Carson Howard

In my previous life, I was the “pastor’s wife.” For thirty years, I stood by my husband, David, and helped him turn a humble chapel into Light of Hope, the most influential church in the South. When he was fifty, he fell in love with Sarah, the young choir director. For the sake of the church’s unity, I suffered in silence. With my tacit permission, he spent the next fifteen years grooming Sarah for leadership, systematically stripping my authority until I was nothing more than a figurehead. On his deathbed, he held my hand, but his last words to me were, “My only regret is not asking you to step aside sooner. I should have been braver, for the sake of the church’s future.” My children—one a church executive, the other a youth pastor—blamed me for the church’s eventual decline. When I had a stroke, they sent me to a notoriously understaffed nursing facility, just so “the congregation wouldn’t see our family’s imperfections.” After I died, they erased me from the......

In my previous life, I was the “pastor’s wife.” For thirty years, I stood by my husband, David, and helped him turn a humble chapel into Light of Hope, the most influential church in the South. When he was fifty, he fell in love with Sarah, the young choir director. For the sake of the church’s unity, I suffered in silence. With my tacit permission, he spent the next fifteen years grooming Sarah for leadership, systematically stripping my authority until I was nothing more than a figurehead. On his deathbed, he held my hand, but his last words to me were, “My only regret is not asking you to step aside sooner. I should have been braver, for the sake of the church’s future.” My children—one a church executive, the other a youth pastor—blamed me for the church’s eventual decline. When I had a stroke, they sent me to a notoriously understaffed nursing facility, just so “the congregation wouldn’t see our family’s imperfections.” After I died, they erased me from the......

In my previous life, I was the “pastor’s wife.” For thirty years, I stood by my husband, David, and helped him turn a humble chapel into Light of Hope, the most influential church in the South. When he was fifty, he fell in love with Sarah, the young choir director. For the sake of the church’s unity, I suffered in silence. With my tacit permission, he spent the next fifteen years grooming Sarah for leadership, systematically stripping my authority until I was nothing more than a figurehead. On his deathbed, he held my hand, but his last words to me were, “My only regret is not asking you to step aside sooner. I should have been braver, for the sake of the church’s future.” My children—one a church executive, the other a youth pastor—blamed me for the church’s eventual decline. When I had a stroke, they sent me to a notoriously understaffed nursing facility, just so “the congregation wouldn’t see our family’s imperfections.” After I died, they erased me from the......

In my previous life, I was the “pastor’s wife.” For thirty years, I stood by my husband, David, and helped him turn a humble chapel into Light of Hope, the most influential church in the South. When he was fifty, he fell in love with Sarah, the young choir director. For the sake of the church’s unity, I suffered in silence. With my tacit permission, he spent the next fifteen years grooming Sarah for leadership, systematically stripping my authority until I was nothing more than a figurehead. On his deathbed, he held my hand, but his last words to me were, “My only regret is not asking you to step aside sooner. I should have been braver, for the sake of the church’s future.” My children—one a church executive, the other a youth pastor—blamed me for the church’s eventual decline. When I had a stroke, they sent me to a notoriously understaffed nursing facility, just so “the congregation wouldn’t see our family’s imperfections.” After I died, they erased me from the......

In my previous life, I was the “pastor’s wife.” For thirty years, I stood by my husband, David, and helped him turn a humble chapel into Light of Hope, the most influential church in the South. When he was fifty, he fell in love with Sarah, the young choir director. For the sake of the church’s unity, I suffered in silence. With my tacit permission, he spent the next fifteen years grooming Sarah for leadership, systematically stripping my authority until I was nothing more than a figurehead. On his deathbed, he held my hand, but his last words to me were, “My only regret is not asking you to step aside sooner. I should have been braver, for the sake of the church’s future.” My children—one a church executive, the other a youth pastor—blamed me for the church’s eventual decline. When I had a stroke, they sent me to a notoriously understaffed nursing facility, just so “the congregation wouldn’t see our family’s imperfections.” After I died, they erased me from the......