Atypical Pastors Wife - 30-ish Thankful Days

30-ish Thankful Days - Snow Days

12/2/2025

Day 22

Today was the first snow day of the year. I got up at my regular time, but my hubby slept in a little. After finishing some laundry, cleaning up the kitchen, and having my devotions, I decided to tag along to the gym with the hubs. I was away for a week and have been fighting a sinus infection since getting home, living on Luden's sugar-free cough drops and Hall's that clear all the noses in the room when you suck on them.

After going to the gym, we stopped at Dunhams to look for a pair of navy blue sweat pants. I've been wanting a pair for a along time. I figured that since Penn State is switching from Nike to Addidas, maybe they would have some they'd like to unload. No luck. Darrell mentioned that Family Clothesline or the Student Bookstore would have some, we drove downtown. I got a pair that are more than long enough on sale for a really reasonable price. Since we were 3 hours out from the basketball game, and we hadn't eaten anything but a half bowl of soup before going to the gym, we decided to stay downtown and grab some dinner. We split a bowl of chili and a hamburger. He also added some onion rings for me - because I love them, and we had a grilled sticky with ice cream for dessert.

After dinner, we drove home, washed the gym off, and headed out to Bryce Jordan Center for the PSU basketball game. They won. It was ugly, but we'll take it.

We weren't expecting to be off today, but it was an exceptionally good day for us both. Every now and then, it's good to have unexpected interruptions, especially when you get to spend them with people you love.

Today, I'm thankful for surprise snow days, good fellowship, and grilled stickies w/ ice cream!

30-ish Thankful Days - One Thing I Know

11/26/2025

Day 21

It's after Thanksgiving that I begin to look back through my journal and think about my life over the last year. As I read through my journal from 2025, there was one predominant theme, God is Faithful!

I've seen His faithfulness in every realm of life, spiritually, emotionally, and physically. I've seen His provision in all of those areas in ways that were miraculous and undeniably Him.

There is absolutely no reason to doubt Him, even in the hardest of times. As Psalm 84:5-8 tells us that even in the hardest of times, if we will dig deep in Him, we will find refreshment where others only find pain. I can attest to this and I now have a whole different view of hard places because I know that of all the places I will find Him near, it is definitely there.

He is always loving, always powerful, always faithful!

Today, I'm thankful for the constant, eternal, faithfulness of God.

30-ish Thankful Days - Hand in Hand

11/26/2025

Day 20

Psalm 66:8-9
Bless our God, O peoples, And sound His praise abroad,
Who keeps us in life And does not allow our feet to slip.

Psalm 37: 23-24
The steps of a man are established by the Lord,
And He delights in his way.
When he falls, he will not be hurled headlong,
Because the Lord is the One who holds his hand.

Psalm 56 :13
For You have delivered my soul from death,
Indeed my feet from stumbling,
So that I may walk before God
In the light of the living.

When I was a little girl, my dad used to take me on long walks. Some days, we'd be gone all afternoon. I didn't talk much those days, but he never seemed to mind. He often told me stories about his childhood, talked about his work, or shared some of his dreams. I was just little, small enough that when I got tired, he'd pick me up and put me on his shoulders for awhile.

What I remember most was how calloused and strong His hands were. Sometimes he took me to the Antietam Creek where we walked on the rocks, looked at the carp, and avoided the water snakes. (Perhaps that is why I have no fear of snakes now.) His strong hand kept me from falling into the rushing water. Other times we were on unlevel sidewalks, or in grassy fields and if I slipped or tripped over my long legs and big feet, his hand would tighten around mine and keep me from scraping a knee or elbow. That's just what a good father does. The verses above remind me of him.

My father is gone now, but God is not. His hand is still holding mine as I walk, stumble, and sometimes blunder through life. And in those times when I let go of His hand and fall, He reaches down, pulls me to my feet, brushes me off, and we continue on, together. When I'm tired, He carries me, just like my dad did. And as long as I hold tightly to His hand, I am safe and right where I need to be, no matter what circumstances I face.

Today, I am thankful for the strong hand of God that keeps me from falling headlong! (And for my dad, of course!)

30-ish Thankful Days - The Pretty Amazing Provision of God

11/26/2025

Day 19

I read a book by George Mueller called "The Life of Trust." It is basically his journals and notes about all the ways that God provided from his earliest days until his death. The man was a mad journaler, and recorded every single day's blessing, literally down to the very penny. At first, I thought, oh, what a boring book this is going to be! For chapters and chapters it was a daily recording of everything from receiving enough money to have dinner to funding a publication project to funding an orphanage, then another, then another. But in all the monotony, a blessed pattern emerged. GOD IS FAITHFUL! Pretty soon, I couldn't wait to see what God was going to provide and how He was going to do it. It was a tremondous faith builder and it just so happened that I started reading the book right before I lost my job.

For 6 months, I have been without work, but God has provided for us. When I thought I needed a plane ticket, it just happened to be almost the same price as my truck payment, which was paid off the month before. When money was tighter in the summer because my husband works less in the summer, there were extra funds to cover the difference. When our income dropped by 85% in one week, God made up the difference by going ahead of us and making sure that the provision was in place when we needed it. When I needed clothes for my new job that is starting soon, God must have moved on a whole lot of tall women to clean out their closets and donate the clothes to the thrift store because I got a bunch of really nice clothes (many with the tags still on them) for next to nothing. That's my Jehovah Jireh.

However, God's greatest and most amazing provision came to us through the life, death, and ressurection of His Son. When there was no way out of our sin problem, God provided the Lamb that came and took away the sins of the world. He died for my sins. He paid my debt, one that I could have never been able to repay. Honestly, it just seems silly to not trust God for our needs when He has so completely and utterly saved us from sin! What a cost! WHAT A SAVIOR!

Today, I am thankful that God delights in meeting our smallest and greatest needs!

30-ish Thankful Days - What Now?

11/26/2025

Day 18

As I mentioned before, my week in Michigan was a tremendous blessing! It was the culmination of months and months of interviews, background checks, reference checks, and prayer.

After leaving full-time ministry and stepping into the role of lay person, I felt a little displaced and in the church we were attending, a little tethered as well. From what I've read and known from other pastor's wives, that is not an unusual feeling but I had to ask the Lord, "What now?" There were no Bible studies to lead, no events to plan, no women to mentor, and no Sunday school classes to teach. I didn't do those things because I was a pastor's wife, I did those things because God had gifted me to do them and now there was no opportunity for me do them. So I struggled with what I was supposed to be doing.

Then I saw an email and felt a check from the Holy Spirit to read it. It was about a parachurch ministry that was looking for mature, experienced women to minister to women leaders in the church. They may be female staff members, lay leaders, or pastor's wives who could use someone to walk alongside them through a period of time or for the long haul to provide a safe place for prayer and fellowship, while they build the local church under their pastor, and to build connections with other ministry women in their region. That's right up my alley! ( I learned quickly in ministry that it can be a lonely and vulnerable place and always wished that I had another woman in ministry to talk to.)

I honestly didn't think that they would respond to my application because only 5% of applicants are accepted but on Thursday morning, I became an official ambassador. So now, my main ministry is to pray for those on my contact list. Then in the new year, I will start contacting them to see what I can do to support them and how I can bless them so that they can bless their local body.

Today, I'm thankful that God is not done with yet, in fact, He may be just getting started!

30-ish Thankful Days - My Spiritual Upbringing

11/24/2025

Day 17

Our upbringing affects so many things about the kind of people that we are and the kinds of lives that we live. Likewise, our spiritual upbringing also affects the way we walk in the Lord. In my 40+ years as a Christian, I become more and more thankful for the spiritual upbringing that I received. I don't know everything, but I have a relationship with God that I am so thankful for. It didn't come easy, nothing worth having does, but it has given me a life of joy and peace that goes beyond anything I would have ever imagined I could have. It has allowed me see and recognize the Lord working in my life, in the lives of those I love, and in the world. And it is so nice to know that He is right in the middle of all the craziness in this world.

The Lord put me into a praying family. I honestly believe that it was the prayers of my in-laws that brought me to the Lord. My father-in-law was a great man of prayer and he fasted and prayed every Wednesday for the souls of those he knew that were lost. My husband's aunt is also a great woman of prayer, as you learned from a previous post, who hears and knows the voice of God and has a deep, practical understanding of the Word. Even after being a Christian for 70 years, her faith is still fresh and active and growing. I learn so much from her. Listening to them pray and seeing their deep relationships with God taught me much about how to live and walk in the Word and prayer.

The most influential person though was my pastor, who also happens to be my husband. He is a serious student of the Word, he always has been. He has never made scripture say something that it didn't. He never stretched or diminished what the Word was saying to fit his agenda or a denominational structure. He just presented it for what it said and that is the foundation that I built my life upon. I've always considered having him to teach me a tremendous blessing and it is his teaching that grounded me in the Word in such a way that in the most difficult times of my life, the practicality that I learned through His teaching of the Word, helped me navigate the most difficult times of my life.

I realize that this is such a great gift! Many are fed weak and compromised spiritual food which produces a weak and compromised life. Many struggle with scriptures that don't make sense to a common sense person because they've been skipped over or squeezed into the mold of a denominational teaching, changing the meaning and making it void and without power in their lives.

I don't know everything, of course, but I know the One who does and I know how to reach Him and I know that He hears and moves. I know He can be trusted with the things I don't understand because He's been so faithful to prove Himself in the things that I do understand.

Today, I am thankful for a spiritual upbringing that equipped me to know, love, and experience a real relationship with God.

30-ish Thankful Days - Jesus Loving Ladies

11/23/2025

Day 16

As I mentioned, I was in Michigan for training all last week. The training was intense, so I barely had time to sleep much less blog. So I'm catching up on my thankful days, but oh, how thankful I am!

Did you ever meet someone and you just knew that they were a Christian and there's just an immediate connection that you can't explain? That is what happened to me with 14 Jesus loving ladies ladies last week. They came from the 4 corners of the U.S. - Florida, California, Mississippi, Indiana, South Carolina, Texas, and Pennsylvania (that we me, of course!) I immediately bonded with my roommate. We sat down on the couch and before we knew it were talking about the deepest parts of ourselves with each other.

Over the next 3 days, we learned all about each other (the good, the bad, and the ugly) as we also learned the vision, history, and practical aspects of the ministry, worshipped together, prayed together, and participated in a commissioning service and prayer with the board of directors. We all expressed that we felt that we were closer with each other after just 3 days than a lot of us were with the people we go to church with. To be honest, we didn't want to leave when it was over.

I know that we will be there for each other as we put our training to use and embark on this new chapter in our Christian lives. And it will certainly be a highlight to see each other at the annual meetings and conferences.

There is just nothing like having that Spirit connection with other women and to be united together in the same ministry is just the icing on the cake.

Today I'm thankful for Jesus loving ladies and the Spirit who bonds us together.

30-ish Thankful Days - Praying Aunts and the Holy Spirit

11/23/2025

Day 15

I traveled to Michigan and back this week. I’m not used to driving that far alone but it was a pretty straightforward route and I didn’t have to navigate any large cities. Still, it seemed a little daunting, but hey, we all need to do things that stretch us from time to time.

I had checked with my friend from AccuWeather and she assured me that weather-wise I should be fine both coming that going. As I approached the highest point of Rt. 80, I saw flashing yellow lights in the darkness ahead. Uh-oh, I thought, that’s not good. Why are the salt trucks out? Then it started, one snowflake at a time until there was a full-blown squall. Fortunately, it was just a squall that left the roads wet, but not treacherous and I soon drove out of it as I headed west. The rest of the journey was uneventful and smooth, thanks to the new mirrors on my truck that allowed me to see my blind spots, EZpass, and gingerbread chai lattes from Starbucks that allowed me to just roll through the toll booths along the way while fully awake.

When Thursday rolled around, I started out to come home after a wonderful week of ministry training, really good fellowship, and a delicious Mexican lunch. Everything went well until after dinner. There were a lot of trucks on the road. At one point the road separated as Rt 80 went west and the other road went north. I was in the left lane and an 18-wheeler was in the right and both resolved into only one lane. At the last minute, the truck realized that he was in the wrong lane and swerved just before split into my lane. I jammed on the brakes and he swerved onto the shoulder and I saw up close all the bolts holding his trailer together as they came dangerously close to my windshield. I just began thanking God for angels that had to have been on duty because it was just too close of a call to have been avoided any other way. Just as we got onto Rt. 80 and up to full speed, a black car passed and got in front of me. That same trucker changed lanes just as I was getting into the farthest left lane and the black car swerved in front of me and I swerved sharply to miss him on the narrow shoulder. Now it was the kind of swerve where you normally would lose control of your car at such a high rate of speed, but somehow, I didn’t and was able to get back on the road without a mishap. Again, angels at work.

Several hours later, I was noticing that highway hypnosis was setting in. You know what I mean, right, when your eyes are open but you know that your brain is not fully engaged? So I called my favorite relic, Aunt Ick, to chat. She had just laid down in bed to listen to music. She didn’t know that I was driving, or that I had even been away. She shared with me how she had been praying before bed and just couldn’t shake the feeling that someone she knew was in danger and needed prayer. She prayed for everyone that she could think that it might be, but was still burdened with that feeling, so she just prayed until it went away. She said, “I don’t know who it was, but I definitely know that someone was in danger and needed prayer.” I exclaimed, that was me, Ick! I asked when she was praying, and it was exactly the time that I had almost been in a terrible accident.

Prayer knows no boundaries, time zones, or distance. A prayer can reach clear around the world to whoever needs it. But it must be prayed! That’s our part. We must learn to know the Lord’s voice and be sensitive to His voice. Someone’s life might just depend on it.

Today I’m thankful for angels (aunts) that pray and angels that move as a result of those prayers!

30-ish Thankful Days - Sticky People (Devotion)

11/16/2025

Day 14

I have to confess. I read a little ahead in today's sermon text. The sermon was good, but something drew my eyes to Romans 12:10.

10 Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves.

Sometimes this is a very hard thing to do. I've had few people in my life who I could say "stuck closer than a brother", as Proverbs 18:24 describes, but oh, what a blessing they are! When things got ugly and it was inconvenient and uncomfortable, they were my "sticky people."

I know I mention this every year in November, but to be honest, I am just as thankful for these people as I have ever been because they played a such a significant role in helping me through my valley.

Now, I want to be that for them and for others because I have experienced the blessing and necessity of it first hand. There are many examples of devotion in scripture, in history, and in what is happening in the church worldwide. Our greatest example is Christ Himself, of course, whose devotion to the plan of God and to humankind cost Him everything.

My prayer today is that I would be someone that this could be written of.

Today, I am thankful for my "sticky friends."

30-ish Thankful Days - Eternal Perspective

11/16/2025

Day 13

I'm taking a road trip! I'm a little nervous because I'm traveling alone but I'm excited because it is the culmination of two years of prayer and preparation that will give me a wonderful ministry opportunity. I stumbled upon it quite by accident (most likely, providence). At work, while clearing out emails that I didn't normally read, I felt a check when I came to one of them that I usually deleted from a well known ministry.

It had been about two years since we left a lifetime of full-time ministry, and frankly, I was feeling a little lost, ministry-wise. After years of being "The Pastor's Wife," the one who does everything that others either can't do or won't do, I found myself doing very little, comparatively. I had been praying about it for several months but had not felt any leading from the Lord until that day when the stray email caught my attention.

So, in five days, I will have a unique ministry opportunity that is right in my "spiritual wheel house" and perfectly lined up with the giftings God has given me. That makes the hours of preparation, the busyness of the last few days fixing a weeks worth of breakfasts, lunches and dinners for my family, and the 8 hour drive totally worth it!

As exciting as this is, there is a road trip I am looking forward to even more! One day, Jesus is coming back to call us all home. I hope it's in my lifetime because I think it would be totally awesome to hear that trumpet, be ripped from the earth, and be changed in the last millisecond of time that I will ever know. Whether it happens that way or not, I don't know, but I do know that one day, all the fears, pains, trappings, frustrations, and challenges of living in this crazy world will be over and I will be forever with Jesus, who is busy preparing a place for me where I will be with Him. That is something I carry with me every day. I call it eternal perspective as I measure everything that happens on earth against what scripture tells me about Heaven. It keeps me grounded, hopeful, and anticipating with joy and expectation. It also makes the things my mind wants to make a mountain, a molehill in comparison.

Today, I am thankful for an eternal perspective that keeps me grounded here on earth!