INDIANAPOLIS (BP) — Spiritual resilience in ministry is essential, and women can look to God to provide that resilience, speaker Jacki King said at the Ministers’ Wives Luncheon June 11 at the Indiana Convention Center in Indianapolis.

Also at the sold-out luncheon of more than 1,600 women, Diane Nix, a longtime pastor’s wife, received the Willie Turner Dawson Award.

King, whose husband Josh King is pastor of First Baptist Church in Lewisville, Texas, read Ezra 3:12-13, noting that upon returning from exile, some Israelites “wept with a loud voice” when they saw the destruction in Jerusalem.

“As ministry leaders, as pastors’ wives, we can resonate with this because we have a front row seat oftentimes to the effects of sin on our world and on our people,” King said.

Such effects could be a mother with a stillborn baby, a widow who has lost her best friend, people who have chosen lesser gods or simply disunity in the church, she said. Ministers’ wives also need to weep over their own sin, such as the sin of control or unforgiveness.

“Maybe you’ve had a season like me where you weep over the sin of cynicism, that this is just as good as it gets, that ministry is hard, it hurts, and it’s just never going to get any better,” King said. “Can I gently tell you that’s a lie? It’s a lie that I think the enemy is feeding so many of us to discourage us, to have us sit down and cross our arms and say, ‘This is his thing.’”

In Ezra 3, other Israelites sang for joy, King said. They declared that God is good and His faithful love endures forever, rehearsing what He had done for them in the past.

“When we think resilience, when we think, ‘How am I going to get through this,’ it has nothing to do with you pulling up your bootstraps and gritting your teeth through,” she said.

“When you think resilience, it’s not having the right answer or having the seminary education or the diploma on the wall or the training. It is literally, ‘He is good, and His faithful love endures forever.’ That is the answer.”

Such solid truth will hold ministers’ wives when they experience the joy of seeing their own children baptized and when they experience the sorrow of having to sit with a woman whose husband just left her, King said.

“There is no better thing you can teach or model or speak or say to the women and people around you than, ‘He is good, and His faithful love endures forever.’”

Ministers’ wives are loved with a love that is pursuing them in their successes and in their failures, King said. Even if church members expect perfection, God doesn’t, she said.

King, author of “The Calling of Eve: How Women of the Bible Inspire Women of the Church,” read a series of common hardships and asked women to stand if they had experienced them in the past five years. With the entire room standing, she said, “You are resilient.”

“You have made it because He is good, and His faithful love endures forever,” King said.

The Willie Turner Dawson Award, given annually at the luncheon, recognizes a minister’s wife for making a distinct denominational contribution beyond the local church and for modeling Christian character and service to others.

Nix has been a pastor’s wife for more than 40 years, serving alongside her husband Preston Nix in Texas and Oklahoma. In 2007, she founded Contagious Joy 4 Him, a global network of encouragement for ministry wives which offers retreats and has touched the lives of more than 400 women.

In presenting the award, Ann Iorg, wife of Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) Executive Committee (EC) President Jeff Iorg, said, “When I think of the women who have really invested their lives in helping women — pastors’ wives — be all that they can be, Diane is definitely in that group of women.”

The president of the 2025 luncheon in Dallas will be Peggy Osborne, whose husband Chris Osborne served 33 years as pastor of Central Baptist Church in College Station, Texas, before becoming a professor at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Other officers include Nicole Lino, vice president; Judith Cirincione, treasurer; and Lori McDonald, secretary.

Next year’s luncheon speaker will be Sheila Walsh, a Christian speaker and author of books such as “Holding On When You Want to Let Go.” The theme for the June 10 luncheon will be “In His Presence,” based on Psalm 16:11.

Tickets for next year’s luncheon will go on sale in February, and information will be posted at sbcwives.com and on the SBC Wives Facebook page.