I am in the process of finishing my memoir On Becoming a Minister’s Wife with writing a chapter on “Reflections.”

The body of the memoir takes me from not wanting to be a minister’s wife through the first nine years of living the role. Two years ago I wrote 50,000 words during the National November Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) in a stream of consciousness style. This past year I’ve been reordering, editing, deleting, and adding to those words so they would make sense to someone other than myself. Now that part is readable, thanks to my writers’ group friends, who have listened to me read it twice. They are due much praise for endurance.

I am struggling with this last chapter. My husband, Richard, celebrated his fiftieth year of ordination in 2013. From 1963 to 1993 he served five churches, retired for health reasons, but continued to enjoy preaching as a supply for several years. Our lives were so intertwined, how do I sum up those years for myself?

Questions I am seeking to answer include:

What did I like or didn’t like about my role?

How did it affect my life as a wife and mother?

What did it teach me about myself?

Would I do it again? Yes, I would, provided I was married to the same man. I think perhaps that is the key to all my answers.

Corinthians 13:13 “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”