I asked Laurel to include me in the interviewing that has been going around in blogdom. I didn’t realize the questions were up on her blog for about 2 weeks, then it took me that long to answer. So here, at long last, are the answers. I wish I could be as clever as some of the others I have read, but alas, I think I have come up short. However, I enjoyed participating. I guess that’s all that really matters.

1. You grew up in a really large family. How has your growing up experience influenced how you parent your own children?

I was the youngest of nine children, so by the time I was being raised, there were really only 3 – 5 other siblings around at a time. During some of those years, those siblings were adults who returned home for one reason or another. So I am not sure I have really made much of a connection to the “largeness” of my family affecting my own parenting. That being said, I definitely see ways my own upbringing has influenced the way I parent my children. The home I was raised in had little structure. My mom worked full-time, and my dad, who was much older, was not at home a lot of the time. I think I really craved structure in my life. So as a parent, I try to provide more of that for my children. Now, compared to many, our structure is lax. However, I am talking about basics like having most of our meals together around the kitchen table; getting up and going to bed at basically the same time everyday; having family devotions daily. Another thing I always wanted as a child was to be involved in activities at school and in the community. So since for a variety of reasons I didn’t have many of those kinds of experiences, Mark and I try to provide those for our children, within reason–refer back to all those blogs last spring about little league.

2. How, after attending an Anabaptist college, did you end up Presbyterian?

First, I grew up in a Baptist denomination that had some Calvinist beliefs–specifically, I was taught predestination from a young age. So I think I was “primed” to become presbyterian in time. I chose the college I attended, not because of its Anabaptist roots, but because it seemed to take Christianity seriously, which was more than I could say for the two very respectable “reformed” colleges I considered attending. Actually, by attending the college I did, I was even more prepared for my eventual transition to presbyterianism through a CRC friend that took me to an OP church 30 minutes away from campus for one year of my college days and through the work of the Coalition for Christian Outreach, a Dutch-influenced college ministry. But even with both those influences, I still considered myself a baptist at the end of college. However, about 6 months after graduation, I moved to Florida to live with my sister and her husband. Though they were also baptists, they took me to church at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church. After one week in the young adult Sunday school class, I knew I was going to join the church because the teaching in that class was so good. After a couple of weeks, I began working for the church’s television ministry, where I was exposed to reformed theology on a daily basis. I did join Coral Ridge about 3 months after my first visit, although I still had the typical baptist reservation about baptizing infants. It took several discussions/arguments with Mark (who, incidentally, became a co-worker at Coral Ridge after I had been there for 2 years) to bring me over on that issue.

3. What do you like most and least about being a pastor’s wife?

I like being a pastor’s wife most because I have access to a lot of the answers to spiritual and theological questions in a way that I wouldn’t have if I had married, say, a plumber (of course, that would have its benefits, too.)

What I dislike most about being a pastor’s wife is sitting in worship without the assistance of my husband in training our children how to be in worship. God has been gracious to me in this regard, in that, the older children have learned quite well despite my inadequacies and struggles with attending to them during worship.

4. Who are your favorite literary heroines? With what fictional character have you felt the greatest kinship?
My favorite literary heroines are all the protagonists in Jane Austen’s books. They all seem to be the same person, just slightly altered from book to book. They are intelligent, poised, attractive, and socially adept–all the things I like to imagine myself being.

I think I have a real kinship with Anne Shirley from Anne of Green Gables. She reminds me of myself as a child in the way she rambles on endlessly and will talk to anyone who will listen.

5. You just won a contest sponsored by Miramax. They offered to make any book of your choosing into a film. What book do you choose? What casting suggestions do you give?

I think I would choose The Moonstone by Wilckie Collins. It is the quintessential British mystery, and the characters are so well developed, it would be intriguing to see them brought to life on the screen. For Detective Cuff, I would cast Tony Shaloub, currently the star of the USA network series, Monk. House steward, Gabriel Betteridge, would be played by Michael Keaton. The challenge would be doing justice to the characters and plot without losing too much in editing, since the book is quite long. (BTW, If there is a movie version of this book out there, please tell me about it.)

When you post your answers on your blog, please include the following:
::If you would like to participate too, here are your instructions:
1. Leave me a comment saying “interview me.”
2. I will respond by asking you five questions (not the same as you see here).
3. You will update your blog/site with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.::