What degree of transparency should be expected of a pastor's wife? I've heard this debated in so many ways so many times, but no one seems to have an answer. It's not just pastor's wives who struggle with knowing this, I would bet. It's most Christians, and maybe especially Christian women.
As Christian women it sometimes feels like we should be a Bible carrying version of the perfect fifties woman in her heels and pearls. I'm certainly not against any of those things--I'd be lost without the Bible (ever think of how much we take our copies of God's word for-granted?), and I love a shiny new pair of heels just as much as the next girl. But sometimes it seems like we should be so perfect that we're no longer real.
It kind of makes me think of being outside, and the different kinds of beauty. You can go to botanical gardens and see well planned flowers bloom in perfect, well manicured order, and it's beautiful. You can see the hand of God all over it. At the same time, though, a little purple wildflower in the woods, lifting itself boldly among the leaves and brush is beautiful too. One's polished. One's rough. Is one better?
I'm not sure we can say. Just like I'm not sure anyone can even definitively answer the question I'm asking. Maybe being transparent is right and being a little more careful to project an image worthy of imitating (although it should be Jesus that people should ultimately want to imitate) is right sometimes too.
I don't think I have an answer. How's that for an attempt at transparency?
What do y'all think?
