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Have you ever been asked to make a list of your priorities? Every one of us (Christians) have made “God”, or “My relationship with God”, our #1 entry.

May I submit that it is not a biblical answer to place God as our #1 priority? In fact, He should not even be on the list!

He IS our list. To number Him places Him in a category, separates Him, in a sense, reduces Him to an item to be checked off.

God must encompass the list…this is a true Christian world-view, one of which, sadly, many Christians are not embracing.

He must envelop all than I am, all that I do, all of my life. Every decision, every motive, every action needs to be measured in the light of God’s Word. EVERYTHING.

Food for thought!

(From an interview originally done by Genevieve Smith)

It would be downright un-Christian for me not to share this little secret that I just discovered!

I know from talking to a lot of other moms, that distraction can be a problem when it comes to keeping our sons on task. I don’t know what it is…but I have found the most SIMPLE solution, at least for my son, that I can’t believe it works!

Prior to this solution, I would give my son a task (clean your room). I even have a chore chart hanging on the wall with everyone’s chores written down in case they forget. Simple enough, I thought.

Yet, day after day, I would go check in after sometimes more than an hour, and I would find him in what looked like a state of confusion. His room still a mess, he would be standing in the middle of it, just sort of gazing around, like he couldn’t remember why he was there. I would ask the inevitable, “What have you been doing for an hour?!” And he honestly wasn’t sure!

It was so frustrating…especially since I could tell he wasn’t deliberately being defiant. I got upset, then he got upset, and it was this constant cycle.

UNTIL NOW…are you ready?

The list had to be IN HIS HAND.

Don’t ask why…I don’t know. But I do know that there is something mysteriously true about brain/hand connections. (He is a heavy “left-brained”…er, I think…he’s a very gifted artist-in-the-making 😉

I just happened the other day to write his daily list on a piece of paper and hand it to him. He tore off like he was on a mission. I’ve never seen him walk so purposeful, so focused! I stood there in disbelief. He had all of his chores done in about 1 1/2 hours!

Oh, and the chores need to have boxes for him to check off out beside them.

“A list? That’s all you needed, all this time?” “Yes ma’am”, he said smiling.

Go figure…and praise God!

Over the next few days I will be posting an interview previously posted by Genevieve Smith at Issacharrian with my friend, Lindsay S.

We are honored to know this sweet family who beautifully exemplifies the hands and feet of Christ in their lives.

Lindsay is a living example of beautiful womanhood, honoring her parents and trusting the Lord as He reveals Himself through her submission.

I hope it is a blessing and encouragement to you!

Lindsay and Genevieve

What is your family like? What is your role in your family?

“I live with my parents and three younger brothers. My father is really my stepfather. He has been my father since I was 5 years old when he and my mother married. I am so blessed to have been raised by truly Godly parents. Right now I am at home serving my parents and my family, learning to be content at home and being a homemaker.

After two years of college, my parents and I decided I would quit school and stay at home. Listening to Doug Phillip’s CD What’s a Girl to do? helped us to see God’s role for young women. Around the time I came home, my grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. [My mom goes to my grandmother’s house and helps her every day, so I homeschool my youngest brother and do all the cooking and shopping for the family.] (Lindsay’s grandmother has passed away since this interview, and they are now caring for her grandfather in their home.) It has been such valuable training to learn and to experience firsthand all the dynamics involved in homeschooling a younger sibling and to completely run the house while Mom’s gone.”

Would you explain what led to this decision to come home?

“Ok. I went from public school then to Christian school and finally homeschool. We changed churches along the way. I began to homeschool when I was in the 11th grade. Three months before I finished high school, I began to work for an insurance company. I worked there for two years. Right before my 19th birthday, my parents sat down with me and said, “We know you like being a secretary. We know you like to answer the phone and talk to people, but you have got to aspire to be more in life. Not only that, you need more discipline, and you need self motivation. You also need to have a career to base your life on in case your husband dies or in case he divorces you. Furthermore, if you want to homeschool your kids, you need to have a degree in education so that the government cannot touch you.”

Before I went to college, the Christian girls I hung out with were not the best influences in my life in many different ways. They and their families decided that there was no reason for a Christian girl to go to college if all she was going to do was to be a wife and a mother. So they lived at home, but they did not have a heart to serve their families. They also did not desire homemaking skills. They hung out with their friends every weekend, and they had a job outside the home. So we didn’t have a good example of a single young woman aspiring to be a homemaker.

And my parents and I fell into this wrong way of thinking. So I said to my parents, “You’re right. You know I don’t want to go to school. I like being a secretary. I’m very happy where I am. I like people, but I’ll go to school if you want me to.” So after much prayer and consideration, we decided I would live at home and commute daily to a local university where I decided to study elementary education. The money I had saved while I was working was used to pay for my education. During my term, I took a full load of classes, did very well and met lots of people. I was even able to stand up in front of a whole speech class and give a gospel presentation. I was in a position to witness to people every day in many ways and on many topics.

People were always asking me questions, especially about courtship, since I did not date. It was what a lot of modern day churches and the world would consider an excellent college experience. I had what many would consider great opportunities for a Christian to be a testimony.

But at the same time I was exposed to horrible philosophies and terrible teachings that were against my faith. I would come home everyday and have serious conversations with my parents about what I was learning and being exposed to. Every semester my parents would essentially have to “de-program” me and correct my thinking because I was becoming so brainwashed by my anti-Christian studies.

But that wasn’t the key. That wasn’t why I came home. After attending university for two years and getting excellent grades, I started to consider getting my masters degree. I also found myself looking down on other girls I knew who did not go to college and were not getting a “higher education.” I felt they were throwing their lives away.

One such example was at a church conference where I was introduced to a girl named Tiffiny. I started a conversation with her in which she told me she was the oldest of eleven siblings and she helped her mom to take care of them. I replied, “That is nice, but what do you DO?” She sweetly answered that she helped around the house doing laundry, cooking, cleaning and helping her younger siblings with school and whatever her parents needed her to do. I was appalled! I thought to myself, “How dreadfully BORING!!!” Tiffiny was a very nice girl, but in my heart I felt very sorry for her and thought I was better than she was. I was so glad I was not wasting my life by doing what she was doing.

Little did I know that God was working in my and my parents’ hearts. I then attended another church conference where I met the Keen family. Just like Tiffiny, their daughters were homemakers. They and Tiffany continued to show me what single girls at home could do without working outside the home or going to a university and still be content.

As God continued to work on my and my parents’ hearts, we began to question why I was going to college. God helped us to see that I was preparing for a life of failure apart from Him instead of preparing for a life of success by having faith in God (Philippians 4:19). I did not have to prepare for failure: divorce, abandonment, government intervention, etc. I could prepare for a life of success in God’s eyes by trusting and having faith in God alone.

This revelation occurred during the summer college break when I was working full time in an office. My boss was an extremely independent and successful businesswoman. She and I were very good friends. We were so close that she desired me to become her protégé and took me under her wing. As my parents and I prayed about whether I would go back to school in the fall, my boss came to me and said, “Lindsay, you shouldn’t listen to your parents. You need to do what you want to do in life. Don’t let anybody else tell you what to do. You are an adult and should make your own decisions. Be independent.” So after much prayer and talking with my parents, I walked in the next day and told my boss that I had decided to quit. God used her to show us in what direction He desired us to move. It was NOT God’s will for me to be independent, especially from my parents (Ephesians 6:1). I needed not only their guidance but also their protection. From that day on I purposed to stay home, serve my family and learn homemaking skills (Titus 2:3-5). I have NEVER for one moment regretted the decision we made.”

Lindsay Schultz is 25 and is thoroughly enjoying “Homemaker Bootcamp!” She has three younger brothers and helps to homeschool the youngest who was adopted from Kazakhstan. She is currently in charge of her oldest brother’s bookkeeping for his lawn maintenance business as well as assisting her mom in caring for her grandfather who now lives with them. (They cared for her grandmother with Alzheimer’s, in their home, until her recent passing.) She thoroughly enjoys cooking, making wedding cakes and playing music with her brothers, but most of all, seeking God’s will!

To be continued…

Holy cow…this is big…

(Profound revelations spurred by a conversation between my brother and me…much of this is his insight.)

Peace, contentment, calmness, quietness, serenity…it’s what every human being ultimately desires ABOVE ANYTHING.

We are not often a people of peace.

And yet, Christians are to be marked by this characteristic. This is the very thing the world should be able to look at us and see as a distinguishing trait.

What’s wrong?

Have you read the stories of the martyrs? They walked with perfect peace into an arena of ravenous lions to meet their death by torturous dismemberment.

How would we go?

To abide in the Word is to know the word, which is to be faced with the choice to obey it. If we obey the truth of it, we are FREE. He wasn’t referring in this passage to the freedom Christ gave to us in the one instant of redemption…he was referring to an “abiding”…something that depends on us…a constant need to linger in the truth of Scripture.

How do you know if you’re free–the kind of free that Jesus describes?

Are you anxious?

“Be anxious for nothing…”
Being anxious is submitting to a lie–the opposite of truth.

Are you discontent?

“Be content with food and clothing…”
Material comparison–envy–is submitting to a lie–the opposite of truth.

Are you worried?

“Cast all your cares upon Him…”
Worry is submitting to a lie–the opposite of truth.

Are you fearful?

“For you have not been given the spirit of fear…”
Fear is submitting to a lie–the opposite of truth.

Are you troubled?

“And the peace of God shall guard your hearts and minds…”
Trouble is submitting to a lie–the opposite of truth.

What is your bondage? How does it stand in the light of the Word? Are you listening to truth, or to a lie?

“You cannot serve two masters…”

President Theodore Roosevelt addressed the National Congress with the following speech.

Read it, and read it again. Ponder it, chew on it, and pass it along. I am blown away at how clearly our forefathers understood the strength of the nation, how plain a civilization’s success depended largely upon its women, and how we take that God-given power today and TRAMPLE it!

The irony of this whole thing just behooves me…literally, God placed the power in OUR hands…to help a man be what he should be…to raise up strong children of character, to shape a culture.

And we whine about how “oppressive” biblical womanhood is…forgive me, but it’s really stupid when you think about it!

Eve abused the power she was given and set the whole course of humanity at odds with God.

Mary embraced the power she was given and allowed Him to redeem the world through her.

What will we do with the power we have been given?

“No piled-up wealth, no splendor of material growth, no brilliance of artistic development, will permanently avail any people unless its home life is healthy…unless the average woman is a good wife, a good mother, able and willing to perform the first and greatest duty of womanhood, able and willing to bear, and to bring up as they should be brought up, healthy children, sound in body, mind, and character, and numerous enough so that the race shall increase and not decrease.

There are certain old truths which will be true as long as this world endures, and which no amount of progress can alter. One of these is the truth that the primary duty of the husband is to be the home-maker, the breadwinner for his wife and children, and that the primary duty of the woman is to be the helpmate, the housewife, and mother…Into the woman’s keeping is committed the destiny of the generations to come after us…

The women’s task is not easy–no task worth doing is easy–but in doing it, and when she has done it, there shall come to her the highest and holiest joy known to mankind, and having done it, she shall have the reward prophesied in Scripture; for her husband and her children, yes, and all people who realize that her work lies at the foundation of all national happiness and greatness, shall rise up and call her blessed.” (emphasis mine)

“Sometimes I catch myself, this laying a hand on my flatness, over that still cavity, and feeling the pulse of ache’s echoing howl. A woman’s body and soul is hollowed out to create, to weave, to knit in the private spaces. And so the longings come, yearnings to fill, to carry, to deliver.

I remember where I was when Husband looked into these seeking eyes and tenderly agreed, ‘It is true. The barren womb never is satisfied’ (Prov. 30: 15-16). If only he really knew how it can scald…

And yet, I have come to think, does the womb need a seed, an unfurling, embryonic soul? Can any soul fill the void? While not necessarily with child, perhaps we may be with abandoned, with elder, with needy. The barren and deserted may become the dwelling place, the fertile home, of souls seeking mother-care.”

Dwelling Places