As I was serving at our Indiana District’s Women of Worth Tea, the speaking was talking to the widows of licensed ministers and my mind went back many years to my personal situation. At the young age of 18 I became a minister’s wife, a full-time evangelist wife at 20 years old and, just as quickly as I became a minister’s wife, I was not.
After nearly two years of being on the road in a 32 foot travel trailer, preaching revivals throughout the state, it all came to a stop on a late summer day at the District UPCI Campground. An all day meeting was held which resulted in the revoking of my then husband’s ministerial license. It was quite a scandal and I was no longer a minister’s wife – actually within months I was not a wife at all, but a single mother, with a two year old child with disabilities.
As I listened to the speaker encouraging the widows to find whatever they could find to do I remembered that being exactly what I made a decision to do in 1986 when my world was turned upside down, dreams crushed, trust broken, and heart broken. I could make a decision to become bitter, blame God for my situation or find whatever I could find to do for the Kingdom.
My father was a church planter and I began serving in his church playing music and leading worship. I served in any way that I could find to serve in addition to music whether it was baking cookies for bake sales, teaching Sunday school, picking people up for church, etc. (There was always something to do in Home Missions!)
Several years later I met a young man who asked me to be his wife and he adopted my daughter who was five years old at the time we married. We have served together in any way we saw a need for 30 years now. He has never had a ministerial license but we have found that “ministering” does not require a license. We have served in music ministry, special events such as banquets and Sunday school contests, janitorial services, bible studies, new convert discipleship, etc.
My life may have not followed the path I thought it was going to but I am a witness of the faithfulness of God when we are faithful to Him even when heartbreak blindsides us in this thing called life. “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might…..” (Ecclesiastes 9:10)
Submitted by Chris Hunter
