September 14th, 2014

Praying with Pastors’ Wives

In a Spartan hotel room of a Christian camp outside of the massive city of Guangzhou China, the pastor’s wife poured out her heart to me and wept. I sat and listened. Straining to understand. My 2 years of Chinese language study 15 years ago was hardly adequate to understand the details of her sharing.

For this particular retreat, the pastor’s wives were invited to come along to the mentoring network my husband Jim has been leading for more than a year. All of the wives, and their toddlers, came for the 3 days because I was going to be there too.

Why would she open up to me like this? She knew I couldn’t understand very well. That didn’t keep her from unloading her burden. As the woes tumbled out it was clear she hadn’t found anyone else who was safe enough to talk about her worries. Money. Safety. The Children’s education when they don’t have the right kind of identity passes for the place where they are living. These gals are married to visionary men of faith who’ve spent time in prison for preaching the Gospel. Most of these gals don’t have the same measure of faith their husbands do.

I sat, made eye contact, prayed for discernment, held their hands, offered tissues.

Occasionally I asked a clarifying question, but most of the time I silently prayed for the Holy Spirit to minister to them and fill me with discernment to understand and serve them.

Thinking back on it now, I can’t even recall any of my replies, or what I said in my faltering Chinese prayers as we finished our times together.

I do remember perfectly clearly one young woman’s reply to me:

“I didn’t want to come this week. I thought, ‘What a waste of time and money to travel to this camp with our toddler. She wouldn’t sleep well in a strange place. She wouldn’t like the food. What could I gain from of it besides more exhaustion?’ But, now I know why I needed to be here. Spending this hour is why I came. The Lord has brought so many healing insights. This session has made the whole weekend worth all the trouble!”

Nearly 30 years in ministry, and I have nothing to boast about, except that God loves to use me as his representative. It’s especially wonderful when the sweet fruit is clearly all God’s doing, and not from anything I’ve done but show up.

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