A Tale of the Pastor’s Wife, Easter, and Great Expectations

The Saturday night before Easter, I sat alone in my bedroom feeling guilty. I had not planned for a big Easter dinner. There would be no ham or potatoes. No green beans or carrot cake. I did not have special Easter clothes set aside for myself or my son. We had no Easter plans at all beyond the morning we’d spend at church. I sat alone, feeling guilty, because my great expectations had not come to light until that very day. As a pastor’s wife, busy serving the church, I hadn’t stopped to consider my own family’s Easter celebration. When I looked back into years past, my guilt only grew. We don’t have any family photos from Easter. I couldn’t find any evidence of past Easter meals or any traditions at all. The following is the tale of this pastor’s wife, Easter, great expectations, and guilt.

WHERE DID THE GREAT EXPECTATIONS COME FROM?

To address my sense of guilt, I had to ask myself a simple question: Where did these great expectations come from? The answer: I don’t know exactly…but most likely social media. Sure enough, as soon as we got home from church on Easter Sunday, I started to see photos pop up online. Family photos with carefully coordinated outfits. Hand-dyed Easter eggs. Large family gatherings with backyard Easter egg hunts. Family members gathered in the kitchen around counters overflowing with food.

Some people base their great expectations upon experiences or traditions from childhood. I have a couple of memorable Easters that resemble the photos I referenced above. Being that my dad is a pastor, those Easter celebrations were not at our home. They were planned and executed by close family friends. As a child, I don’t think I recognized this detail, but I see it now. It’s really hard for the pastor’s family to create a picture-perfect Easter celebration at home. I’ll talk more about that farther down. For now, I’ll say that my great expectations were a result of jealousy. I wanted what I’d seen in photos. I wanted what other families seemed to have.

WHAT IS EASTER REALLY ABOUT?

I’m a pastor’s wife. I know that Easter is a celebration of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. I know that because of his great work, I am saved. My debt is paid. Salvation is mine now and forevermore. There is no animosity between me and God. When the Father looks at me, he sees the righteousness of his Son. I know all of this. I do. This is what Easter is really about. This is what matters. It’s why we celebrate at all. Saying this makes the great expectations seem silly, but deep down, because of my sin, I still wanted what I did not have.

WHY I FAILED TO PLAN MY FAMILY’S EASTER CELEBRATION

The responsibility is mine. I didn’t plan for my family’s Easter celebration. Why? Because of exhaustion. Because I prioritized my time elsewhere. Easter (kind of like Christmas) weighs heavily on a pastor’s family. There’s a long to-do list at church. There are events to plan and many hours spent serving. There’s an exhaustion that surely oppresses the pastor most of all, but does not leave his family untouched. Our Easters (as well as our Christmas days) are anticlimactic events where many hours are spent sleeping or resting in silence. This has been my experience for most of my life. I suppose this past Easter, I found myself wrestling with a desire for more and guilt that I had not planned for more.

As a pastor’s family, we’re at every church service. We’re generally some of the first to arrive and always the last to leave. For all of Lent, the pastor writes two sermons a week. During Holy Week, there are four sermons, from Palm Sunday to Easter. How many people could write four five-page papers in a week, mostly memorize them, and then speak them publicly to a crowded room? It’s a huge task.

Our whole family works behind the scenes to run the Community Easter Egg Hunt. We move tables and show up on a Saturday to rearrange chairs. We create digital advertising and wash dirty linens. It’s a lot to cook for all the dinners and bring a ridiculous amount of food to Easter Breakfast. We clean up the kitchen and take out the trash. The to-do list is long. By the time Easter arrives, this pastor’s family is tired. Exhausted. Joyful, but plain worn out.

A QUIET EASTER

On Easter morning, I looked at all of the children dressed up in their Easter best and cringed as I saw my son in blue jeans and a long-sleeve crewneck. My fault. All I can do is recognize that it doesn’t really matter what he wears. At least, while I was ironing church linens and preparing Easter breakfast, he managed to brush his hair. Honestly, that doesn’t happen every Sunday.

We came home after a long morning at church. All three of us collapsed. I took a nap on the back porch. My husband slept on the bed. Our son retreated to a quiet project in the living room. After several hours, we collectively decided to make something of our afternoon. We loaded up in the car with our dog and headed downtown. It was mostly deserted, being Easter, but we stopped for dairy-free ice cream and then walked to a quiet patio where my husband and I had a drink and we all munched on a basket of fries. It was not the Easter celebration of my dreams, but it was a nice time spent together as a family. There was good humor and a lightness to our conversation. We took time to just breathe. It was a quiet Easter and it was good.

At home, instead of a traditional Easter dinner, I threw together shrimp and vegetables in a peanut sauce. That too was good, even if different from my great expectations. I’ve tried to banish my guilt with rest and laughter. I won’t lie and say that it’s worked completely, but it’s helped.

THERE IS NO ROOM FOR GUILT WHEN MEMORIES ARE FULL OF LAUGHTER

I think most pastors’ wives will relate to at least some of the experiences and emotions I’ve shared. It’s likely that every pastor’s wife feels the same exhaustion I’ve described, though maybe some have done a better job than me of making Easter magic at home. 

I do think there’s a broader lesson here for us all, pastor’s wife or not. I think, no matter who we are, we have to be careful not to get lost in the great expectations. We can always compare our family to someone else’s and find fault in our own. We can always find someone else who does a holiday better….someone else with more magic. Quiet experiences are still valuable. Quiet experiences can still make memories. I hope that I will always remember yesterday’s conversation as we sat on a downtown patio for a drink.

WHAT I WANT TO REMEMBER

After my son told a bad joke, he looked at us and said, ”Why aren’t you laughing?”

“Because it wasn’t funny,” I said. “You’re too old for pity laughs.”

“What? Do you pity laugh for me, Dad?”

Laughing, my husband said, “Um, yeah, sometimes.”

My son thought about that and then said, “Well then how am I supposed to know when something is really funny? You’re supposed to help me develop a sense of humor.”

My husband and I both doubled over laughing. “Yeah, I guess,” I said. “But seven year old’s are rough. There was a lot of pity laughter when you were seven. At least we’re past that.”

“Just don’t get caught up monologuing,” said my husband. “That’s never funny.”

Then my son proceeded to monologue a “funny” monologue.

“But see,” my husband interrupted. “Now you’re monologuing about monologuing. That’s not funny.”

“Touché,” said my son.