Introduction

Who I Am

Welcome to my new blog! I’m Linda and I live in Alabama with my husband, Sammy of 20 years. Our personalities couldn’t be more different—but we make a good team. We have fun being silly together and also still enjoy conversation with each other. We love spending time relaxing on the porch together with nowhere to go and going on road trips throughout the country. We love sharing in meals with friends and quiet meals at home. We love estate sales, flea markets and ‘antique’ malls. We enjoy watching movies and relaxing in the evenings with our favorite tv shows. My taste in entertainment is considerably different than his, but we find plenty of shows to watch together. We love sharing our lives with other people and opening our home up with our own unique blend of ragamuffin hospitality.

We have worked together in ministry through the United Methodist Church since 2002. I have always felt (even before I met Sammy) that my role as a pastor’s wife is a personal calling, as much as my husband’s calling to pastor. Through my role, I seek to practice hospitality, serve others, feed others and apply my creativity. Although I personally feel a sense of calling to work alongside my husband in ministry, I understand there are many pastor’s spouses who did not choose this role and don’t feel it is a personal calling or even a sense of belonging and I know how difficult it can be to navigate ministry life when you are called into it. My heart is with you and you have my support. Ministry can be an all-consuming, challenging and lonely, albeit rewarding occupation but there is far too little support for and unity among those of us married to a pastor.

I also work in the banking industry, but apart from general references to work or life lessons learned in the workplace, I typically don’t write directly about my career.

We are pet parents–there are thousands of pictures on my phone and 90% of them are animals. We currently have 3 dogs and I absolutely love them and their big loyal personalities but there will never be any satisfaction more complete than that of a purring kitty in your lap.

I am solidly an introvert. I’m more comfortable in small groups of people for short periods of time and don’t have many friends I consider myself really close to. I relish solitude and being at home as a way to find comfort and refuel. I am a better communicator in writing than I am in person, largely because I can take time to carefully formulate my thoughts, express them in a clear and thoughtful way and edit them or even make them disappear if I change my mind about sharing them. I struggle with anxiety in social settings, but I have gotten better at setting firm boundaries for the social activities I will participate in and also at saying ‘No’ to participating in things that I know will expend more emotional energy than I have stored up.

I used to blog and when I look back over my long ago words, some of them seem foolish, a little embarrassing. But some of them remind me of where we were in life at that time. What we were experiencing, learning, feeling. And I’m so thankful to have those words recorded somewhere. There was a catalyst in our lives that made me nearly stop writing completely. I rarely posted after that time and for more than ten years, I haven’t returned to writing with any regularity. I’m fact, I had a draft of this very post for so long, I celebrated another year of marriage before finding the courage to hit ‘Publish’. Perhaps it’s time for change.