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Gayle Haggard's Secret to Smiling at the Future
By Elissa K. Harvill
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IMPORTANT NOTE: THIS BOOK IS NOT JUST FOR THE PASTOR'S WIFE.
In A Life Embraced, Gayle shares the principles God has taught her to achieve happiness and freedom, as she reflects on her own experiences as the wife of Ted Haggard, senior pastor of New Life Church in Colorado Springs and president of the National Association of Evangelicals.
Gayle wanted to share her revelations and was inspired to write A Life Embraced when she discovered a lack of encouraging materials tailor-made for pastors' wives. "I tried to write something that would help women really see what God has called them to as a walk in the Spirit, and that He would give them everything they needed."
Some chapter topics Gayle addresses in A Life Embraced include: Finding Happiness, Discovering True Intimacy, Unveiling the Treasure of Our Femininity, Building a Great Marriage, Being a Gracious Leader, and Smiling at the Future.
Gayle remembers being in high school and dreamily telling her mother that she wanted to marry a pastor when she grew up. Her mother (teasingly) pointed out that she didn't sing or play the piano. Throughout the book, Gayle very candidly offers the revelations and intelligent solutions God has given her to counteract the "20th-century expectations" placed on pastors' wives (i.e., must be: always there, always visible, dressed to the T with perfect children, musical superwoman, etc.).
Some might think that a pastor's wife must leave her own dreams behind and cleave only to her husband's ministry. Gayle assures us that this is not the case. "I believe that in the context of adding ourselves to our husbands and helping them, God will give us expression of the gifts and dreams that He's given to us. And that is something I have seen happen in my life. All of my dreams I have seen fulfilled, and now God is giving me new dreams! I just think people don't hang on long enough. They try to work things out too soon and don't just wait, and when we wait and watch how God brings it all to pass, it's pretty amazing."
Not only has God given Gayle the husband and family (five children!) she dreamed about in high school, He has also provided her with numerous opportunities for service and chances to teach and lead others. This former ORU education major was one of the pioneers who helped launch the National Day of Prayer in Colorado, where she publicly recruited the participation of several regional pastors.
Despite the expected demands of pastoring New Life Church with its 11,000-plus members, the Haggards manage to spend most evenings at home together. Keep in mind that Gayle and Ted weren't always "mega-church" people; they started out small as youth ministers working for a missions organization before they began pastoring. Gayle admits that most of the lessons she shares in her book were learned while she and Ted were pastoring a much smaller church, but the principles God taught her during that time still apply to her current position at New Life.
Simply put: she doesn't do wedding and baby showers. What does she do in her role as pastor's wife? Besides loving the pastor more than anyone and raising his children, she is also in charge of New Life's women's ministry and leads a weekly small group especially for the incoming pastors' wives. (Big churches tend to have several associate pastors.) And in lieu of attending all the showers, Gayle is taking all 40 associate pastors' wives to Palm Beach this year for a special pastors' wives conference retreat.
"When we say 'yes' to everything, it's as though we start to believe that we are the answer for everybody, and I am confident that God is the answer for everybody. And so, I just do what He gives me to do," Gayle shared. "I am a part of a body, and so all I need to do is my part, and God will raise up other people to do the other part, and then we can all function in joy together, and that is real freedom. The secret to freedom is to never think more highly of ourselves than we ought."
Sound familiar? Something Mama Roberts used to say to Oral: "Stay small in your own eyes." Gayle shared that she and Ted and are still walking in the blessing of their experience at ORU (in fact, Gayle even mentions former ORU first lady Evelyn Roberts in her chapter on "Being a Gracious Leader"). "There is something to the word that the Lord gave Oral about raising up the students to hear God's voice. When my oldest two children were ready to go to college, they astounded us by coming to us and telling us that they wanted to go to ORU. Even though they knew that we really treasured our experience there, when they were looking at colleges, we wanted them to search for themselves. They said they wanted to go [to ORU] because of the people they know who have graduated from there--wonderful people who have come out of ORU who are very sincere, dynamic, full of life, laugh a lot, love-God kind of people who seem to have a real sense about them, about their Christianity, that is so refreshing and life-giving."
Gayle covers quite a bit of life territory in A Life Embraced--marriage, family, making decisions, dealing with all sorts of expected and unexpected challenges (one of her five children is a special needs child)--and her secret to enjoying freedom and success in all of these areas has everything to do with hearing God's voice and doing what He says. "I think the most important thing [for a pastor's wife--or anyone] is to develop a real prayer life, where she has time in the scriptures--where she's pondering them, thinking about them, praying them back to God and then listening to Him. That is where our fulfillment comes--when we learn to do that."
(A Life Embraced can be purchased online at www.amazon.com, or search www.SuperPages.com to find it at a retail store near you.)
