How To Make A Priest's Wife

I never wanted to be a priest's wife.

When I was a teenager, I had friends who thought they would want to marry priests.  Frankly, I thought they were a little crazy.  Who would voluntarily set out to choose a harder life?  Hindsight being what it is, I now realize that they were simply braver than me, but at the time, it sure didn't make much sense.

When I was 18, I met an amazing man--smart, funny, handsome, the works--and for reasons I have yet to fathom, the attraction was mutual.  Come 19, I had a diamond on my finger.  We talked and dreamed together about our future.  He was dedicated to the church, but when I asked him if he ever thought he'd be clergy, his answer was a resounding, "No."  His Dad was a priest, his younger brother was almost for sure going to be a priest.  He was (and is) proud of them, but it was their "thing," not his.  Fine by me!

Fast forward a few months to two weeks past my 20th birthday (somebody was adamantly opposed to marrying a teenager), and our wedded life began.  We were going to be a regular married couple, and it was going to be great.

My husband has a wonderful singing voice and is very musically inclined, so when, a few months after the wedding, our priest asked if he would consider being tonsured a Reader, we thought and prayed, and decided yes, this would be a wonderful use of his talents.  He was tonsured that Christmas.  A year or two went by, and he started to see a growing need for deacons.  He completed the necessary studies, and was asked to become a deacon.  I held our first child, who was six weeks old at the time, as I watched him be ordained to the Deaconate.  At this point in time, we figured he would be a deacon for the rest of his life.  People would ask off and on if he ever planned to be a priest, and he would laugh, think to himself, "That's ludicrous," and tell them the same thing he had told me before we got married--my Dad's a priest, my brother (who by this time had been ordained) is a priest.  Not me.

A few years went by.  We had another baby, then another.  And then, our Bishop dropped the bombshell sentence: "I want to ordain you to the Priesthood."  I recall my initial response being something along the lines of, "Uhhh....."  I figured he would be great, and I would be a nightmare.  He thought the same, only in reverse.  So we prayed.  We talked.  I cried.  He comforted me.  I cried some more.  We agonized.  We prayed again, and again, and again.  What was God's will?  What was it?  How can we find it?  How can we be sure of it?  How can we do it?  Are we really old enough to make this decision?  Surely somebody should be asking our parents.

Above all, we wanted to say "Yes" to God.  Whatever His will for our lives was (and is) all we wanted to do was say "Yes."  So after years (I kid you not) of praying, we finally found peace with the realization that God was, in fact, calling him--and by extension, myself and our children--to be a priest.  So we said yes when the Bishop asked, for the third time, to ordain him..  We applied to the Ordination Review Board.  And we waited.  And waited.  And waited.  Eight months went by.  Then a letter came.  The ordination was approved.  The Bishop would be here in three weeks.

Beg pardon?  Three weeks?  Surely we read that wrong.  But nope, there it was, plain as day.  Three weeks.  We frantically called family and friends, and experienced our own little Pentecost when cheap (really cheap) plane tickets were found.  Seriously, it was like the Holy Spirit had descended upon Travelocity.com (which is--I'm sure--exactly what happened.  Glory to God for all things!).

Twenty one days galloped by with unnerving speed, and suddenly there I stood, seven months pregnant with our fourth child, tears streaming down my face, as 300 people around me shouted, "Axios!" at my husband's ordination to the Holy Priesthood.  Boom--he was a priest and our lives changed forever.  Quite honestly, I'm still not entirely sure how it happened, except that God willed it.  And because He willed it, we are now embarking on a journey that was neither expected nor anticipated, but it most assuredly blessed.

And now here I am.  A khouria.  A matushka.  A presbytera.  A priest's wife.  It still catches me off guard, and possibly always will.  May God continually bless my steps, so I don't royally screw it up.  And when I do, may He give me the strength to scrape myself off the floor and keep walking.

 Thank you for visitng Khouria's Neighborhood.  Here are links to "like" me on Facebook or follow me on Pinterest.