26 CityLight.org
may 2012
F
or the past 10 years, Dr. Jim A. Talley has
been my pastor, my marriage counselor
and my friend. I met him in June of 2000. I
had been in the ministry as a youth minis-
ter and minister for about 12 years. For the
last five of my ministry years, my wife Sherri
had been trying to communicate to me that
we needed more income and if it were up
to her, we would just have normal jobs and
raise a family. We had four kids back then.
Ashley was 14, Austin was 10, Avery was 7
and sweet Amy was 3. Sherri and I not only
came from Christian families, we were both
PK's (preacher's kids).
The last church I pastored, was in a town
of 800 people in the middle of Oklahoma,
USA. The first Sunday I preached at that
church September 14th, 1997, there were
35 people in attendance. Six of them were
my family. Over the next three years our
little church grew to a consistent 120 in
weekly attendance. We recovered the pews,
we put a new ceiling in the sanctuary and
we built a new multi-purpose building with
a gym, more classrooms and a new kitchen.
I felt pretty good about my life and career,
even though I was over-weight, had severe
sleep apnea and struggled with depres-
sion. Sherri would ask me questions every
now and then about our future and what
my plan was to provide better or more for
our family. My pay from the church was
$400.00 a week, plus housing. I also drove
a school bus to earn extra money, even
though we never had extra money. Every
now and then she would talk about a career
change for us, but I would quickly throw a
cold blanket on that conversation and get
us back on track doing "God's" work.
Wednesday, April 19th, 2000 a widow lady
from the church invited us out to her farm-
house for tea. Sherri and I sat and visited
with her for a few minutes, when she pulled
out a yellow legal pad and began reading
seven hand-written pages of why my sweet
Sherri was a terrible preacher's wife. Instead
of defending my wife from these attacks. I
kept my "pastor hat" on and with my arm
around my wife, I reassured the 72 year old
lady we would work on these things. One
of which was that my wife mowed our lawn
in a bikini. (It was more like shorts and a
tank-top.) She berated my wife for not be-
ing friendly to her on Sundays and a many
other dagger filled nuggets.
We went home. Sherri was in tears for a
few days. At the end of that week she told
me she was resigning from her unpaid mu-
sic ministry role in the church. Another
week went by and she started smoking cig-
arettes. After a few weeks she applied for a
job in the nearby city. Sherri found some
new friends and got involved in a new mu-
sic outlet. She started singing karaoke in
bars and learned she liked Margaritas.
After the shotgun blast to her heart from
the widow lady, Sherri made some new
resolutions in her life. She came to the re-
alization she could not please the church
people, she could not please her husband,
and she could not please God. She quit try-
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