Willing submission to my calling and to my husband is not hard because it is nothing more than submission to my Savior.
And his heart beat while on earth leaves us with the answer to life:
Jesus had all power and authority in Heaven and earth. He COULD do what He wanted to do. He was important, smart and ambitious. But those traits were only utilized for the Kingdom when he submitted to the will of His Father.
Identifying with Christ in this way gives us a confident, freeing starting place. My calling as a helper and comrade to my husband was God’s idea, not man’s.
In Genesis, the dominion mandate was given to a man and his wife. They were to fulfill God’s mission together, like a well-oiled machine.
As a woman given to the calling of keeping my home, helping my husband and raising a family for the glory of God, my heart leaps with joy that I have been entrusted with such a noble task! Yes it’s hard, yes, some days I cry, but the truth of the mission remains.
One of the common stereotypes of biblical womanhood is that she is enslaved at home, receiving orders barked from her husband who is “in charge”.
Contrary to that idea, a woman in a biblical marriage is the “queen” or manager of her home. She is actually the one “in charge” of the numerous duties of keeping a home and her husband is free to be the man God created him to be because “the heart of her husband safely trusts her”. The two are on the same page–same vision–same goals. He doesn’t have to micro-manage her time because he knows she is capable, smart and eager to fulfill their mission.
One of the feminist lies is that a woman can only be truly free in a career outside her home. But the irony is that she still submits to someone (usually another man). What’s worse is that the man to whom she must obey doesn’t love her, doesn’t have her best interests at heart and doesn’t feel any motivation to protect her.
She is given to another’s schedule, another’s agenda and another’s orders. She helps someone else fulfill his goals, convinced she is “free”.
Wouldn’t I rather do this for my husband? If I’m not helping him, doesn’t he then need to find another helper? He gives me much more freedom than any other boss does!
Another stereotype asserts that a keeper at home can’t make money. Hogwash! Let me mention my friend, Jennie, again. She started Sensibility.com years ago and has grown quite a successful business right from home! I think Crystal Paine has figured it out too! In fact, there has never been such opportunity as now for women at home to run successful businesses, helping with the family’s economy.
Education is another misunderstood area. If your domain is the home, especially if you home school, learning takes on a whole new meaning. I have never had such opportunity to read research and study than now, alongside my children!
Many feel sorry for the lack of socialization a stay-at-home mom gets. And admittedly, this can be a challenge. But when the season is right, a woman given to hospitality gets to enjoy the richness of meaningful relationships and discipleship right in her home, where the love of Christ and the aroma of friendship envelopes all those who enter her home. This kind of interaction with others is, I think, a most meaningful and successful form of evangelizing. Whether it’s having families over, or just other women with whom she can share, there is a whole ministry awaiting.
(As a side note, being a “keeper at home” doesn’t mean she can never leave home! Certainly her work requires her to spend the majority of her time there, but she isn’t tied to the washer 😉
In addition to these few things, depending on her season of life, when a woman understands the art in homemaking, the ocean can’t contain the opportunities at her disposal. I have friends who have catering businesses–true food artists,who not only make money but bless others with their gifts. Friends who are photographers, even setting up their own dark rooms, seamstresses who make costumes and sell or display, artists so gifted in crafts they never buy a gift, women who can design, build or remodel a whole house, musicians…the list goes on.
And let me add, I don’t want any women reading to feel underachieved. I certainly don’t want to suggest you have to be some supermom. That is NOT the point of this post! You know my heart. I only want to turn over some of the stereotypes and say to women that being a keeper at home doesn’t mean enslavement and misery.
Far more important than these things is the work she does in teaching her children about the Lord. Right there, given as gifts from heaven, is an army of God being prepared to march out and continue the mission. On the weary days, I try to envision a family gathering when I am old. Hoping to see throngs of people around me, my children with their children with their children–the heritage of the Lord, the fruit of our labor!
Some people can’t fathom *HOME* as anything more than a building with lots of dirty laundry. But it’s so much more!
19 comments
Wonderful post and soooo true. Being a Keeper of the Home is such a blessing. So many moms just don’t know what they are missing.
And the thing is, once they come home from working for that other man all day, the home is still waiting to be taken care of. And then, it’s the children who lose out.
“The two are on the same page–same vision–same goals. He doesn’t have to micro-manage her time because he knows she is capable, smart and eager to fulfill their mission.
I love this statement! It’s so true! 🙂
It’s so hard to describe what I “do” because it is so much more than dirty laundry and dishes!
I’ve been on bedrest the last week, and let me tell you, it’s given me a new appreciation for being a wife and mom. I’ve started tellling my boys every day “Did you know that I love being your Mommy?” My dear husband – “helping” him by resting has been incredibly difficult for me!!!
I’m not an esspecially creative person. I can’t decorate, or bring in money (it would stress me where I know it doesn’t others), but I’m thriving at home. The weird little things I get such a kick out of doing and make me who I am – I have time to do them. I try to excell at researching things to help dh.
But scrapbooking? Card making? Sewing? Color-cordinating? I’m not your woman. *smile* I do try, but generally sucess occurs because I ask for the opinions of those who ARE good at these things.
I just want to encourage those who feel like they don’t “fit the mold”. There isn’t a mold to “fit”!
A garden for you might not mean canning your own food. It might mean flowers (which would make me envy you like crazy!) or herbs or silk flower wreaths or nothing at all. The neat thing is, if one of these (or several) are you cup of tea – you have the freedom to excel in the areas you love to the benifit of the ones you love most! 🙂
Sorry for the length of this, being home excites me! There is so much potential! 🙂
Ashley
http://www.homesteadblogger.com/Jonash2004
Ack!!! Before I forget I MUST say congrats! I saw your ticker yesterday and was so excited!!!!! Enjoy the journey to meet your 8th. 🙂 Praising God with you!
Ashley
http://www.homesteadblogger.com/Jonash2004
Wow, congrats on baby #8, After two years of trying to have another baby, and going through several ectopics and miscarriages, we are expecting #4. When I saw that heartbeat at 6 weeks, I cried and new that it was a miracle from God. How can people justify, and say that it is not “human” yet. I do not understand it. Many blessings, and I love your blog.
Delilah
This post brings tears to my eyes because this is what I long to do! When you graduate highschool people ask you what you want to do when you grow up and nothing really appealed to me. I have since discovered that I passionately look forward to raising kids and homeschooling them like I was. Other women don’t understand that because they have a desire to be fulfilled outside their home. I am so blessed that God has given me an overwhelming desire to be the keeper of our home.
Congrats on #8!! We are expecting out first! – Stephanie
littlelawry.blogspot.com
OH MY GOODNESS I just about shrieked with excitement when I saw your little baby ticker!!! Congratulations on your little miracle!! 😀
Great post. I just wish those moms out there would realize what a true blessing it is to be home and serve your family.
P.S. THANK YOU for the link to Jennie’s pattern website. I am just learning to sew, so JUST YESTERDAY I was searching for something like this and got frustrated. I ended up going to the library and checking out a couple of books.
Congratulations! I am so very excited for you.
This post is awesome. You said everything very well and are right on!
WHOA I did a double take when I saw your ticker, sneaky, sneaky!! 🙂 CONGRATULATIONS, how wonderful!!!
I’m re-reading Mary Pride’s “The Way Home” and also “All the Way Home” and I love how she describes all of this as well. I think every Christian mother should own those 2 books.
CONGRATULATIONS, Kelly!!! What a blessing.
And oh yes, I agree with the post, too.
Congratulations on your new little blessing!!
As always, I agree whole-heartedly with your post. I am sooo blessed to have always wanted to stay at home and raise my own children. I wasn’t raised by a SAHM. My step-mom worked, but I did come home from school to my grandma. (Best lady ever, she was!!) I constantly am elated at the things/ ideas that God has chosen to show me and help me realize! Thank you Jesus!!!
At this point my husband doesn’t want me to have a home business, not bc he micro-manages. (he has a few himself.) He is very ok w/ how me and our children spend our time. We have so much fun learning, cooking, baking, sewing, and crocheting. We provide as much food and clothing and gifts as we can, which helps financially. My oldest is a 12yo girl. Then 3 boys(11, 9, 7), then a girl(4), then a boy (19 months). Now another boy due in 8 weeks. My boys have so much fun outside being boys. (No video games to take up their brain space.) They build and create so much, so often. I LOVE being home, being able to let my children grow and explore in a REAL environment, like the grocery store, working w/ their dad or grandfather or their cousins next door. They get to see the small businesses my husband has, and help and make money and tithe! They get to see a big family work together and learn to get along with people of many ages.
BTW, my husband just said the other day that he believes we have been financially/ womb-ly 🙂 blessed bc we have chosen to obey God by me staying home. There was a time that we didn’t have 2 nickels to rub together! When friends at church would go out to eat; we absolutely could not do that. Now, we don’t usually go bc sweet eldest daughter and I have something prepared AND it’s less healthy to go out to eat!
LOVE BEING HOME!!!
Kelly, CONGRATULATIONS on the precious life growing inside of you! That’s very exciting!
I sent you an email a couple of weeks ago introducing myself(not sure if it went to junk mail or not) but if you don’t see it, email me and I will forward it back to you. Thanks, Rixja
rixjav@comcast.net
Kelly:
Your post today was a true blessing! Little by little, each day, I am learning the importance of being a keeper at home. When I first got married, I was working a 9 hour job, and the thought of being a homemaker or even a housewife was a joke to me. I just wanted my “big pay check” and feel important.
I think the Lord was beginning to open my eyes when that 9 hour job was literally causing me to have a mental break-down. In the beginning, I REFUSED to quit because I didn’t want to “just rely on my husband.” I wanted to be independent and make my own way. My husband was telling me to quit and said he would take care of me, but I didn’t want to listen to him!
I eventually quit my job (and felt guilty), and I recall, at the time, it was THE WORST because I wasn’t working outside the home. I wasn’t getting a paycheck either. I was bored out of my mind because I wasn’t used to being at home 24/7, so I would just go shopping all the time and spend my husband’s money. Isn’t that horrible?
. . . Time has passed since then. I’m now down to a 3 hour job. This past summer, after reading, “Passionate Housewives Desperate for God,” I began to learn what it truly means to be a keeper at home (and it’s not about spending all your husband’s money on silly shopping sprees). I work for a school, so I didn’t have to go to work, and it was SO refreshing to actually just take care of my home. I never got bored, and I ALWAYS had projects to do.
I dreaded September because I didn’t want to go back to work . . . I guess my husband REALLY appreciated this as well, and at some point, wants me at home full time (I am awaiting that day).
I can honestly say that it’s difficult to truly take care of your home if you have an outside job. Your attention becomes divided. Even with my current 3 hour job, I have to devote time to that and sometimes, it interferes with my home life as well as my husband. I don’t like that. Instead of giving 100% to being a keeper at home, I can only give 50% to 60%. No good!
I used to think that it was just okay to be a part-time keeper at home and work part-time outside the home. I’m learning that by God’s standards that it’s not “just okay.”
At any rate, I still have much to learn. Take it from me, it takes time to appreciate being a keeper of home, but once you appreciate and accept this blessing from God, you will continue to grow and excel in this area.
P.S. Also, I am learning that there is NO shame in being a housewife as a Christian woman if the Lord has not yet blessed you with children.
Kelly:
I just sent you an email. You might want to check your junk mailbox (smiles).
I struggled with the working mom guilt for two long. I quit my job seven years ago when my son was born. When he was three, I went back to college for two years to finish my degree. When he was five, I graduated and went to work in my field of training. He was home with dad during the day(hubby works nights), so I convinced myself, it was o.k. That same week, I started the new job and found out I was pregnent. I was so happy, thankful, and dreading already having to leave my baby and go back to work. When the time came I went back for a week and gave notice. Then a year later, they called me back offering one day a week for more money. One half day turned into two eight hour days.
I made it work or so I told myself. We also began homeschooling two years ago. I have just been getting by at everything and doing nothing to my best ability. Finally, I listened to my heart and have left work for good. I cannot put into words how much better our home life has become. Everything is so much more relaxed. I no longer carry that guilt that I am shorting my children. The Lord had spoke this into my spirit years, ago but the world whispered in my ear that I would not be fulfilled. Let me say, I have never been more fulfilled in my life.
Congrats on your new blessing Kelly. Love this blog!!! Blessing to you and your.
Kelly,
I agree with you that a woman at home can be “more” than a “washer-woman” of the family laundry.
Yet, how much of a contribution is that “washer-woman”? Or cook? Or teacher? Or cleaner?
I think that we must appreciate the work that we do as mothers and wives, in the lives of our families (making a home, cleaning their clothes, cooking their meals) – for what it IS – a valid and valuable contribution!
I know that as a young mother I struggled with these basics, and I am going to assume that lots of “new” moms do as well. But as I grew in my role, I was able to do more (to “every season”) in other ways.
Still, let’s not discount the very valuable role in the lives of our husbands and children that we fill during the “laundry” and other mundane times we spend as women at home.
Rixja,
Did you get my email?
Mrs. Imperfect,
You make such an important point! We need to resurrect the importance of just *working* in the home, serving and loving my family through the daily grind of fulfilling their needs.
Their is nobility in that, and serving our family’s basic needs is what we are called to do.
I wrote a poem about this a few years ago…I think I may repost it!
Lady S.,
I got your email…did you get mine? I think for some reason my emails aren’t getting to their destinations!
I used to tell my children, when they were young, “I love taking care of you!” Now that they are young men, I still tell them that (and they still need to be taken care of). I beg them to bring home their laundry from college, even though they are perfectly capable of doing it themselves when they have to, so that I can do it for them. I love being a mom.