Front Row Seat: Supporting Our Husbands

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Kristen Wetherell
Carrie before my husband, Brad and I got married, people would ask me this question, they would say, How are you feeling about being a pastor’s wife? And it wasn’t a bad question. It’s a perfectly fine question. But it kind of carried with it a negative undertone. And so I would get worried because I would think, Oh, no, why are you asking me that question? And what do I have to be worried about? And I didn’t have a good answer for them. Obviously, I had not been a pastor’s wife yet. And the years went by and and then I began to understand a little bit better why the question might be asked, being a pastor’s wife is a unique joy and a unique blessing. But it comes with unique challenges. I think you and I have spent you know, a lot of time with the pastor’s wives around our church, the orchard and so we hear the ponderings of our hearts. We know that it’s hard to know, how do I provide or encourage a space in my home, my family, my marriage, that isn’t solely about the church, right? Or questions about carrying our husbands burdens when we don’t even know the particularities? Nor should we write? How do we help him carry those burdens when we don’t know what they are? Exactly? How do we? How do we respond to our husband’s heavy schedule with unity with him with joy in our hearts rather than feeling weighed down by it? So we all know these things. Does this? Does this resonate with you?

Kari Olson
Oh, it definitely does. It does. Because not only have I thought these things and wondered about them, but I’ve wondered about them, because I don’t feel like I’ve done it well, often. I you know, walking alongside of Tom or supporting his his him in ministry is, oh, it’s a place I feel stuck sometimes really stuck. So that is why it’s important, this conversation we’re going to have today. And it’s an important conversation to have with a more seasoned pastor’s wife. I think someone who is has been there someone who has done that someone who has walked faithfully with the Lord and her husband through ministry for many years. And we are excited to have our guest Susan Yates with us. She is just such a woman. And she has a heart for ministry wives as she has been there. So she, she has joined us today to talk about our topic supporting our husbands. How do we do that? What should our attitude be? I mean, we’re just gonna have a great conversation. Susan is married to John Yates. And they have been serving churches on the East Coast for 51 years. I mean, I love to hear someone’s ministry journey and their story. And and she is they’ve been so faithful to one church specifically for 40 years, she said, so that is just so precious to me. But Susan, thank you for being here. Welcome to front row seat conversations of encouragement for pastors, wives, by pastors wives. We’re so happy to have you here.

Susan Yates
Oh, this is pure joy. For me. It’s really fun.

Kari Olson
Good. Well, before we get started, what do you tell us? You know, what does ministry look like for you now, after 51 years, what does it look like for you? And tell us a little about your family before we get started?

Susan Yates
Thanks so much. Well, we my husband retired in 2019. And it was a jolt to the system at first, but we were exhausted. And we had no idea how exhausted we were after all those years in ministry, and then COVID hit so it gave us a natural break, just to sort of be quiet. But then we’ve picked up ministry again, I’m mainly I speak and write books, and I have a blog. And then my husband also speaks and preaches for different people. And we’re after a year away from our church. We are back and we have a wonderful young, and you’re pastor. And so you’d never retire from ministry. It just changes forms. Really. We have five children and 21 grandchildren. So we have basically been able now to spend more time with the grandkids, which has been wonderful because in those early years, you know he couldn’t he was booked, as you all know. So that’s been a huge blessing. And we’ve served churches We first started out in youth ministry. So I’ve been a youth pastor’s wife, and that was in South Carolina. And then in the Pittsburgh area, he was associate for Family Ministries, and we built some small groups and young Family Ministries. And then we moved to Falls Church, Virginia, which is actually a Washington, DC suburb, where he’s been the senior pastor for 40 years at the Faust church, Anglican.

Kristen Wetherell
Wow. Praise the Lord for that. 40 years. You do not hear that often. What a wonderful gift it has been. A gift to your church and a gift to you both.

Susan Yates
It’s been a tremendous gift to us, because God has brought us the most amazing people I mean, their family, their community?

Kristen Wetherell
Absolutely. Wow. Wow. Well, at night, you know, we’re talking about being supportive pastors, wives today, supporting our husbands. And you have watched through many seasons of that, Susan, you know, everything from pre children to raising five kids, and then changing churches changing roles. You know, what can you give us? Just your thoughts on what does that mean to be a supportive pastor’s wife, maybe enlighten us with a story?

Susan Yates
Well, I think first of all, you never get it all together, you know, you’re always going to be blowing it because we’re just sinful people. And I think we have to remember, first of all, that we’re married to a man, we’re not married to a profession, though many times it feels like that. But our commitment is to our man. And God has called us together. And even if you were surprised by that code, you married him having no clue he was going into the ministry, you still, we still have to fall back on the fact that we are trusting God, God called us together, and he will provide and one of my favorite scriptures is from First Thessalonians 524, which says Faithful is He who calls you He will also bring it to pass. And so often, we feel like, Oh, I’ve got to make this happen, and we just can’t. So we have to rely on the fact that he’s called us and He will equip us. And you go through different seasons, when it’s hard. We moved to Virginia, when we had five children under the age of seven. And we were growing a tiny church. And I remember getting so frustrated, because my husband was never at home, at least that’s how it felt. And it was like he did church, and I did family and everything else. But I was also very involved in church, I’ve always been involved in our ministry. And you can get to the place where you feel like you’re just communicating about the functional, you know, who should you have to potluck supper? And who’s going to pick up this or that? Or take the kids somewhere? And oh, did you call your mother in law. And it’s easy to have your communication resort to the functional, instead of really sharing at a deeper level. So I remember getting quite ticked with my husband, because I felt like we had lost some of that communication, intimacy. And we have learned over the years that when there’s an issue like communication, to set aside a time to talk about the issue, and you don’t talk about the issue at bedtime, because you’re actually probably going to say something you’ll later regret. So we set aside a time where we would just talk about the problem. And I remember saying, honey, I I am frustrated, our lack of communication, and your life is busy. My life is busy. And this is a hard season. What can we do about it? You know, gals, this was an important lesson for me because I think what we have to learn is we attack the problem and not the person. And in this season of life, the problem was our schedules and five little people and a big ministry. And so you bring your your problem solving skills, which often we use in the marketplace, but we forget to use them in marriage and family on the table. It’s not his problem. It’s not my problem. It’s our problem together. And we figure out okay, given this season, given all the challenges, what can we do to take our communication to a deeper level? And we decided that when he hit the front door, when he usually has five little people there to want to play with them while I get supper and then he was back out to another church meeting. We decided what we would do during this brief season was to take 20 minutes and have a cup of tea in the living room.

And we told the kids they could be there but they could not speak. That lasted about a minute you know one time and we had to be very firm. We said this is Mom and Daddy Tam, you have to leave the room or you have to be quiet. And of course they all left. But that was a time when we sort of tried to go below the surface. And I had to learn to ask questions that call for more than a one word answer. You know, how was your day? Fine. You know, that’s what happens when you have a teenager as well, but doesn’t give you much information. And so I would say, you know, honey, what was something encouraging that happened to you today? Or how did that make you feel? Or what’s the challenge or burden that’s on your heart, and then he would ask similar questions of me. And then, you know, that was, it was very, very, but enabled us to get back to going to a deeper way, a deeper, you know, part of our hearts, which was what was needed. And it was really funny. A couple of days later, the girls were about three at the time that we have twin daughters, they’re the youngest. And they came to me and said, Mommy, we want our cups in the bathtub. And I said, why? And they said, because we’re going to have our tea tucked in the tub. So, you know, I think, either that was a really good way for us during the season, just to take a short amount of time and go deeper. And that made a difference. You know,

Kari Olson
I’m wondering, did you go deeper in front of the kids? Like, did you feel like you were free to say, what was encouraging? Or what was challenging during your day in front of your children?

Susan Yates
I think you could, depending on the age of your kids. This we didn’t because we just really wanted 20 minutes, without little people pulling on us. Yeah. But you know, as kids get older, you know, I think dinner table is a great time to say, Okay, what was a half for you today? Yeah. And have each person share what was a love for you today and have each person share? So I think we do have to work going deeper in all of our conversations and training our kids to be good conversationalist.

Kari Olson
It really is a learned skill, isn’t it? Something you have to practice something you have to even the practice of, I’m going to take time to be interested in someone else today and not just your through the door. Let me tell you everything that that went on with me. I’ve done that horridly before and to take time to listen is such a good advice. Thank you. Thank you for that, Susan. We want to do this well, you know, we want to do this. Well, we’re everyone’s different. Everyone’s husband is different. Our situations are different. But would you say there is? Are there overall do’s and don’ts in supporting our husbands? Is there a everyone should do this? No one should do that. You know, like, we know, there’s dudes, there are do’s and don’ts that are pretty universal. Maybe, you know, do you think that there are?

Susan Yates
Oh, definitely. And I think the first thing really comes from Matthew 633. Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness and all these things, all these other things will be added unto it. And what that does for me, and this particularly relates to pastors wives, but it generally relates to everybody, no matter who you’re married to, or if you’re single, but we really need to nurture our own relationship with the Lord. If we want to support our husbands, they need to have the sense that they aren’t the end all and be all for us in any way. Because they can’t be. So I think the most crucial thing is that I set aside time alone in the morning to have a quiet time, in which I’m praying for my husband, I’m praying for my family, I’m in the scriptures. So that’s really the most important thing in life is that we’re nurturing our own relationship with the Lord, because no man can meet all of your needs. That’s just a fantasy. So that’s, that would be one thing. And in our time alone with the Lord, I think one of the main things we can do for our husbands is pray for him. And so I, I write down different things that I pray for my family each day, I have a little prayer notebook. But one of the things I pray for my husband is I pray for his time along with the Lord. Because it can be really easy in ministry, for our husbands to neglect that own one on one time with the Lord and go straight to preparation because they’re always preparing a message right? So I pray for his time alone with the Lord that God will bless him. I pray that God will give him a couple of guy friends to whom he can be accountable. You know, we women tend to know we need girlfriends, and I can talk about that in a bit. But the men maybe are not quite as aware of that need, but they desperately need other men in their life and In particular, with all, particularly with all the pastors that are falling by the wayside, a lot of that is because they don’t have any accountable men in their life. So it’s really important for our husbands to have one or two men who really know them know, and us with the girls who know where they’re tempted know where they’re hurting, know when they need encouragement. So that’s something very specific to pray for your husband, that God will give him a couple of other men who will really encourage his heart.

Kari Olson
That’s wonderful. That’s wonderful. So the do’s have time in the Word, nurture your own relationship with the Lord, and pray for him. Pray for him and pray in these some of these specific ways are pretty universal, pray for his time with the Lord and pray for his friendships. I really appreciate that. Are there any don’ts? Don’t have

Susan Yates
funny don’t yeah. Because I, I can be critical, what, which is the honest way of my husband’s sermons, and quick to tell him well, it would have helped if you would have said this, or you would have helped me cubed and clarified this, or you need a stronger application. So after a while, Johnny said to me, Look, we’re going to have a rule, you can’t say anything about my sermon on a Sunday. Nothing unless it’s a compliment, that has to wait until Monday. And then I’ve also had a little bit of time to process it and be more sensitive. So I would say, don’t say anything to your man on a Sunday, unless it’s something really good. That’s just a very practical dump.

Kari Olson
That is practical. You know, we all want encouragement, and they worked hard to you know, write this sermon and prepare for the Sunday morning. That is, that is wonderful. I definitely took time to tell him that about the music when he was a music pastor them you know, something that bothered me about the music, because I thought that was helpful, you know, so helpful. I’m not even very musical. So it does actually ring pretty balls. So don’t say anything on Sundays. Okay. That’s very practical. That is a wonderful, practical, don’t any, any other don’ts.

Susan Yates
Um, I think we forget how sensitive they are. And the more we can praise them, the more they’ll blossom. And I think that’s very important, fun, just little thing that I learned early on, when I was sort of dripping with babies. And John would walk in at the end of the day, and I would my hair would be a mess. And I’d have on a spit up t shirt. And I just wanted to prove to him that I had worked all day hard to just as he had. And I finally realized, you know, that’s not a real way to honor him, I need to put on the clean t shirt, put on some makeup, brush my hair, I need to be at the front door. And I need to have the kids at the front door. And we need to celebrate his homecoming. And so I just named that the importance of celebrating the greeting. You know, our husbands don’t want to drag into the house and have a nagging wife or grumpy kids screaming, they need to be celebrated. And so I would say think about the greeting and how you greet him and celebrate it and train your kids to be there to celebrate him as well.

Kari Olson
I love that. That’s really good. I love that. I will think about that. And it’s it’s important. I appreciate when someone says, Hi, you know, when I walk in the door. I had this wonderful practical wisdom. Thank you.

Kristen Wetherell
That’s great. I still haven’t known

Susan Yates
leaving the laundry, it means leaving the dinner prep, it means racing to the front door when that person comes. And that overflows into training your kids when other people visit as well.

Kristen Wetherell
That’s really good. Now I still have a note in my Bible that a dear friend wrote to me right before I got married, and I saved it and it was to that effect. It was basically like this, this really speaks volumes, you know, not only to the Lord, is it honoring, but to your husband. And yeah, I think I’m understanding that more and more because it is such a temptation to want to be like, I’ve looked at how horrible I look because I’ve been working my tail end off all day, you know? It’s like he typically doesn’t come in the house like that. For me, so that’s a really great point. Well, Susan, I shared this story at the beginning. You know, when when I was about to be newly married and people would ask, How are you feeling about being a pastor’s wife? And actually Carrie was really monumental. or in, in preparing me for marriage. She and her husband Tom did our premarital counseling and then Tom married us. So that was really sweet. But it is a it is a great gift to have people speaking into your, your young marriage, and particularly as a pastor and his wife. So what advice or counsel would you give to a young pastor’s wife who wants to create an atmosphere of honoring her husband in her home and supporting him?

Susan Yates
Well, I think the best piece of advice we got right before we were married, actually, again, relates to anybody whether you’re a pastor or not, but was to go out on the date once a week, and make a commitment to do that for the rest of your life. And so we said, Sure, that sounded really easy. And so when we were in seminary, we would get we had no money, and we would go to get some dessert and then go for a walk or go to a place like Home Depot and walk around and talk about what we get if we had any money was, it was a time of nurturing the friendship, it was not a time of talking about sharp. And so I think setting aside a protected time like that, where you’re just growing your friendship and having fun together. And in the beginning, it may be easy, it gets harder as your church grows, or as you move or as you have a bunch of kids, I’m remember, actually, when we were getting ready to go out on the date, when we had all the little kids, Allison, our oldest, who was probably about eight, was saying the blessing at dinners, I fed the kids before we left, and she said Dear Jesus, please help the babysitter to be able to handle us. And so there was a season one, I had to get to babysitters to handle them. But also I learned a lesson, don’t wait till you’ve got the kids off, fed and bathe, let the babysitter do that. You meet your husband somewhere. So he doesn’t even come home and go out from say five to eight. The nice thing about being married to pastors is usually there’s flexibility in their schedules, which a lot of people don’t have, most people don’t have they have regular hours. But on your date night, meet him somewhere go out, and then you can go home and go to bed. The kids will all be in bed. So it took me several years to figure that out. But I think making a priority of your marriage is absolutely crucial. And because it’s very hard when you’re in ministry, to do that, because you will always feel guilty. You know, I’m in ministry, he needs to go, I’m in ministry. And our whole life is about caring for our flock, which is wonderful. And it’s a privilege. And that’s something that I would say, over and over again, we have to remember that being in ministry is a great privilege. It’s an honor that we get to do this. But you do have to protect your marriage. And it’s hardest when you have kids, and you know all the different activities. But if you if you pour into your marriage during those really hard years, you will have the best time once you hit the empty nest, John and I are having the most fun we’ve ever had in our life. Right? Oh, and so I just want to encourage you in that. See, but you do have to be really disciplined and and you know, that has to do with the day off. I think it’s so important that we help our husbands protect their day off. And that means you educate your staff. You educate your congregation, whatever they offer. I mean, for many of us, it’s either Mondays or Fridays. And you have to let quietly the word out that this is my husband’s day off and have other people cover for him. And you’re not available unless it’s an emergency. And we three all know there’ll be many emergencies. Yeah, there are. And you have to be flexible with that because again, it’s part of our calling, but generally have him have a day off and sometimes give him a day off away from the family. Let him go for a hike or a bike ride. And one of the things that my husband has always encouraged young pastors is you need to have a hobby, you need to have something other than church. So we have a friend who’s a carpenter and he loves to build things. He has a carpentry studio, another who’s a biker, my husband loves horses. So you know, encourage your husband to have a hobby. And yes, spend time together on your day off but just particularly guarded

Kari Olson
Yeah, well that’s that That’s good. And that leads into something we really wanted to ask you. Because I know Kristen and I have had conversations with each other and other pastors wives, where, you know, some of our struggle in supporting our husbands is that, you know, we really need to our weekends just don’t look like our neighbors weekend us. You know, our weekends are if I sign the kids up for baseball, it’s me taking them to baseball, you know, it’s time, Saturday night service and a Sunday morning services what we do at our campus, but, you know, he is working on on Sunday, and we laugh when we consider the commandment Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy? Yeah. What does that mean? Typically for other people is, you know, no work rest? Well, then the pastor is the one who’s breaking the commandment, because that is his word. That is his word weekend. So how do we as wives, help them remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy? What? How do we do that for them, protect their worship, protect the rest? Or how do we communicate with them that we want to support them this way?

Susan Yates
I think that’s where it goes back to their day off. Okay, that is their Sabbath, you know, and God understands that. I mean, Saturday night and Sunday, yes, that’s worship, but it’s really kind of worship slash work. And so it goes back to their day off that you really help them protect that and encourage them to do what fills their cup. They sleep in, you get up with the kids, that might be something that happens. You go out to lunch, but you just protect their day off.

Kari Olson
Yeah, no. Are you saying no, honey, do lists no anything?

Susan Yates
Well, it, I wouldn’t. I have not kept that no honey, do dramas. But I would say just see it as their Sabbath. We just sort of changed perspective. This is Daddy Sabbath. And if you have some honey do lists, it just depends on your relationship with your husband. Yeah. You know, my husband will say to me, Susan, you’re an idea person, because I’m an idea person and a visionary. And he will say no more ideas today.

Kristen Wetherell
Yeah, but he’s up. He’s being honest with you. And that’s really wife that’s really refreshing. Yeah, I found one of the hardest things is I get a little I don’t know if the expression is Mama Bear, because I know that that more so pertains to our kids, but I get a little bit like mama bear, when on the day off? You know, he’s getting communication about stuff. And I’m just like, don’t do it. So what kind of on the same topic, but how would you advise us to support our husbands when they’re trying to discern, okay, is this the situation where I do need to step in? And like I do need to God is calling me to be present? Or is this the situation where I have to say boundaries up? I find that to be really hard!

Susan Yates
It’s hard. And that’s where you need somebody on your staff to step in and be his protector on his day off and discern. So I would say, Give someone that job, who’s on your staff on his day off, and have him put on his devices, hey, this is my day off, it was an emergency call. So so and so the designated person, but this is my day to spend time alone with the Lord in time with my family. Because not only is that protecting him, but that’s modeling for your people. Because there’s many folks out there who are also always on their devices and always on call, and not spending time with their kids or their wife. So if they see, oh, my pastor just turns his devices off or puts on a message that he’s not available today. Then, whoa, maybe I need to do that on a Saturday to the lawyer who works 18 hours a day, every day, or the businessman or the whatever. So you’re also modeling the importance of family?

Kristen Wetherell
Yeah, good. Yeah, that’s a good word. Have that person appointed?

Susan Yates
You have a person appointed? Yeah. And they’ll find you if there’s an emergency.

Kristen Wetherell
For sure. Right. Yeah, that’s a good piece of wisdom. Yeah, and I think related to this as is our hearts because if I’m being totally honest, I really wrestle sometimes with feeling resentment or bitterness, even though I know that it’s not right. And I and I, and I want so badly to free up my husband for the work of ministry with joy in my heart, and yet that War is so real against selfishness, self pity. So, you know, how can we? How can we be alerted to that? Where can we turn when we see that resentment kind of taking root in our hearts? And how can we fight against it?

Susan Yates
Oh, that’s a great question. I love that question. Because I think we can all identify with it. I remember one particular morning, after the kids were in school at this point, elementary school young, and my husband was off again. And I remember cuddling up on my couch and trying to have a quiet time being in the word praying. And all I kept thinking about was my husband and how I wished that he would do homework with the kids sometime. And that thing on the honey do list I asked him to do a week ago, it’s still not done. And I wanted to see everything about how I feel about what I do. And I wish you would appreciate X, Y, and Z. And the more I thought about him, the more critical I became. And I realized that I had fallen into what I call the picky trap, pick, pick pick. And what hit me was, Susan, what if he said, Look, honey, you take the night off, I’ll do all the homework. What if he had done that honey do thing on the honey do list right away? What if he had called me just in the middle of the day and said, Hey, I appreciate your calling her carpooling, the kids all around town, throughout the day, then what? And I realized that I would have simply thought of something else that dissatisfied me. And that’s just our sin nature, which does satisfy me. And it was a wake up call for me. And one of the practices that I began as a result of being caught in the picky trap, as I call it, was to ask the Lord to remind me every single day of one trait that I appreciated my husband, like, my husband is a very stable man, he doesn’t get real high or real. Down. He’s just Mr. Stability. And I really respect that. Whatever it is about your husband that you respect, you know, it may be that he takes care of all the machines, or he’s techie, or he’s a fixer, whatever it is, just ask the Lord to remind you of one thing every day.

And thank God for occasionally tell him I mean, don’t say it every day, because that becomes too can. But I call that the vitamin, the marriage vitamin is praising God for one trait that I appreciate in my husband. And that really helps us when we fall into the picky trap. But But there’s another thing that I’d love to mention that is just so crucial. And that is that we have a couple of girlfriends who really know us well, like you to have each other person and care of which I love. Because we desperately need someone else who knows all of our junk, knows where we’re tempted, knows that our sadness knows that our strengths, to who will encourage us cry with us when we need it, but encourage us. I remember one time, one of my prayer partners who was former church man, my good friends have always been from my church, you have to select carefully. And that’s probably a whole nother podcast. Pastors wives, fan friends.

There’s a lot to say about that. But I remember going for a walk with and my prayer partner and just I was mad with my husband on so many levels. And I just spewed and she was wonderful, because all she did was listen and say, I understand and I understand. And finally at the end of our conversation, she said, Susan, I need to ask you one question. She said, What are you doing to move closer to John? You know, that just got me. But basically, she called me out in a very loving way. And I realized, okay, Susan, you need to be be taking the initiative to move closer to him. It’s just a difficult season in life. So we need girlfriends, with to two motives to, you know, two goals in our lives and us in their lives. One is to always push us to Jesus, that’s first and foremost, and second to push us to our husbands. So, girlfriends are crucial.

Kari Olson
That’s wonderful. I I know that you know, we can do all we can to you know, search our own hearts for that resentment and that sin and confess it and try to make you know, our home and our greeting of him. You know what, what, what something that honors him and everything and yet still All, he is carrying heavy burdens sometimes and and he gets exhausted sometimes after after weeks years of ministry that are hard. What would you say to the pastor’s wife who who wants so desperately to support her husband, but he’s hurting? He’s, he’s depressed or discouraged, maybe over a long period of time, what is her hope?

Susan Yates
Well, I think our husbands go through seasons, just like we do that are difficult. But if you have a husband that is really discouraged and depress, first of all, encourage him to meet with a counselor, if that’s a good idea, or to find an older pastor in your location, or today with Zoom, you could meet with somebody online. But I think meeting with an older guy in person is really helpful. And of another denomination, just somebody who loves Jesus, who’s further down the road, it’s just somebody in a season ahead of you, or two seasons ahead of you. Because what they have is perspective. And you don’t have perspective when you’re, you know, in a hard season, and you’re younger. And so that can give you perspective, there’s also many places that a minister can go to a retreat center, just to be encouraged that there’s many of those today. So maybe he needs to get away for five days, and just go to a place where he can be poured into that is specifically geared to people in ministry.

Those are the two things I’d say a back to the hobby, he needs to have a hobby where he can just be off duty, which is important, okay, and a really crazy one is have sex. Now that might sound a little off. But a man needs to know that he’s desired, especially when he’s having a hard time. And you may not feel like it. But you initiated kidnap and go to a motel, if you have to send the kids away, attack him when he comes in the house. Here’s the reason. Men are so different than we are, you know, if we’re having a hard day and a girlfriend’s upset with us, or one of the kids is in a crisis, that’s kind of the last thing we’re thinking about. As women, we just want our husbands to curl up on the couch with us and hug us and tell us it’s going to be all right. But we’re not likely thinking of I want to make love, but a man if he feels that affirms him, and that says somebody desires me I’m respected, cared for. So I think don’t underestimate the power of initiating lovemaking with your man.

Kari Olson
So very supportive in that way. You’re his one and only, right?

Susan Yates
One and only, but then I say that I want to be sensitive that there will be women out there whose husbands aren’t interested. And I understand that. And often that can be for medical reasons. And it’s good to get a good physical and talk that through with the physician. But generally speaking, that can be just a like, Oh, my, somebody desires me, somebody respects me.

Kari Olson
We want that we want him to feel that affirmation from us, specifically in that way that only we can can do for him that is a real bomb, kind of a real, just a special special part of a marriage. Do you going back to something you said at the very beginning, you know that he cannot be everything for us? Right? That’s what I hear you saying here, you know, to the wife who is trying to desperately to support him and give him what he needs in not just the physical way but just emotionally and but she to realize I can’t be I’m not his savior. That’s right. I’m not his savior. He has a savior and it is Jesus. That is so good. It’s a hard road and I know there are wives who are walking that hard road with with a husband who’s exhausted. You know, you yourself said that when he retired, you didn’t realize how exhausted you were. What? Talk to us about that a little bit. How did how did you see that? After he retired?

Susan Yates
Well, we had a wonderful transition process. So our churches a great pattern for how you do this with a man who has been at the helm for 40 years and we’re bringing in a young A guy who was 39. And he’s wonderful. One of the things we, my husband and Sam signed a covenant, which they had. They interviewed a lot of people. How do you do this? Well, because you hear horror stories. And we did not appear at the church for a full year, in order to give Sam time to own it, and our people to transition to Sam. And then we’re back now serving, just as Sam wants us to. But when we first stepped aside, we had too many things booked right away. And we because we had no idea how exhausted we were, we just were numb. And we should not have planned, going and taking care of grandchildren and preaching somewhere else and traveling and speaking right away. So I would say if anybody is in this position where you are thinking about retirement, planning the first three weeks after you step aside to go somewhere alone, not with other people who are you, you can just crash get out of your house, because people will find you there in your house and go somewhere else.

Because you just need to sleep and be quiet you we get people down in ministry. And you just need time alone. And that was a big mistake we made because we walked into all of these activities numb and we’re grumpy. And I think had we first had three weeks alone, just to come down somewhere by ourselves. And one of the lovely things about being in ministry, there’s so many blessings about being in ministry. But one of them is usually you have somebody in your church who has a second home somewhere that they will. Right. And, and so ask, you know, ask for that. And that’s really something we have learned. Just related to that, because I know most of our listeners aren’t near retirement. But one of the mistakes that we made in terms of vacations was we would take a week here and a week there. And that really was not life giving because you go away, and especially if you have children, vacation doesn’t mean rest, it means Ryan and Lee camp. And so you have to change your expectations about vacation. So I would say take a minimum of 10 days, and probably two weeks is better.

Because the first couple nights, you’re just coming down. And then you maybe have two days, if you’re taking a week, and then you’re getting ready to go home. And you haven’t really had that time. So I wish that someone would have told us when you take your vacation take a minimum of two weeks. And we have for instance, usually in ministering, I know it depends on the church, you get a month. And we have for instance, take a whole month. And that’s even better. We could never do that. But that’s something that, again, I learned by making a mistake we learned by making mistake. But I just want to encourage our listeners that you’ll never get it all together. You know, we think well, one day, I’ll get there to that magical place where I walk with Jesus, trust Him. And don’t worry, our marriage is totally in sync. But we’ll never get there. In all honesty, as we grow. Yes, it gets better because we learn how to fit together. I see marriage as sort of like a jigsaw puzzle, where you know, a 2000 piece where you trying to learn how to fit all the pieces. And if you look at marriage like that, and you see God the artist has the final picture in his head. But we’ll never get it completely finished the side of heaven. Yeah. So it’s the process. It’s growing in process. And so if you just realize, okay, we’re just growing in the Lord, and we’re growing in our marriage, and we’re growing in our family, and make peace that you’ll never get there. It will release the pressure. It’s sort of like letting the air out of the balloon. And it’ll enable you more to enjoy the season that you’re in, rather than trying to get everything together. And what God wants quite honestly, is for us to become more dependent on him not less, right?

Kristen Wetherell
Yeah. No, that’s that made me think of I mean, the verse that you shared first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you, you know, the what is our primary pursuit? It’s, it’s him. And if if the hard times the times when we fail the times when we’re sinners, if that pushes us toward him more than Praise be to God for His grace right is Vida Yeah. Well, Susan, what a wealth of wisdom and practical advice that you have been to esterday thank you so much.

Susan Yates
Oh, well it’s been so much fun. Love your vision and you’re doing a great job.

Kari Olson
Thank you.

Kristen Wetherell
Back at you, sister. Thanks for joining us today.

Susan Yates
You’re welcome.

Kristen Wetherell
Well, Kari, that was so good. I will never turn out an opportunity to listen to someone who has been in ministry for over 50 years. Right. Teach us, please. It was so good. She is so dear. No, I personally loved that she and her husband made it a priority to carve out those 20 minutes, most days of the week to be together. Yeah, how she got her kids to stay in the other room? I don’t know. Right? Answer that question. Just the practicalities of that. But I loved your point, right. Like you’re you’re not just functioning together, you’re not just meeting together to solve a problem. You’re here to connect with a person, you know, you’re we’re here to connect with our husbands. And so that may not look for for us or for our listeners like 20 minutes uninterrupted, you know, dinner might look very different. It could be on the date night, loved, loved that she emphasized that. But that really stood out to me as as being important and integral part of what it means to support our husbands.

Kari Olson
Right? You know, I did too. And I think just for me, she was so she was so joyful. She was so ready and interested in supporting her husband, but she was very clear on a do for every pastor’s wife, how to support your husband, spend time with the Lord, spend time with the Lord nourish your own relationship with Him. Do not be deceived, you cannot support your husband. Well, if you’re not spending time with the Lord, we can’t do it on our own. And, you know, it’s funny, because when she said that there have been times Tom has said to me, like, I feel like you are you should have talked to the Lord about that first before he talked to me or something like there’s he he could tell. He can tell when Yeah, I am running to him instead of running to the Lord. And that is truly a disservice to him. It’s a burden on him. So that really stuck out stuck out to me. I was really thankful that she said that. Because all of us can do that. All of us need to do that no matter where we are or who we are as pastors, wives, and many different experiences we have with our husbands and supporting our husbands. But this one thing is important. And to our sisters, then in the front row seat. Remember that remember, God sees you. He sees you and he supports you. It gives you everything you need for life and godliness, including supporting your own husband in his ministry. Thanks for joining us today.