

And then you're just walking with the Lord

through the rest of the day,

but it's something very real.

And you're praying all day

as you're thinking of the needs

of your husband, your children,

the church body.

You're just walking, praying,

it's very real.

As Tim and I were talking

with a younger couple yesterday,

they're wondering how
do you make this real

like through the day?

Well, it takes effort,

like any relationship we know.

I know this is not new to this group here,

but I just want to encourage that

in the busyness of life and ministry

and little ones,

that you maintain and cultivate and grow

in your relationship with the Lord.

And that you enter in to the power

there is to be had

by walking close to the Lord,

and removing unnecessary things

in your life that can hinder you

from this close intimacy with the Lord.

And that really is helping
your husband tremendously

because in the course of your life

as a pastor's wife, like I said earlier,

there's going to be things that will come

on a daily basis,

and you will respond very differently

to the very challenging things

depending on your walk with the Lord.

And if your husband brings home news

that's difficult to receive -

something that took place in the church -

if you're not walking with the Lord

and it's very fresh in your mind

that God is sovereign,

this is the body of Christ,

this is not our thing,

this is not our doing.

We did not build this church.

We're just observing what God is doing

as He's building and removing

and purging.

As women, we can be very emotional

and we can respond if our thinking

is not right and we
haven't been in the Word.

And there is something very supernatural

we all know about times in the Word

when you're communing
with the Lord in prayer

and you leave that time, like I said,

and you have the fragrance
of Christ following you.

You have this sense that He's with you.

And so when you're faced with things

maybe later in the day,

instead of freaking out,

getting all emotional,

responding in a panic,

you can be a help by staying calm

and thinking biblically

and being an encouragement,

and just that your confidence is in God

and His Word and His promises.

You have to have these things
very fresh in your mind

in order to be the help

that your husband needs.

And then in Proverbs,

I just thought of Proverbs 31:23.

"Her husband is known in the gates

when he sits among
the elders of the land."

And I think that's really special

because the wife has a lot to do

with the husband's reputation

and who he is.

He had a reputation in the gates

among the elders because of her.

And so we want to be that type of help

to our husband.

We have a lot of influence

in our husband's life

and we have the power
if I can use that word

to really build him up

to be a better leader

that he could not be without us.

And so if he has somebody

that's submitting, encouraging, following,

walking close with the Lord,

helping in that way,

he can be a better leader than he could be

like I said without us.

And conversely, we can also

crush our husbands.

We have to be very, very careful

how we communicate,

what we communicate with our husbands.

If, again, like what we say

should be filtered though:

what does God's Word say?

What does God's Word say?

If you're going to be a help,

you're going to need to
be a woman of wisdom

and wisdom comes from God.

So, we want to have our thinking

aligned with God's Word and His will.

And that will truly, truly help him.

And the final H was heaven.

Again, as we go through the different -

I'm speaking a lot on the challenges

and the difficulties, but we all know here

that there are unspeakable joys

being part of the ministry as helpers

to our husbands.

I feel spoiled - the blessings

that we get to be involved in,

while you do know a lot

of every single person in the church

and their struggles,

you also know of all the joys

and the victories

and the counseling sessions

that turn out with a happy ending

that nobody else knows about.

And so we bear the weight,

but we also enjoy the
time of rejoicing as well.

These are again very familiar Scriptures.

Colossians 3:2 that we're to set our minds

on things above, not on earthly things.

Philippians 3:20 - our
citizenship is in heaven.

And we're eagerly awaiting
our Savior from there -

the Lord Jesus Christ.

And that is where we have to, again,

very intentionally set our mind

on things above.

We are living in the realm of sight here

and the "seen," but we know that

that which is seen is transient.

It's passing.

And so we have to keep our minds

on things above.

So no matter how difficult things can be;

how challenging,

whatever we endure,

there is an end.

Tim spoke on Wednesday here

the verse that says from Romans,

"...rejoicing in hope."

Like we of all people,

out of the mass of humanity,

this little remnant

that Christ shed His blood for,

we truly have reason and cause

to rejoice - to rejoice in the Lord.

And to have a hope, like Tim was saying.

Everybody has a hope.

They're hoping in this,
that, and the other

that is guaranteed to lead them

to disappointment

until they find Christ.

And then that's when we're truly satisfied

like we heard about today.

Satisfaction can only be found in Christ

and that's what we should be experiencing

in a very real way every day.

Our mind, our heart, and affections

set on things above where Christ is,

where our inheritance is.

And when we do have that mindset,

again, life is much easier to deal with.

When you think, we're
just passing through,

there is a reward at the end.

Don't feel like the way
you're living right now

making the sacrifices
that you are making

and suffering to whatever
degree you're suffering -

we all go through different things

to different degrees, different seasons.

But it's not for naught.

There is a reward at the end.

In fact, I was just reading this morning

(incomplete thought).

I'm going to just pass because it will

take time to remember where I read it.

But anyway, it's basically,

we're heading towards a judgment day.

And we will receive what is due.

Because of Christ, we can really

look forward to that day

and live in light of that day.

And we know that God has told us

this life is just a vapor.

It's here and then gone.

So, we need to live in light of that.

Not to waste time.

We live in a day and age

with all this technology

and electronics and social media

where it is such an enormous temptation

to waste time.

And we all really need
to be really careful

to redeem our time

and be good stewards of our time.

The time we have has been given to us.

Like, we all have an appointment.

We came in and we're going out.

So we want to be faithful

with the time that we have.

I don't know what time I started.

Is it time? Has it been 20?

Real quick, the last H,

in light of time.

Real quick, other Scriptures,

2 Peter 3:11 in light of what we know

that everything's burning up.

We're heading towards
everything burning up.

What sort of people ought we to be

to live lives of holiness and godliness?

And 2 Corinthians 4:17 -

we're familiar with this.

Light, momentary affliction -

whatever we're going through,

it's preparing for us an eternal

weight of glory beyond all comparison.

So there's those contrasts

of light vs. weight

and momentary vs. eternal.

So we have to live in light of that

and not get caught up in
the moment of difficulties.

Like, this is so hard.

No, actually, it feels that way,

but compared to what we're heading to

it's light and momentary.

And we have to have this perspective

very clear in our minds.

And 1 Peter 1:4

We're heading towards an inheritance

that is imperishable, undefiled,

and unfading, kept in heaven for us.

And then lastly, Hebrews 6:10,

"For God is not unrighteous

to forget your work and labor of love

which you have shown

toward His name and that you have

ministered to the saints and do minister."

So, that's very encouraging

that God remembers everything.

Our deeds follow us.

Everything that we do,

there is coming a day

when there will be a reward

and it's okay to be reward motivated

for what you're doing right now

because in the end, the reward is Christ.

And so, do everything you can now

to get the most then.

There is a reality to that.

Real quickly, the last H was holiness.

And I think we as pastor's wives -

sometimes, a pastor's wife can

maybe not really appreciate the position

of being an example

as a wife, as a mother, as a family,

as a husband and wife.

And sometimes it can even be something

that a woman can resent.

Like, why do they look at us all the time?

Why are they always observing us?

Eagle eyes always on us.

But I think that's good.

I think that our husbands are leaders

and they should be examples,

and there should be, obviously,

a level of maturity where
they are examples,

not perfect, but exemplary,

worthy of imitating.

And I think in like manner

that pastor's wife
should also be striving.

Every woman, like I said
in the very beginning,

should be striving for this.

But because we're in
a leadership position,

I think that it's a loving thing to do,

to live in such a way -

and we have a very young church,

20's, 30's, young single, young married,

young mothers, young everything.

And so I count it a privilege

to strive for that life that I can say

follow me or imitate me

because I know it's all of grace.

And I know that I've made
countless mistakes to this point.

And God has been very faithful.

So, I think that it's like I said

a very loving thing for us
to live in such a way.

And even in the mistakes that we make,

we can be examples in how we respond

in the mistakes that we make.

So it's not like we have this pressure

to live these perfect lives,

because everybody's watching us.

It's not like that at all.

We love the Lord Jesus.

And so we want to please and obey Him

and in so doing, our lives
should be examples

and an encouragement

that wow, you can go through a trial

and actually have peace.

You can go through a trial

and remain unwavering in your faith

and have confidence in the Lord.

And you can lose a loved one

and grieve well and glorify God

in doing all these things.

So, those are the four things

that have been extremely helpful for me

that God's taught me

and continues to teach me.