Tips: black flats

When I first started as a pastor's wife 16 years ago, I wish there had been a book of practical advice available to me. It would have helped me avoid some stupid mistakes and hard lessons. Maybe I should write a book. Not one of those super spiritual aids that say 'just pray harder and be holier', but a book that really lets you have insight and special information tailored for the pastor's wife or any woman in the ministry.

Here's one piece of information I could have used the first month of my tour as pastor's wife:

High heels sink in soft ground at gravesites. You need a pair of black, low heeled shoes for funerals.

Just two weeks after becoming pastor at Coweta, Gary was called upon to conduct a funeral for a relative in our church. Gary had not conducted many (I really think ANY) and I, as a dutiful and supportive wife, took off work to go with him and help with the dinner.

This relative lived in Porter, OK. There are more than a few, shall we say, 'underpaved' streets in the town of Porter. When we turned off the main thoroughfare onto a single laned roughly paved street, I thought for sure we had turned onto someone driveway. It was so narrow that if there had been a vehicle coming the other way, both would have had to drive on the grass. It was the only access to the town cemetary. The snowy remains of a winter storm puddled in the many ruts and potholes on that cold February day. As we turned into the entrance of the cemetary the road gave up any pretense of paving. There were no sidewalks, gravel paths, paths cut by animal tracks... nothing.

A sharp wind ripped at my coat as I had exited the car making the tempature feel colder than the thawing ice and snow foretold. There it was. The funeral canopy situated over an open gravesite. It was a good fifty feet away in the middle of the cemetary. There was nothing between it and my high heeded black pumps than soggy, cold, mushy, sparse winter grass. As I hesitated, I asked God again if this is what He had in mind for me. Noticing my hesitation, Gary looked back, stretched out his hand and said, "Are you coming? Are you all right?" And again, this time in freezing mud up to my ankles, I had to recommit to being a pastor's wife.

Buy a pair of black flats. You can always change in the car on the way to the cemetary