The Minister’s Wife: A Memoir of Faith, Doubt, Friendship, Loneliness, Forgiveness, and More

The Minister’s Wife: 

A Memoir of Faith, Doubt, Friendship, Loneliness, 

Forgiveness, and More

By Karen Stiller

Tyndale Momentum, May 2020

256 pages

Reviewed by Kim Getty

BEING THE WIFE of a minister is a unique role to fill – there are not many occupations that come with what can sometimes be a long list of expectations for the spouse of the person hired. Preconceived notions of how to look, how to act and what jobs are acceptable often just come with the territory. In The Minister’s Wife: A Memoir of Faith, Doubt, Friendship, Loneliness, Forgiveness, and More, Karen Stiller offers a very transparent look into her experience. (The book doesn’t try to speak to the experience of a man married to a minister, but tells Stiller’s own very personal story.) 

As she shares stories of her life in the church with her husband, it quickly becomes evident that her life is the furthest thing from what some might expect to be “holy and boring.” Having been “married to the minister” myself for nearly 19 years, I found the book to have a refreshing authenticity and honesty. Thematically arranged into chapters that match the subtitle, the book draws the reader into Stiller’s world. With candor and genuine wit, Stiller gives a rare glimpse behind the scenes and into the mind, heart, and truly the soul of someone in a role that isn’t always well understood, and bravely gives voice to the things that others in her position would more often keep hidden. 

In the very first few paragraphs, Stiller describes the all-too-common experience that clergy spouses have when meeting new people. She tells a story of a vacation during which she and her husband met another couple that they quickly connected with. A few days later, something changed, and not for the better. “One look at Brent and I knew what had happened,” writes Stiller – they had asked what her husband did for a living. This story, shared with unflinching honesty, gives the book a very personal feel. It’s as if you could just as easily be enjoying a chat with the author over a cup of coffee.

Stiller doesn’t hesitate to share her struggles and her mistakes plainly. She recalls moments when she had hoped to be a great strength to her husband and ultimately failed, as well as some more mundane but still startling experiences: “If you leave certain people alone in your kitchen, they will look (in your cupboards).”  Stiller names some of the darker experiences with authenticity and authority. For instance: “This is what Christmas is like in a clergy household: like everyone else’s Christmas, only worse…How we celebrated Christmas did not feel like it matches with what we celebrated, and the spiritual disconnect stumped me every year.” In “Friendship,” Stiller also acknowledges the deep challenges of having friendships within the church, and the reality that “it can be even more difficult to make friends outside of it, where most people think you are a weirdo.” 

She offers encouragement when she writes, “When I feel alone or lose the desire to pray…I try to remember all that I do know instead of what I do not know.” She recounts moments of deep hurt, and yet follows them up with the truth that “we have been given forgiveness as a holy chore and a command to obey.” Stiller also offers reminders that when we are in a place of questioning the most, we need to hang on to the truth of who God is and what He asks of us in the here and now all the more. “Faith comes alive in the doing. Holy is and holy does,” she writes.  

In The Minister’s Wife, Stiller affirms that yes, sometimes the church hurts. But she witnesses to the fact that the church also heals. Those who lead in the church, as well as those who support them “will need courage and warm, sturdy hearts.” 

This book is a great read for anyone who is a minister’s wife or who cares about a minister’s wife. It leaves us with the truth that the Christian life is not a journey to be taken alone, only together – with the Lord, and with each other.   TAP

Kim Getty serves alongside her husband, Alan, and their 5 young children in Meota Parish in the Diocese of Calgary. She has a background in education, and enjoys reading, crafting, and exploring the great outdoors.