On the Wisdom of Today's World

Psalm 14:1a - The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God.

That one sentence is an entire blog post in itself. Living life without God is foolish and vain.

• Ignoring His designing hand in all of creation every day is foolish.
• Trying to love your spouse unconditionally and sacrificially without God is foolish. Trying to build a marriage on any lesser love than the love that God commands is also foolish.
• Trying to raise children without acknowledging the foolishness of their hearts, the sinful bent of their natures, and the need for them to submit to their Creator and His ordained authorities in their lives is foolish.
• Trying to overcome anxiety and live joyfully and hopefully in a world filled with bad things is impossible without God. Yet so many people try... and it is foolish.

Jesus said in Matthew 11:28-29

Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.

No one exists on this earth who was not at one time a foolish sinner. We all start that way. A Christian is a fool who simply acknowledged his sinful state to God, and accepted Christ's invitation for rest. Repent of your sin and leave the path of foolishness. Accept Christ's payment for your sin and choose the path of life and wisdom. A life that embraces the truth of the God of the Bible is a life that has meaning and joy-- a life worth living for all of eternity.

Building a Marriage

I recently finished reading a book on marriage that I recieved... um... a little over a year ago. Don't judge me! It was a busy year involving things like wedding planning. Granted, you could consider a marriage book PART of wedding planning, but I read some other ones that I recieved first.

Anyway, I finally got to this one and thoroughly enjoyed it. Part of being a housewife includes building the relationships within the home, including the one with my spouse. This book was a great tool in that regard. It was thought provoking and very helpful. In fact, it's been the best marriage book I've read so far. I highly recommend it to anyone. Sooo... the link is included below. Check the book out for yourself!


What Did You Expect?

Observations of the Proverbs 31 Woman and Work

As a Christian, I believe that all things should be considered through the lens of Scripture. Proverbs 31 is considered to be the classic passage that describes the Virtuous Woman, and it has a lot to say about work. In fact, we find out that this Virtuous Woman is VERY industrious and hard-working.

She works willingly with her hands, she brings food from afar, evaluates a field and buys it, plants a vineyard, she made fabric and clothing and sold it, and the list continues.

But in addition to those things, we also see that that the heart of her husband trusts in her safely, she does him good and not evil, she looks after the ways of her household, her children arise and call her blessed, and her husband praises her. In short, there is a broader context of her identity and her work in that it relates to her home and her family.

We can clearly see in this passage that a woman should be hardworking and skilled, she should develop the talents she has, but she should also remember that those things should complement her role as a wife and mother, (if she is one) and not detract from it.

And most importantly, as verse 30 says, “Favor is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised.” A God-fearing heart is much more valuable than all of the skills.

Ultimately, I can try to do all of the practical things in the world to invest time and energy into my family, but without the Lord, it will not work. God is truly the One who can build a family and keep it together.

Psalm 127:1 Except  the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it

Benefits of the Housewife Path

A family is designed to function as a single unit and therefore the home can be a wonderful place. It can be a safe-haven and respite from the ever-present tumult in the world around us. It should be a place where family members can lean on each other, share joys and sorrows, and walk through life together.

But…

It is very difficult to do these things when family members hardly even know one another, which is how so many homes function today. The family is the foundational unit of society but it is in crisis all over America. Spouses are at odds with one another if they are even still married, parents and children are constantly fighting with one another, and the family is in turmoil. There is very little unity.

When my husband and I were dating and engaged, we felt many times like we were being pulled opposite directions. He had his responsibilities and obligations for work, I had mine, and the two didn’t always seem particularly compliant. My work required my focus and energy, and his did the same. I longed for the day when I could set my job aside and take up the work of supporting him and working WITH him, as a team. Joining forces in a supportive network, rather than having each of us flounder along on our own. We are thankful to have reached the point of being able to do this.

When we look to the future, it is also our desire that I can also be at home to invest in our children. To teach them God’s Word at HOME, not only leave it up to the schools and churches. To impart to them our core family values and a strong work ethic. To know them personally, understand what makes them tick, and help them when they are struggling.  We do not want to be Mr. and Mrs. Banks, from the classic Disney film, Mary Poppins. You remember them… they are the couple who has breakfast with their children in the morning, kisses them on the head, then heads off to everything else and leaving the children under the care of the nanny and domestic staff. At night the parents see the children for another hour then send them off to bed. Our society has substituted schools and daycares for Nannies, but otherwise, we are often the same.

There are other points to consider about staying home. One is that it isn’t as expensive as people think. There is lost income, but there are also lost expenses. Maintaining a wardrobe for work can cost more than people expect and car expenses pile up with mileage, gas, and maintenance that is needed more often. The convenience of eating out is in high demand when both parents are on a busy schedule, but with a little bit of practice, it is amazing the costs that an average wife can save by shopping some grocery sales, watching for coupons, and cooking most things at home. Many times the income change isn’t nearly as drastic as it is perceived to be.

Another reason we chose for me not to work full-time is that it gives me much greater flexibility in ministry. The Professor and I are actively involved in our church and there are people within that church that have needs. There are ministry opportunities that are waiting for volunteers to help. By freeing up the weekly schedule, I am in a better position to prepare for ministry events, as well as fill in when people are unavailable for their regular ministries. The church is God’s primary tool to organize believers to do His work, and having more flexibility to be involved with that is wonderful because my identity is that I am a Christian and my calling is to share the Gospel. 

Again, this is just a peek into our reasoning process and the points that we considered when making this decision. Let me please repeat that this is not a tirade against women in different circumstances. But I do believe that homemaking, when done diligently and intentionally, is an important and respectable skill that leads to many beneficial results within the home and family.

Have you considered its possibilities for your family?

Charity Seeketh Not Her Own

One of the most important building blocks of any home is the relationship between a husband and wife. Since God created this relationship in the Garden of Eden, He's really the one you should look to when you're trying to improve it. He wrote the instruction book on it (The Bible) and normally when you get a new product, reading the instructions is a great place to start.

It's interesting to note that the Bible does not classify Love as a prerequisite for marriage. But it IS commanded to be a part of marriage. Now I certainly would not have married Professor NO if I did not love him, but that is cultural, not Scriptural. Love is a choice and an action and should be a deliberate part of a couple's relationship. This truth extends to the whole family unit as well.

One of the defining passages on love is I Corinthians 13. There are many facets that it mentions, but today I want to reflect on the part of how love seeketh not her own - in other words, love doesn't seek it's own interests and needs, but rather those of others. Here's where I recently observed this in the practical outworkings of life....

The other evening Professor NO and I were getting ready for bed. I'm a bit of a night owl, and tend to putter around tidying up all of the house, planning out the next day's events, activities, and attire, and chattering about everything that comes into my head. The Professor rises at a very early, pre-sunrise hour and does not share my night-time perkiness so much. :-P

As we crawled into bed he admonished me that it was time to sleep and he really couldn't carry on a decent conversation anymore. Kudos to him for directness and honesty. :) So I tried to settle down to sleep, but then one of us mentioned something about his work that day or the next, and he suddenly recalled the story of a customer he'd had. This particular customer apparently was in great error regarding the proper wheel-drive that is best for a vehicle to have when driving in the snow. The Professor is from the frozen tundra (almost) and HAD to help the poor misinformed customer out. Said customer didn't believe him till he cited his native residence, but finally all was corrected. However, this caused me to voice a long-held question that had been brushed into the corner of my mind on numerous occasions, regarding the differences of front-wheel drive, rear-wheel drive, and four-wheel drive. This question began the Professor's evening class on vehicles. He began describing the difference between them, how they worked, and how it all pertained to driving in snow. I nodded and learned and became educated in a little more detail than I had, perhaps, bargained for. By now, I was the one ready for sleep. But he was just getting warmed up. Next thing I know, he brings all-wheel drive into the discussion. After learning I didn't know about that either, he defined it for me, which would have sufficed just fine. But then he launched into a discussion about traction and friction and the physics of moving cars and ice/snow and all kinds of thing I don't remember b/c I was fading out fast....

"honey?" I asked.
"Yeah?" he replied.
"I thought you had to sleep b/c you had to get up in the morning..."
He sighed. "Oookay. I'm sorry... I'll be quiet now..."
"Well, I didn't completely mean that, but it IS late, you already said you need sleep, and I'm getting pretty sleepy too." I answered.

We settled into a truce for the evening of no more rambling on things that put the other one to sleep and all was well in the NO household. But the whole event set me to thinking...

Simply put, we do the things that we want to. And what we want to do is based on our personal want-to priority list. This priority list is not always equivalent to our I-know-I-need-to-and-I-plan-to priority list. At the beginning, the Professor's priority list involved sleep so he could work. Conversation was a luxury not to be afforded, even though I wanted to talk. But suddenly, he had the opportunity to explain something (which he loves to do) and conversation became a greater priority than sleep. I have been guilty of the same on countless occasions.

When you boil it all down, these are the actions of people who are seeking their own interests. We find it very very hard to seek the interests of others when those things have no natural interest to us. But if we're to obey the command to love, for the sake of our homes and our family relationships we must deliberately practice doing just that.

I Corinthians 13:4-7
Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,
 Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;
 Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;
 Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.