I remember once listening to my brilliant older cousin (your husband, Botanyhead) debating with our atheist grandfather on the subject of abortion. Our grandfather (who was later saved, but that’s a different story) was adamant that we needed abortion to be “safe, legal, and easily available” because, among other things, the world is overpopulated. My cousin, tongue firmly in cheek, said with a big grin, “And the answer is, machine guns!”

In It’s All About the Money (and Greed, and Selfishness) my favorite Israeli blogger, the delightful Mrs. Anna T. of Domestic Felicity takes on overpopulation and the vast consumption inherent in the whole argument. She even fleshes out the machine gun idea. (And while you’re reading her great post, join me in being seriously impressed when you realize that English is this young woman’s third language.)

Two things have I required of thee; deny me them not before I die: Remove far from me vanity and lies: give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me: Lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, Who is the LORD? or lest I be poor, and steal, and take the name of my God in vain. –Proverbs 30:7-9

The American financial situation has been looking rather catastrophic lately. People are wondering if we’re heading for another depression. There’s worry over retirement investments, real estate values, inflation, tax increases. In short, we’re worried about our riches. The truth is, we may be headed for tough times.

But would that really be so bad? And what do we mean by “tough?” Most of the world for most of history has lived far, far, far, ridiculously, almost unimaginably far below our current standard of living. We’re talking one room huts, one change of clothes, and if it’s food, you eat it, and you don’t complain that you don’t like squash because there’s no cold pizza in the fridge to snack on later (there’s no fridge, in fact). What makes us think we deserve to be different, or even that it’s preferable to be different?

On a global scale, we are a nation of the richest of the rich. Even our slums are full of satellite dishes and big screen TVs. We’re the only nation in the world, perhaps of all time, in which vast numbers of our “poor” can afford to be obese. We are rolling, glutted in wealth, drowning in it, until all we can see is our comfortable prosperity. Few of us have ever had to wonder where the next meal would come from, or had the experience of having to actually trust God because there really is nothing left, no food stamps, no welfare, no WIC, nothing.

And you know what? Just like Proverbs 30 warns, we’ve denied the Lord. We are a nation completely given over to sensuality, exporting our pornographic filth, polluting the whole world. We have murdered 49,131,136 of our children since we made abortion legal in 1973 (Click the number to see how it’s grown since I posted this.). We have attempted to wipe out every reference to God and His law in all our public buildings and to erase Him from our history books. We have enshrined evolution and humanism in our schools, museums, and media. We have mainstreamed homosexuality to the point of validating it through civil unions and even marriage in some states.

One of our children had a bad attitude and wasn’t sharing well or considering others in the enjoyment of a new birthday toy. My husband took the toy away until the attitude improved. Maybe we’re experiencing a little of the same kind of judgment. Could it be that God is taking our prosperity away until our attitude improves? That wouldn’t be so bad, and if it draws people back from denying the Lord, then it would be a really good thing.

And what if we do have to live through “tough times?” We may have to take aging family members into our homes because their retirement savings have evaporated. We may have to quit hopping on airplanes or driving the family van hundreds of miles for vacations. Our children may have to learn a little of the spirit of the children in Little House in the Big Woods, who were awestruck with joy at receiving a pair of mittens and a stick of candy at Christmas. We may have to get serious about gardening, eating local, and creativity with beans (even squash!). We may have to learn to be like the newlywed Brother Andrew in God’s Smuggler, who was thankful that he and his wife had their own room, not their own house or their own apartment, their own room. We may have to wear the same clothes several days in a row. We may be brought face to face with real needs in our own neighborhoods and chances to give sacrificially.

Of course, I have no idea what it would be like to live like this, but I know that untold thousands of people before me have done all this and more and been happy in the process. And, yes, many untold thousands have also been extremely unhappy. This world has known great and terrible suffering of kinds that few of us can even contemplate. But if suffering brings us to the Lord, then isn’t it better to suffer on this earth and spend eternity with Him than to live comfortably here, and spend eternity without Him? Many of us have been praying for years for God to turn our nation to righteousness. Are we willing to endure the hardship it might take to wake people up to their need?

It certainly won’t be as easy as living in a world where everyone has a 3000 square foot house, two cars in the garage, and several Coach bags in the closet, but in the vast eternal scheme of things, isn’t the joy of learning to truly depend on the Lord and seeing those around us come to Him of far greater value than ease? I’m not saying we should go looking to suffer, but if God asks it of us, there’s nothing to be afraid of.

For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment let us be therewith content. But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. –Timothy 6:6-10

Well, another wonderful blogging friend, Meghan Jones of The Jones Family has “tagged” me. The first time I was tagged the rules were a bit different. This time I’m supposed to list 6 random things about myself. (And yes, the rules do say that I’m supposed to tag others, but I thought that since I just tagged a bunch of people recently, I’m going to let my first tagging count for this one, too.) So here are 6 random things about me:

1. I was saved when I was four and a half.

2. My favorite book of the Bible is Psalms.

3. I ADORE Coke slushies.  (But I never have them when I’m expecting, and nearly never have them when I’m nursing, which leaves me about two months every other year to binge and have them three or four times a week.)

4. I grind my own flour (and bake a LOT).

5. I don’t usually use a pattern when I sew (but don’t be too impressed–I make pretty simple stuff).

6. Up until transition, I actually really enjoy labor.

Hello again, ladies,

My appologies to everyone. I’ve been away for nearly a week keeping my husband company while he was at a  conference. I had hoped to bring my computer to keep up with all your lovely blogs and maybe post a couple things myself, but at the last minute, we decided against it since I was planning to be taking the children museum hopping during the day, and my husband was concerned that the computer would not be safe in the hotel room.

I still had hopes of checking blogs at night on my husband’s laptop once the children were in bed, but with the busy days and my being extra tired with the baby, pretty much the only thing I wound up checking at night was the softness of my pillow. We’re home now, though, and I’m hoping to settle back into normal life again soon.

Well, ladies, morning sickness (actually all day sickness) has officially set in, as has a serious case of tiredness. (Actually, I’m fine if I get ten uninterrupted hours of sleep each night. You can all fall off your chairs laughing as soon as you remember that I have a 4 1/2 year old, a three year old, and a fourteen month old. So, yeah, the ten hour thing doesn’t always work so well.) Plus, now that my daughter is turning five this year, I’m thinking that homeschooling needs to be a little less relaxed, and that takes time out of my already drained days.

So I’m looking for ways to streamline my life, and I’m wondering, what did/do you do when you’re expecting. Where did/do you cut? What are your favorite tricks? What cleaning/cooking/laundry shortcuts work best for you? (If you’ve never had a baby, then what did your mom do, or your friends?)

Every now and then, I read something so profound, so encouraging, so convicting that I just have to print it and keep it on my fridge for years. This is one of those “Wow” pieces, beautifully written, serious truth for the weary. Click on over and read What a Mother Must Sacrifice.

And after you do, Pluck.

I’d like to introduce you to your imaginary Uncle Freddie. You love Uncle Freddie. He’s been single all his life, so you feel almost motherly towards him since he doesn’t have anyone else to look after him. He’s jolly, and open, and sincere, loves kids and animals, never misses birthday parties. You know, he’s family. Unfortunately, Uncle Freddie also has an unhealthy relationship with food. In fact, he weighs 600 pounds, and his doctor has told him that if he doesn’t lose weight, he’s going to die because if the diabetes doesn’t get him, a heart attack will. Uncle Freddie’s coming over for dinner tomorrow, and you’ve got a family pack of chicken. How are you going to cook it?

Recently, Joanna, of Jo-with-it’s Portfolio left me the following comment.

Do you wear skirts all the time? I think I would like to try it for a week or something, but I don’t know if there are any verses that say you should, and I don’t know where to look. I don’t want to do it for the wrong reason.

Yup, I pretty much do wear skirts all the time, but not exactly because I think the Bible says I should. Rather, I think the Bible has certain principles that should affect our clothing choices, and wearing skirts is the easiest way for me to keep them all in balance. I do not think mine is the only way to do this. It’s just the one that makes the most sense to me. The personal outworking of Biblical principle, is exactly that, personal. And above all, we need to follow the leadership of our husbands and fathers in that outworking.

Uncle Freddie will be our constant companion through this discussion because, just as he has an unhealthy relationship with food, there are an awful lot of men out there who have unhealthy relationships with women’s bodies through lust. And the way we prepare food for dinner for an unhealthy loved one has a lot of correspondences to the way we prepare our bodies for a day out in an unhealthy world.

The first Biblical principle that should affect clothing choice is modesty. Modesty is like keeping your cooking low in calories. It’s a slippery issue, hard to make universal rules about, but vitally important, especially when Uncle Freddie is coming to dinner, AND in the case of modesty (not low cal cooking), it’s actually commanded in Scripture.

In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array; But (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works. 1Timothy 2:9-10

The closest I can come to a good working definition of modesty is, “not drawing attention to yourself,” not putting up the big, sizzling, neon sign that screams, “Look at me!” “Look at me, I’m so rich!” or “Look at me, I just walked off the cover of InStyle,” or perhaps most crucially, “Look at me, I’m hotter than hellfire, I got more curves than the Pacific Coast Highway, and you’re gonna be dreaming about me all night, baby!” Maybe the simplest way of saying it is that modesty means not showing off.

And we really need not to show off because our brothers in Christ are living in a sex-saturated world, just like Uncle Freddie is surrounded by fast food restaurants and cheap candy bars. Sexual images are everywhere, easily available, addicting, and anonymous. A 1996 Promise Keepers Survey at one of their rallies found that over 50% of the men admitted being involved with pornography within one week of attendance. And according to a 2001 Christianity Today Leadership Survey 37% of pastors say that porn is a current struggle. It’s been a few years, and I’d be really surprised if the situation hasn’t gotten worse.

Men who are struggling with porn are guaranteed also to be struggling with objectifying the women around them, with viewing women as nothing but bodies, with living each day in a state of unbridled lust. And that lust is killing them spiritually just as surely as being morbidly obese is killing Uncle Freddie physically. Some of these men are completely given over, but others are fighting, struggling to keep their heads above water. And while we may sometimes be able to tell who these hurting men are, the numbers are so high that the majority of them are going unnoticed. You see them at church, at the store; they’re watching you from their cars as they pass you on the street. Do you love these men? Do you want to help them? Do you care if they lust after you? Or are you just annoyed with them? Are you angry at Uncle Freddie for eating way too many Twinkies and then overeating at your table?

The second principle is being feminine, the desire to look like a woman. This is akin to having what you cook taste good. The main verse people usually quote on dressing in a distinctly feminine way is:

The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the LORD thy God. Deuteronomy 22:5

The important thing to keep in mind here is that this is part of the Law, and Christians have argued for centuries about what that means for us. Many people would be quick to point out that this same chapter forbids plowing with an ox and an ass together (v. 10) and wearing fabric made from combined fibers, such as wool and linen (v. 11). Most Christians, even the ones who say that verse 5 means that it’s an abomination for women to ever wear pants, would not rise up in righteous indignation at a poly-cotton blend, so a lot of people would like to throw out the idea that a women wearing masculine clothes is wrong, too. But there is a difference in verse 5. It’s unique in that a reason for the command is given. And that reason is that “all that do so are abomination unto the LORD thy God.” “Abomination” means God hates it. When God says He hates something we’d better take note, no matter which part of the Bible we find His declaration in. Indeed, we take very seriously other “abominations to the LORD” mentioned in the Law (idolatry: Deuteronomy 7:25, human sacrifice: Deuteronomy 12:31, involvement in the occult: Deuteronomy 18:10-12, deceitfulness in business: Deuteronomy 25:13-16, and many, many more). God, who does not change, has declared that He hates it when men look like women and women look like men. Now exactly what that means in terms of the actual clothes is going to be cultural, but I think we can at least take away from this the principle that God does want us to look like what He made us to be.

OK, now comes the hard part, a balancing act tougher than menu planning for a 600 pound uncle, because the easiest way to look feminine is to wear clothes that are small and tight, that show lots of your delicate skin, gracefully follow every curve, and leave no doubts about how small and soft you are compared to the average man. But, oops! That is not terribly modest. Now what? More fabric? Baggier? More androgynous?

It’s really easy to be modest without being feminine, and it’s really easy to be feminine without being modest, just like it’s really easy to cook low calorie chicken that tastes like rubber, and it’s really easy to cook succulent chicken that’s fatty enough to clog seven more of Uncle Freddie’s hardened arteries.

Take jeans for example. Jeans can be kind of modest if they’re really loose and straight cut. Some men, to be perfectly blunt, are going to have trouble with having their eye follow the line of your legs up to where they meet (a place it would be better if the men around you weren’t thinking about), but you could always mitigate that with a really big shirt that hangs half-way to your knees. And if you’re super careful about not letting your hips sway too much, depending on your hair, you might even pass for a wimpy little man, and then for sure, you’d be modest. But, ew, not to mention “abomination.” So maybe we don’t want to go there, but the minute your jeans are tight enough to show the world that you’re actually female, you’re cruising down the Pacific Coast Highway in a convertible. And, um, we all know how men are about…cars.

So, what do we do? I tend to think that modesty has to come first, but not to the absolute exclusion of femininity (because God does want us to look feminine). We constantly have to strike a balance, and that is governed by the most important principle yet, the Principle of Love.

To illustrate what I mean, let’s return to Uncle Freddie for a moment. How are you going to cook that chicken? Look at these menu options and the thoughts behind them, and try to think which one is the most loving.

Well, option one is, you could say to yourself, “It’s Uncle Freddie’s fault he’s so fat. If he overeats at my house and gains six more pounds, he’ll have no one to blame but himself and his own out of control lust for food. I’m getting out the Crisco and frying that chicken because that’s the way my husband likes it. Anyway, if Uncle Freddie doesn’t eat fried chicken at my house, he could always stop at KFC on the way home, so it doesn’t really matter how I cook.”

Or, you could say to yourself, “Poor Uncle Freddie, food is just too hard to resist! Maybe if I boil the chicken in several changes of water, I can remove all the fat. My family’s not going to like it, but I don’t want to feel like I killed Uncle Freddie!”

Then there’s option three: “I love Uncle Freddie, and I know he really struggles with food. I want to make a nice dinner for my family, but I don’t want to sabotage Uncle Freddie’s efforts, either. Maybe I could fire up the grill to give that chicken a nice mesquite flavor without adding extra fat and calories.”In my mind, option three is the most loving. You’re balancing your love for your family with your love for Uncle Freddie and sensitivity to his struggles. You’re trying to make food that will be yummy for your husband and children, but that won’t contribute to Uncle Freddie’s problems. Of course, he could still overeat, but you’re giving him a fighting chance at staying on his diet.

It is this balance that I’m striving to achieve in my clothes. I want to be feminine and pretty, to look like a woman, but I don’t want to show so many curves that the men around me start hearing engines revving and feel the salt air on their cheeks. And for me, that means wearing skirts. Skirts are obviously feminine (just think of the little outlines of the people on the doors of public bathrooms–the canonical woman is wearing a dress). You can tell at a glance that I’m a woman, but (if my skirt is long and full enough), I’m not showing all that many curves, far fewer than in the average pair of pants. It’s great mesquite flavor without too many calories. My family has a nice dinner. Uncle Freddie lives through the night.

***

Note: There are some women who have been sexually abused who cannot handle wearing skirts. My mom had a dear friend who was in this situation. I asked her to be in charge of the gift table at my wedding, and after much anguish, she finally told my mom she didn’t know if she could do it. She figured if she had an official wedding “job,” she’d have to wear a dress, and she just couldn’t bring herself to put one on. I told my mom to tell her that I cared about her, not her clothes. She could wear whatever she wanted to my wedding. I still wanted to honor her with a special role.

I do think that skirts are a great option for most people, but I would never want anything I say here to be used to make someone who’s hurting feel guilty.

Ladies, I have added a new modesty resource to my sidebar, but I’m so excited about it that I thought I’d give them a little extra “press” here as well. The site is called Modest at Heart Clothing, and is one of the home businesses of the Appel family, a homeschooling family with five children. They sell new and gently used modest clothes at GREAT prices (like WholesomeWear swim suits for around fifteen dollars!). They have a wide variety of clothes for the whole family, everything from mainstream styles with good coverage to cape dresses, even a few headcoverings. I just ordered some maternity and nursing clothes from them, and they arrived quickly and were in beautiful condition. I highly recommend checking them out–and no, I’m not getting anything for mentioning them!

“So,” I said to my friend as I perched on the edge of the hotel bed, “I’ve made the leap into ultimate freakdom. I’ve started covering my head full time.”

Those of you who know me (or have been reading my blog for awhile) know that I cover my head. For some time, I’ve wanted to share my story here, but I worried about how to do it. So often, Christians make little differences like this into litmus tests to decide who’s in their holiness club and who isn’t. And while I’m always thrilled to know other women who cover (even Muslim women and I have often exchanged special, knowing smiles), I want to make it perfectly clear that I can love you and respect you as my sister in Christ no matter what your position on headcovering.

Mat 23:23 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cumin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.

My headcovering is my tithe of mint, so to speak. I fully accept that it is not one of the “weightier matters.” It is a million times easier to put a headcovering on when I fix my hair in the mornings than it is not to get irritated at my children. (Although, wearing the headcovering has often brought me up short when I am irritated because I realize that my children are looking at a tight faced woman with dagger-eyes, glaring at them under a covering, which is supposed to mark her as one who claims the name of Christ, and the ugliness of my rotten testimony has instantly quenched my fire.) But all in all, I recognize that there is infinitely more to the Christian life than covering your head, and if you’ve figured out how to rejoice always, conquered your irritation, or even learned to be a good steward of your time, you are way further along in holiness than I!

Why am I bothering to write this then, or even to cover my head at all? Because, “these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.” God still meant for His people to tithe their mint, and I cannot be intellectually honest with the Bible and not come to the conclusion that I am supposed to cover my head.

But it’s a strange practice today. And while it looks to me like headcovering is making a small comeback, there still aren’t that many of us who live this way, and because of that, though it is a small matter, I wanted to try to tell my story and explain my position in hopes of encouraging others who are on this path and of helping those who aren’t to understand a little better their covering sisters.

This journey began in my aunt and uncle’s fifteen passenger van in Grand Rapids. I was fourteen years old. The young man who would someday be my husband was sitting on the bench seat behind me. He was sixteen. We had just met me the night before. As we drove towards church Sunday morning, my aunt turned around in her seat, an assortment of headcoverings in her hand, “The women at our assembly wear little mantillas…”

The Christian practice of headcovering comes from I Corinthians 11:3-16. I’ve included the full text at the end of this post, but here is a taste.

“But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head…let her be covered” (1 Corinthians 11:5a and 6b).

When we got to church, I put on a mantilla. I saw my reflection in the van window. Intriguing. A strange feeling of protection, of being special. And the young man I’d just met was so adamant that the Bible taught this. Why hadn’t I ever learned about this?

The most common argument I hear against headcovering is that the passage is actually talking about long hair, not some sort of veil or hat. (If you want to read a very scholarly exposition of the passage and refutation of this idea and others, read my father-in-law’s article.) The reason that I cannot personally adopt this interpretation is that verse 6 does not make any sense with this reading. If you follow the “long hair” logic, you would be “covered” if your hair were long, and “not covered” if your hair were short. Verse 6 talks about not being covered. If we insert “have short hair” for “be not covered” in this verse, we get “For if the woman have short hair, let her also be shorn (have short hair).” How can you “also” have short hair if you already have short hair? The passage only makes sense to me if it’s talking about two things: long hair and a headcovering.

Young Mr. Parunak and I fell in love within the week. I returned home to my family in Oregon, my beau and I spanning the distance with letters and phone calls, headcovering being a common topic as I wrestled through this new idea.

Another common argument is that headcovering was just a cultural issue at Corinth. I’ve heard all kinds of ideas on how this was the case, the most bizare being that the Corinthian women were actually taking off all their clothes at church, and that since they started with their headcoverings, what Paul was actually saying here is that they should quit stripping. I haven’t been able to make peace with this view either. For starters, while 1 Corinthians was written to the church at Corinth, it was also written to “all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours” (1 Corinthians 1:2), so its teachings are for everyone, and its commands are binding on any believer regardless of home city or culture.

But the biggest reason, I can’t convince myself of the “culture at Corinth” argument is that the Bible never says, “Cover your head so the people at the market place don’t think the wrong things about you,” or even, “Cover, so your brothers and sisters don’t think the wrong thing.” It says, “For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head because of the angels” (1Corinthians 11:10). The culture at work here is not Corinthian culture at all; it’s angelic culture. I don’t know anything about angelic culture, so if God says that He wants me to do something for His angels to see, in my mind, I simply have to do it, no questions asked.

A circle of lace from the fabric store, edged with a narrow, ruffled band, held on with a hat pin. My mind was made up, but my heart was beating in my ears. What would people think? Would anyone say anything to me my first time at my home church in a headcovering? It’s hard to be different. But I didn’t have a choice. I was starting to believe this, and as it turned out, no one said a word.

Some people say that headcovering is just “too weird.” Women won’t want to become Christians if it means they have to put some funky cloth on their heads. This argument is based on 1 Corinthians 9:22 “I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. ” And it’s a good thing to keep in mind when we’re talking about things that we think up on our own. It’s a very valid reason not to wear a fake rhinoceros horn on the end of your nose, for example. But it’s not really a good reason to throw out commands that God gives us. Christians are called to do a lot of things that make us look weird, like saving sex for marriage, not getting drunk, or loving people who hate us. Would anyone seriously say, “I need to take up prostitution, so I don’t look too weird to the prostitutes I’m trying to reach,” or even, “I need to start gossiping, so the women I have coffee with will know they can become Christians and still be normal.” If God tells us to do something, we have to do it, even we look weird.

Eventually, I became known as “the girl who always wears hats.” I covered at church and college group functions, and I covered whenever I had my devotions. But gradually, I began to notice something. When I finished my devotions, I didn’t want to be “done.” I wanted the closeness with the Lord to continue, the prayer lines to stay open. I wanted the ease of just talking to the Lord whenever I wanted to without the hassle of getting my covering out again. I would have devotions and want to leave my headcovering on while I pulled out my textbooks. Before long, I had simply fallen into covering my head all the time in my dorm room. When I graduated, and became Mrs. Parunak, I covered all the time when I was at home alone, but quickly yanked my headcovering off when Mr. Parunak arrived home because I was just “sure” that he preferred me uncovered if we weren’t actually at church or praying together.

It strikes me as odd how many men there are who still take 1 Corinthians 11 seriously when it comes to NOT praying with their heads covered. They’ll take off their hats in a rain storm or the blazing sun to pray, and they would never, ever approve of a preacher getting up to pray before a congregation with a hat on his head. Yet these very same men seem completely oblivious to their wives praying uncovered. “1 Corinthians is talking about hair!” they’ll say, while I quietly wonder why, if that’s true, they still feel they need to take their hats off to pray since the hair under those hats is quite short.

It was on the road again, but this time it was our own little car, and we were on our way home from church, rather than driving to church. I was recounting to Mr. Parunak how I had told my friend about how much I wanted to cover full-time, but how I wasn’t doing it because I knew my husband wouldn’t like it. He said, “What ever gave you that idea?” That night, we went over 1 Corinthians 11 again. It really did seem to be saying that women should have their heads covered when they pray. That, coupled with the fact that we are to “pray without ceasing” (1Thessalonians 5:17), convinced us to go ahead and have me start. I was so excited.

Today, I wear a long kerchief style covering (looks a bit like our Charity sisters, if you’re familiar with them), and I love it so much. It’s still hard sometimes to be different. But oddly enough, it’s much harder among other Christians than out in the world. Strangers have visibly softened. I’ve noticed a gentleness and respect from a lot of people that I hardly ever saw when I tried to look more “normal” out in public. It’s made me more aware of my testimony out in public, too, because I know people are watching. And for someone who believes 1 Corinthians 11 means what I believe it does, full-time covering is a luxurious relief, freeing me to pray any time throughout the day without having to worry about whether my hands are covered with raw meat, bread dough, or garden dirt, or busy with laundry or babies, and unable to grab a headcovering at that moment.

And that is my story, a glimpse inside the head of a genuine oddity, a freak, but a convicted freak, and a happy one. That’s the view from under my veil.

***

1Co 11:3 But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.
1Co 11:4 Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonoureth his head.
1Co 11:5 But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head: for that is even all one as if she were shaven.
1Co 11:6 For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn: but if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered.
1Co 11:7 For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man.
1Co 11:8 For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man.
1Co 11:9 Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man.
1Co 11:10 For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head because of the angels.
1Co 11:11 Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord.
1Co 11:12 For as the woman is of the man, even so is the man also by the woman; but all things of God.
1Co 11:13 Judge in yourselves: is it comely that a woman pray unto God uncovered?
1Co 11:14 Doth not even nature itself teach you, that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him?
1Co 11:15 But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her: for her hair is given her for a covering.
1Co 11:16 But if any man seem to be contentious, we have no such custom, neither the churches of God.

Dear ladies, I am delighted to share our news with you that we are expecting our fourth child in early May. So far, I’m just a bit queasey (more and worse to come, if past pregnancies are any indication), and I’ve already started to gain weight (also normal for me–I get REALLY big).

You may be surprised that I’m announcing this so early. Why not wait until the chance of miscarriage is much lower? Well, I’ve always figured that I’d rather have people praying for me even if it means I have to tell them I lost the baby. (Anyway, if I did loose a baby, I’d probably want to blog about it!) If you get a chance today, please pray for our little one to develop normally, and most of all, to grow up to love and serve the Lord.

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. James 1:17

It says in James 4:6 “God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.” So today I’m going to be humble and hope the Lord graciously blesses me with some great ideas through all of you. True confessions here. Are you ready for the horror?

My kids toys are not organized.

Oh, sure, I have them categorized in labeled bins, so if you happened to go into my basement on one of the three days per year that it was actually clean, and you could, you know, see the floor, you might be tempted to think that I don’t have such a problem with this. (Of course, if you’re a veteran mom, you might see through all my little labels and smile to yourself while you marvel at your great luck at arriving on one of the only three aforementioned days…)

BUT the fact is, that my toys are not functionally organized, and therefore, for the other 362 days out of the year (which sorta feels like always) they are a mess.

Over at Organized Everyday, the Organizing Mommy has written a brilliant post called, Organizing for the High-Brow Types. I hope you all go over and read it because, as I said, it’s brilliant. Anyway, in this post she gives a bit of a checklist for how you know when your “organizing bird” can fly off to a different part of your house:

1. Is the space used for it’s most effective CURRENT purpose? (these change all the time)

2. Are the items used MOST often in the MOST easily accessible space?

3. Are the items that are truly JUNK removed? disposed of?

4. Is it visually appealing to the eye? (Yes, I like beauty and artistic order in my home)

5. Is the space labeled/ marked for easy upkeep of the current system?

Sounds great. Sounds logical. I’m trying to apply it to my kids toy area, and suddenly I see why my current system does not work, but I don’t know how to fix it. I need some help. So, of course, I thought to myself, “Who better to ask for help than people who have mostly never even seen my house?” But seriously, I don’t really expect that any of my problems are all that new. I think most moms have faced something along these lines and come up with lots of solutions that would probably also work at my house, and I am so in need of creative inspiration.

So, will y’all brainstorm with me?

OK, so here’s my situation. My kids’ toys are in the basement. The idea is that they ALL stay in the basement unless they are being played with, and then they are supposed to be returned to the basement. (I can hear so much laughing right now. Yeah, I know, I’m totally unrealistic, and probably someone has a bridge to sell me in Brooklyn, too.) Since the kids don’t PLAY in the basement, we fail big time on Question 1. because the basement is not being used for the most effective current purpose. Why is this section of my basement a toy area? Well, it’s because we live in a VERY small house. All three kids share one bedroom, so there really isn’t a lot of room for toy storage in there. The other bedroom is a study/sewing room/guest room, so there REALLY isn’t a lot of room for toy storage in there, and that leaves the living room.

The living room is where the kids usually actually play, and that means that my decor tends towards the “tornado aftermath” theme, which can be a little unappealing, especially given the open floor plan that means that first thing when you open the front door you are greeted by a disturbing scene from a Kansas newspaper… er, my kids’ un-cleaned-up mess.

It doesn’t make much sense for the toys to be kept where they are not played with. I could insist that the children play in the basement. But there’s like nine square feet of floor space when it’s clean, and there’s no window down there, and besides, it’s hard to determine who had the Magnadoodle first if I wasn’t there as a witness.

SO, if you had my house, where would you keep the toys?

Here’s my next burning question, what would you keep the toys in? Currently, our toys are in Rubbermaid bins. This is bad. The children are not strong enough to open the bins/get the bins down from the shelves/unstack the bins to get to that inevitably bottommost bin they want. So they need help both to get the toys they want and to put their toys away. Since I am often doing trivial things like making dinner at clean up time, the toys often just get dumped on the basement floor.

Another problem with my bins is that they are organized by category (trains, dolls, crafts, etc.), and that means that in every bin the one or two favorite toys in each category are buried in amongst the non-favorite toys of the same category, leading to the constant refrain, “Mommy, where’s my blue propeller airplane?”

Both of my bin issues are failures of Question 2. because the things that are used most often are not remotely in the most accessible places. In fact, in my current system, NOTHING is really very accessible.

As for Question 3., the junk, I’m afraid we probably have a lot of junk, but I worry about throwing away treasures. How have you all managed that with your children?

The Organizing Mommy’s last two questions can probably wait until I get the first three headed in the right direction.

Thus ends my humble confession Anybody have any gracious ideas?

Kim over at The Executive Housewife has written a lovely post on how she is encouraging young women in their relationships with their fathers. I think her excellent message applies equally well to any family relationship we might be struggling with. Check it out. You’ll be refreshed.

College is becoming a hotly debated issue in Christian homeschool circles. At long last, a lot of people are waking up to some of the dangers and drawbacks. When I was at Stanford a decade ago, the campus was rife with drugs, alcohol, pornography, homosexuality, hook-ups, co-ed bathrooms (including one house with co-ed gang showers), and university sponsored kiss-everyone-and-his-brother-fests (”Full Moon on the Quad”), to say nothing of all the totally sold out, anti-God professors just waiting to mold young minds. And let’s not forget that college costs thousands and thousands of dollars, that life there is often completely disconnected from the real world, and that your zippy degree in 16th century French poetry failed to prepare you for the job market, so now you’re considering going back to school and taking out more loans so you can get a better degree that will allow you to get a good enough job to pay off the loans from your first degree. Kind of makes some people wonder.

Some, though not always all, of these difficulties can be ameliorated by things like living at home, going to a Christian college, or doing what I did and choosing courses and situations VERY carefully. But the long list of cons has led a lot of families to question the college model entirely and abandon it as ungodly and inefficient preparation for a serious Christian adulthood.

But not going to college is not necessarily the only “holy” route any more than going to college is the only “responsible” route. Here’s a great post by Alex Harris of The Rebelution on why he and his twin brother, Brett, are going to college. It offers an excellent perspective on the late teen years and how they should fit in to a godly Christian life.

Here’s a wonderfully encouraging, practical and funny series by Amy Scott on life with three children under three years old. No matter how many kids you have, if you’re mothering in the trenches or even if you just know someone who is, you’ll love this one.

I met the young man who would eventually become my husband when I was still only fourteen years old. It took us a month to figure out that we wanted to get married, but we had to wait seven years to finally tie the knot. During all this time, I was “taken.” Consequently, I never went through the typical angst about finding the “One,” never navigated the waters of being deliberately attractive bait, and safely shunned most young men because I wasn’t available and didn’t want anyone to get hurt. It all worked fairly well except that I never learned how to be friends with my brothers in Christ. That was OK with me because at the time, I couldn’t see that male/female friendships ever worked out very well.

My experience was mostly from observation, but what I observed did not impress me. It always looked to me like male/female friendships were lopsided. One person wanted to be “friends,” the other hoped for much, much more. In some cases, romance won out, and the couple wound up married, a lovely friendship blossoming into a happy marriage. I remember one man telling my husband and me the story of how he won his bride, “I told her I’d be happy to teach her to play the guitar, as a ‘friend,’ but really from the moment I saw her, I was thinking, ‘I’d like her to be my wife.’”

But far more often, these lopsided friendships wound up breaking somebody’s heart, or at the very least creating fond hopes that were never fulfilled. I remember a dear friend in college, miserable because she was in love with a “friend” but he didn’t seem to be in love with her. She recounted various things he’d said and done (like inviting her to his parents house for a weekend) and asked me what it all meant. What could she do to make him feel more for her? I thought he never should have played so fast and loose with her heart in the first place. “Friendship” seemed like unchivalrous confusion.

But I’ve been reading some things that are making me question my conviction that it always needs be this way.

Anna Sofia and Elizabeth Botkin have been doing a fascinating series on their blog about male/female friendships. The first installment was especially interesting to me.

Even in family-integrated churches, guys and girls often don’t know how to interact comfortably as brothers and sisters. We usually see this expressed in one of two ways: either flirting and posturing, or shying demurely away from any interaction with the other sex. (Blogger’s note: This is the part where I start blushing!) These two symptoms may seem opposites, but they both stem from the same root problem: a failure to think of the other as “[brothers or] sisters, with all purity” (1 Tim. 5:2).

In other words: thinking of the other sex chiefly as marriage material

Ah, so perhaps all male/female friendships are not doomed to be lopsided? Maybe there’s another way? I think it sounds plausible, but since I never did it, I’m not sure how to help my children learn to do it. They are still very, very young, but as our family interacts with other families, the question is always in the back of my mind: at what point do I need to train my children to be circumspect and guard their hearts? Right now, they’re running around playing with whomever happens to be in the other family we’re spending time with. But when does that need to change, and what does it need to change into? What kinds of friendships are appropriate between the sexes? This brother/sister thing sounds intriguing, but how would it really play out? Is it truly possible for young people to have interactions that aren’t bristling with attraction? What has been your experience and what are you teaching your children about this?

About a year ago, my son’s little world suddenly opened to intoxicating majesty. My husband’s company met an important milestone, and management rewarded everyone by paying for a trip for all the employees and their families to Cedar Point, a semi-local, giant amusement park, for hours and hours of family fun. And fun it was, so much so that my son became obsessed. Nearly every day for the following year he asked if we could go back. When we climbed into the van to go home from a rock climbing vacation, a little voice in the back called out, “I wanna go to Cedar Point!” Whenever I tried to convey some deep, spiritual truth, my son would listen intently, and then ask, “Can I go to Cedar Point?” It was clear that Cedar Point, in all its kiddie ride glory, had become an idol in his two-year-old heart.

A couple weeks ago, on our way home from a family reunion, we went back. It was a thrilling day: the “frog hopper” ride, bumper boats, cars, trucks, the “frog hopper” again, helicopters, an elephant ear, the “frog hopper” again, a guy in a Snoopy Suit, a mini roller coaster, a bouncy Snoopy, seventeen more rides on the “frog hopper.” My little guy missed his nap, walked several miles, grinned, and laughed, and wore himself out. And by the end, he was crying, “I want to go home! I want to go home!”

Surprise, surprise. His fountain of joy was just a broken cistern after all, and he had drunk it dry.

Jeremiah 12:11-13 Hath a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods? but my people have changed their glory for that which doth not profit. Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid, be ye very desolate, saith the LORD. For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.

This may seem like a harsh indictment of a two-year-old. After all, isn’t it normal to be really excited about an amusement park and equally normal to get worn out by the end of the day? Yup, it’s normal, so normal, in fact that it’s classically human. Don’t all of us have Cedar Points, places where we think life will be perfectly fulfilling? For some of us, our Cedar Point is marriage, for some it’s education, or a certain kind of job. My Cedar Point is on the corner of Duggar Avenue and Waller Way, in the heart of Amish country. I’m sure you’ve heard of it. It has all the hottest rides for the feminine fundamentalist. There’s the “Run Your Own Small Farm” roller coaster, the “Make Your Own Nearly Everything” carousel, and the “Husband Works from Home” locomotive, which pulls the “Family Train” around the park. Every day is “Homeschool Day,” and let’s not forget that if you buy a family pass, you’ll receive a new baby every eighteen months. Glorious! A fountain of joy.

Or maybe another broken cistern?

There’s nothing wrong with any of these things, just like there’s nothing inherently wrong with having a family trip somewhere fun. The problem comes when we get obsessed, when we think that if our lives were just this certain way, then we would be happy, when in fact we have “all things that pertain unto life and godliness” right now (1Peter 1:3). It would be great to live on a small farm, but if I fail to “rejoice evermore” (1 Thessalonians 5:16) in town, chances are I’d still be unjoyful, even in the heart of Amish country, because I already have the One Thing, the Only Thing that will ever truly satisfy. And if I forsake Him to drink from any other source, in the end, I’ll still be thirsty. I’ll still get tired of life. I’ll still cry that I want to go home.

Seeking a lifestyle that will help us better serve the Lord is good, but we can’t do it because we think it’s going to make us happy. We have to do it because we are first of all seeking HIM. Only He can make us happy. Only He can make us fulfilled. Only He can quench our thirst. And only He can never be drunk dry. Like Jesus told the woman at the well:

John 4:13-14 Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.

Everything else is a broken cistern. We can drink it dry, or we can watch the tepid water slowly leak out until our cistern’s dry, but either way it’s going to wind up dry. And we’ll still be thirsty.

That day at Cedar Point, I stood my son on a bench, and tried to explain this to him. I told him how at home he always wanted to go to Cedar Point, and now that he was here, he was tired. I told him how everything eventually stops being so interesting and gets boring in the end, everything but God. I told him that God was the Only One who would ever satisfy him. He listened. I’m sure it will be years before he truly understands, but at least he heard about the water at a time when he was thirsty. And maybe someday he’ll realize that most of all, he wants to go to God and not just Cedar Point.

I just received a new comment from Kendra on an old post. I found her comment very thought provoking, and since the post was old, I was afraid nobody would see it, so I thought I’d give it some attention here.

I was interested in the comment the writer made that “the Bible doesn’t give hard and fast rules about (modesty), yet we are commanded to dress modestly.” I agree that the Bible does not draw a human body marking the areas God deems necessary to be covered. (This may be to avoid individuals aiming for as little as possible to still scrape by.) However, the Bible does mention some specifics about what is considered “nakedness,” and therefore shameful. Ex 28:42 & Isa. 47:2-3 both mention the thigh as an inappropriate or shameful part of the body to expose. Isa 20:4 speaks of the buttocks and Ezekiel 16:7 mentions breasts in relation to nakedness. These are just a few but they do show us some of the places we ought to cover up in public. Just some food for thought.

I especially found this interesting given what Kathi Armstrong of Summer Setting said about her husband in the comments section of a different post.

He says (and I believe he speaks for the human side of every man) that he is very distracted by women who dress in a way that emphasizes or exposes breasts or thighs, particularly cleavage or slits.

Notice how some of the things that the Bible mentions in connection with “nakedness” are the same things that men feel a visceral sexual response to and that they have to invest mental and emotional energy putting out of their minds in order to stay pure. A further interesting connection is that in the Bible, “uncovering nakedness” has sexual connotations, and is often a euphemism for actual sex.

What do you think? Is modesty totally culturally determined, or does the Bible give us some actual, physical hints at what God considers immodest in the passages Kendra shared? Are there other passages to consider in this discussion? What about the fact that a couple of the passages Kendra brought up (Isaiah 47:2-3 and Ezekiel 16:7) also mention hair, yet few modern Christians consider hair in modesty discussions? Even I don’t, and I’m in the pro-headcovering camp! I’ve never considered it a “modesty thing” and have always covered as a sign to angels (I Corinthians 11:10). Are modern Christians missing something, or is this just an example of the cultural relativism at play here? I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

This is just a quick note to assure you all that nothing dire has happened. (Thanks, Kathy at Bonavita for your sweet comment!)

We’ve been out of town, and while I had grandiose plans about getting a post written before we left, writing kind of got lost in the pre-trip shuffle. We got home late last night (technically early this morning), so now I’ve got a post-trip shuffle to contend with. But I have a post brewing in my brain, so, Lord willing, I should be back to writing soon.

Discussions about modesty can turn hopelessly circular. Women should be modest so men won’t lust after them. But some men tend to lust anyway, so maybe we should all just wear whatever we want. But when we wear whatever we want, men are really tempted to lust after us, so maybe women should try to be modest…A recent comment brought out the frustration quite well:

Sometimes it truly is a matter of the heart and not the eyes (”sometimes” is a key word there ). I was talking to (my sister-in-law) and she mentioned that the worst experience she had with men being sexually disrespectful was in Egypt when she was wearing a long skirt, sleeves down to her wrists and a headcovering. I’ve had two close friends who attended BJU with a strict modesty code, and one of them recently commented to me how much she thought the policing, the constant scrutinizing of every outfit actually exacerbated the problem.

All this to say… it’s a tricky tangle, those issues of modesty and personal responsibility. When you get it all sorted out, be sure to let me know!

Well, I definitely don’t have it ALL sorted out (LOL!), but I do have a few thoughts to share.

As the comment pointed out, there are two issues here, women’s modesty and men’s personal responsibility not to lust.

Timothy 2:9-10 In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array; But (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works.

Mat 5:28 But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.

We are each responsible to keep our end of the bargain no matter what other people are doing. Men are still sinning if they fall into lust even if they are surrounded by tank tops, tight jeans, and mini-skirts. Women are still sinning if they dress and behave immodestly whether or not men are being overtly sexually disrespectful. Different cultures have often allowed either men or women to shirk their responsibilities. In Egypt, it tends to be the men. They are allowed to lust all they want right out in the open, and if it leads to mental adultery or even rape, well that was the woman’s fault. She was asking for it by dressing like that. In Western culture, though, it tends to be the women who get off doing as they please. It’s socially acceptable for them to look and act hot right out in the open, and if it leads to rape or even just mental adultery, well that was the man’s fault. He wasn’t being self-controlled.

Both these extremes are wrong.

Most of us are grossed out by Egyptian behavior, but let’s examine the Western side of the permissiveness coin. Women can’t prevent lust. Responsibility does not rest squarely on our shoulders, but there’s an awful lot we can do to help if we would be willing. Our dress and behavior DO have an effect on men’s lust level. Sure, there are men wholly given over to lust, who can manage to fantasize about what might be under a burka, but most men have a slightly higher threshold, and we really can be a help or a hindrance to an awful lot of them. This was a lesson I learned back in college when I was dancing with the Stanford Ballet Company.

Before I was married, I was incredibly naive about men. I found their attentions thrilling, validating, even titillating. They were also quite rare. For the most part guys completely ignored me because I was usually very modest. My modesty, though, had little to do with understanding men, and a lot to do with wanting to look like the other conservative Christian, homeschool graduates I knew. The only men who paid any attention to me were men who wanted a wife. Looking back, I think that was a compliment, but at the time, I assumed it meant that I wasn’t very pretty, just apparently virtuous.

One day it all changed. It was late November, and like ballet dancers the world over, I was gearing up for another Nutcracker. I had been cast as the Spanish dancer. It was a character I knew well because, with my dark hair, I had been given that role more often than any other. The Spanish dancer is spicy, flirtatious, flamboyant, and my choreography in this production was especially so. I was supposed to spend the entire variation teasing my poor partner while he chased after me.

For weeks in rehearsals that were just for the Spanish variation, I had been focusing on the dancing, mastering the steps and ignoring the character, but on that day in November, the entire cast had come together to start running through the whole show, and that meant we had a bit of an audience. My partner, a Microsoft employee in his late twenties, wanted to get into character. But of course.

The music started. No one was paying attention to us as we stood in our places. And then I opened my fan with a snap that stopped all conversation. I was The Spanish Dancer. In less than two minutes, we were done, and the room erupted in applause. My partner was breathless. “Don’t look at me like that,” he said. “I can’t dance when you look like that.” And like an idiot, I just laughed. I wasn’t about to tone down my character. I knew how to play the part. I did it well. And everyone liked it. They had all just applauded, hadn’t they?

Rehearsals moved into the theater, and I had to wear my costume, black and red, spaghetti straps, typical immodest ballet costume, but sexier. I was the Spanish dancer, after all. My partner, who had always been polite, but aloof, was following me around like a dog follows steak. He brought me flowers. He tried constantly to make conversation. He wondered if I might like a back rub. The other men in the cast, who had previously not even said as much as, “hi,” were now falling all over themselves to flirt with me every time I walked by. I’m very ashamed of this, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy it.

I thought it was just attention. I thought it was fairly innocent. Now that I’ve got a husband to explain things to me, I realize that in all likelihood I was being mentally undressed.

After Christmas, we started work on the next show, Peter and the Wolf. I was cast as the duck. I traded my fan for a back scrubber and kiddie pool, my black lace costume for a high-necked, chubby, feathered number, complete with mask. And as quickly as it had begun, the lust fest ended. I went back to my quiet life of being noticed only by men looking for a wife.

Now, let’s think about this a minute. The very same man who couldn’t drag himself away from me when I was wearing an immodest dress and snapping my eyes and fan at him completely ignored me when I was a comedic, well-covered duck, flapping my arms, and fighting the wolf with my back scrubber. Was the guy lust-prone? Um. Yeah. Did my clothes and behavior have an effect. Totally!

Men tend to lust after women. And women tend to lust after being lusted after. We struggle with modesty because we all want to be the Spanish dancer. No one wants to be the duck.

But there are men out there who are fighting hard for integrity. They’re doing battle every day, desperately trying to stay pure and focused on their wives. And what do we do? We whip out our fans. We look hot, on purpose. We flirt. We pose. On purpose. We aren’t about to tone down our characters. We know how to play the part. We do it well. And everyone likes it. They’re paying attention to us, aren’t they? And we’d be lying if we said we didn’t enjoy it.

It’s a heart issue. It’s not about rules. It’s about looking hot. On purpose. It’s about balancing our desire for beauty with an understanding of the depth of its effect. Most of all, it’s about supporting our brothers in battle, accepting a little responsibility of our own, and giving up the “fun” of being lusted after by men we aren’t married to. We don’t need to be ugly, but we do need to pay attention, and constantly examine our own motivation for every outfit and action. It’s time we kept our end of the bargain.

Ten years later, I’m heartbroken thinking of men who took their families to see a “wholesome” show like the Nutcracker and wound up sitting in the dark watching the Spanish dancer, watching me. If I provoked even one man in that audience to lust, then I stole something from his wife. I certainly stole something from the future wives of my fellow cast members. Like I said, I was naive.

Galations 5:13 For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.

Romans 14:21 It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor any thing whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak.

1Corinthians 8:13 Wherefore, if meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend.

Just as a godly, Christian, Egyptian man needs to say, “no,” to his culture and stop ogling women. Godly Christian women of the West need to say, “no,” to our culture and stop deliberately making our brothers weak. We don’t need to be Spanish dancers anymore.

 ***

Note: I just want to be sure and say that, of course, for those of us who are married, we do need to look hot (on purpose!) in private for our husbands.

The other day, I was in my friend’s kitchen, relating a problem I was having, when her husband said, “You know, you read the blog, and it sounds like everything’s fine. Three children, and a weblog, she must be doing great.” Heh.

Other bloggers have written posts on this. I’ve even linked to one of my favorites, but perhaps it’s something that each of us needs to say for ourselves from time to time. So, I’m going to say it now: Actually, everyone who lives at my house is human, real, genuine, sin confronting, bad day having, flesh indulging, mistake making, direct descendants of Adam and Eve.

I want to be real on-line and off, honest about my struggles and the battles that rage around me, but I also do not want to gossip. This is crucial at all times, but how much more so on my blog where my words are the only testimony many visitors have of the character of my husband, children, parents, and friends.

James 4:11-12 Speak not evil one of another, brethren. He that speaketh evil of his brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth the law: but if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge. There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art thou that judgest another?

Proverbs 11:13 A talebearer revealeth secrets: but he that is of a faithful spirit concealeth the matter.

Collosians 4:6 Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.

But this devotion to avoiding gossip can have an unintended consequence. In this world where trouble and complaints are often Siamese twins, many people assume that if you’re not complaining you must live in a land of sunshine, untroubled by any storm of sorrow. And that can make them feel like they also deserve to live in such a place, an attitude leading to shock, anger, and bewilderment when the inevitable rain clouds gather on the horizon.

The assumption that non-complaining bloggers are care-free can also weaken our words. I’ve had people tell me that I have no right to sit here on my shady veranda in paradise, sipping my lemonade of blessings, and preach about submitting to husbands and fathers, or being joyful when life hurts, or how none of us really deserves to be angry, because I “don’t know anything about how hard things are for some people.” And that’s true. I actually only know how hard things are for me. But it’s also true that things are pretty hard for everyone. If anyone seems to have an easy life, it’s probably because we don’t know him very well.

Life is war. We are all in harm’s way, all living in a combat zone, fired upon daily with trouble: financial trouble, health trouble, family trouble, psychological trouble, emotional trouble, stress, anxiety, worry, anger, sin, “fiery darts of the wicked” one (Ephesians 6:16). We should never feel alone in our battles, or even be surprised by them. They are indeed common to man. So when we read each other’s blogs and everything seems to be fine, rather than assuming we’re reading the idealistic ramblings of sunshine and lemonade, and thinking that nobody else ever suffers like we have, let’s just be thankful that we’re not being defiled by gossip. And let’s remember that Christ’s promise applies to the ladies in blogland just as surely as it does to us at home.

Joh 16:33 These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.

My husband and I have been talking a lot about modesty lately, and we want to know what you and the man in your life think. Here are a couple questions for you to ask your husband/father/beau:

1. Does the way other women dress affect your man’s ability to focus his attention on you (or on your mom if you’re asking your dad)?

2. All else being equal, if all the women in the whole world, including you, had to wear exactly the same outfit, what would it be? In other words, where’s the point at which you are still attractive to him, but other women are modest enough not to give your man trouble? Have him be specific: length, cut, style, tightness, etc…
I can’t wait to hear your (and your man’s!) thoughts.

My dear online friend, Sammybunny, over at That Natural Girl has “tagged” me. The rules are that I must say seven things about myself and then tag seven more people providing their links. I decided that I would link to the seven bloggers who comment most often on my blog. (And if you get tagged, please don’t feel any obligation to continue the “game.” This is just for fun. My feelings won’t be hurt if you don’t participate!)

For my seven things, I’m going to list seven Bible passages that I remind myself of frequently.

1. Psalm 18:27-29 For thou wilt save the afflicted people; but wilt bring down high looks. For thou wilt light my candle: the LORD my God will enlighten my darkness. For by thee I have run through a troop; and by my God have I leaped over a wall.

2. Philippians 2:3-9 Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name:

3. Psalm 103:8-14 The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy. will not always chide: neither will he keep his anger for ever. He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us. Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him. For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust.

4. 1Peter 3:1-6 Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives; While they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear. Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price. For after this manner in the old time the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their own husbands: Even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement.

5. Proverbs 29:15 The rod and reproof give wisdom: but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame.

6. Proverbs 12:27 The slothful man roasteth not that which he took in hunting: but the substance of a diligent man is precious.

7. Heb 13:5-6 Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.

And here are the bloggers who have commented most frequently (listed in order of frequency). I tag:
Carleen, Kathi Armstrong, The Organizing Mommy, Kathy at Bonavita, Kathy at Not All Those That Wander are Lost (I know a lot of people named “Kathy!”), Kim from Canada, and Rachel.

Have y’all seen this one? It’s great.

(I tried putting the movie on my site, but it destroyed my formatting, so now I’m just doing a link. If any of you have any tips for me about posting videos, I’d love to hear them!)

Recently, after thinking seriously enough about moving to get a Realtor to start showing us houses, we made the decision to stay in our three bedroom, 1,200 square foot home, with a half basement. We thought there’s no good reason a family of five can’t fit in three bedrooms, and we decided to make it work for a few more years, and (Lord willing) a couple more babies. The only thing holding us back was that we had too much stuff.

And thus began the sorting, purging, and reshuffling project that led to an epiphany: we cannot get any more toys. No more trains: my train bin is full. No more Duplos: my Duplo bin is full. No more dress up clothes: my dress up bin is full. No more trucks and tools: my truck and tool bin is full. No more dolls and purses: My doll and purse bin is full. DEFINITELY no more stuffed animals: All THREE stuffed animal bins are full. We do have room for a few more books, but only because we added another book shelf to take care of the books that were stacked on the floor, and if I get too many more books that we own, I won’t have any shelf space for library books, so it’ll be back to the floor for book storage.

The only problem with this is birthdays. The traditional American cake, ice cream, and presents birthday party results in, you guessed it, toys. If you figure three or four presents from the parents, a couple from each set of grandparents, and one from each family that you invite to your party, then you end up with ten to fifteen generously given, warmly received, fun, creative, space-eating toys. And if you have three children, then that’s thirty to forty-five new toys that have to be stored each year. And if you’re hoping to be blessed with two more children before you leave your already crowded, three bedroom, 1,200 square foot home, with a half basement, that number could go as high as seventy-five new toys seeking storage annually. Did I mention that my bins are full?

With our youngest about to turn one in a week and a half, we’re rethinking birthdays and how we celebrate them. For starters, the baby doesn’t need any more toys. She’s just as happy emptying out my kitchen cupboards as she would be playing with the latest and greatest from Fisher Price. But I want her to have a fun birthday. I want the family to have a chance to celebrate her and what a gift she is to us. I want a good picture to paste on the “First Birthday” page in the baby book (right next to the neatly lined space titled, “Guests and the Gifts they Brought”). And, while I’m at it, I want something to write in that neatly lined space. I don’t want our great-grandchildren to remember us as the mean parents whose bins were too full to let their grandmother have any birthday presents.

(Who started this birthday present thing anyway? What a commentary on our materialistic culture that we view birthdays as a chance to acquire. Did I mention that my bins are full?)

My husband had the great idea to do birthday trips instead of presents, giving our children interesting, fun, non-space-hungry experiences that would otherwise be a bit on the pricey side. I’m wondering what our soon-to-be-one-year-old might like to do. I’m also wondering what other people with small houses, full bins, and big hearts for children do for birthdays. Does anybody have any ideas for me?

Do you want to know the ugly, brutal truth? I love it when people are impressed by me.

When my children behave well in public, I glow, because now everyone can see “what a good mother I am.” When one of my blog posts makes it on to Ladies Against Feminism, I thrill at the public “acclaim.” When I serve delicious treats at prayer meeting, or sew nice clothes for my family, or do pretty near anything that people pat me on the back for, I’m delighted because I’m “so successful,” and now everyone knows it!

Ahem. Then there are the times I fall on my face, the times when not only is my baby screaming on the airplane, but I’m visibly flustered by it (blush); the times I write, and write, and write, but wonder if anyone’s reading; the times I forget to grease the pan and my “delicious treat” sticks like it was baked with cement; and let’s not forget all the fabulous new clothes that turned out not to fit quite right.

Recently, I had one of “those” days, the humbling kind, when, shall we say, the accolades were not exactly rolling in. The next morning I was still down a few pegs, trying to tell myself that it was really all OK, when my baby woke up. She hadn’t opened her eyes yet, but she was stirring and fussing, so I laid my head down next to hers and started singing a silly song with variations on her name, and she smiled, eyes still closed. I picked her up. She put both little arms around my neck and hugged me tight.

Now this is the part where I tell you that suddenly my disappointments didn’t matter anymore. But alas, I haven’t reached that height of sanctification. I was still being stupid, but at least I realized that I was being stupid.

Why do I care so much what other people think of me when my family is right here loving me? Why do I waste emotional energy worrying about being impressive when God has already provided me with all the warmth, and acceptance, and blessing I could ever need? Why? Because I’m my own idol, and my flesh wants everyone to worship me. Yuck.

It’s disgusting when I say it like that, so barren, and selfish, and evil, and yet, isn’t that really what I’m doing by seeking to be impressive? At it’s core, that’s what worship is, being impressed by something. But like Jesus told Satan in Luke 4:8, “it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. ”

When we’re hoping people will be impressed with us, aren’t we serving ourselves and usurping, even just in our own hearts, a little bit of the honor that should belong to God alone? And when we do that, we’re not just robbing the Lord, we’re shortchanging ourselves by denying ourselves the joy of doing what we were created to do. We weren’t created for our own glory. We were created for God’s glory.

Isaiah 43:7 Even every one that is called by my name: for I have created him for my glory, I have formed him; yea, I have made him.

And it’s up to God how he glorifies Himself. I might want to impress people with my great cooking. God might want to glorify Himself by showing people how His children can be joyful even in the face of failure. I might want to impress people with my children’s flawless and “unchildish” behavior. God might want to glorify Himself by showing the world a sweet (and swift!) response to the beginnings of a temper tantrum. I might want to impress others by my radiant health and vibrant beauty. God might want to glorify Himself by giving me the strength to die gracefully of cancer. (And, wow, if you want to see a couple beautiful examples of this, look here and here.) I might want to impress people by having more children than Michelle Duggar. God might want to glorify Himself by making me an example of patience and faith in the face of miscarriage or trouble conceiving. I could go on and on.

The point is, I don’t get to expect to look good to everyone all the time. I don’t get to be impressive. I get to help show the world that God is impressive.

Psalm 34:3 O magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt his name together.

Who art thou that judgest another man’s servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth.

Rom 14:4

Christians are a judgmental lot. It probably springs from the fact that the Lord is so important to us. We want desperately to please and honor Him, and we’re all doing our very best. Trouble is, Jane Christian’s best may not look like Nancy Christian’s best, and then what? Well, sometimes there can be very cordial, loving interactions between people as they seek to understand each other, and maybe one or both will even end up changing somehow. But more likely Jane and Nancy are both quite firm in their convictions (thank you very much!) They’re doing things differently, and they’re going to keep doing things differently. And that’s when the trouble can start.

I cover my head in real life so let’s use that for our Jane and Nancy story, too. Let’s say Jane doesn’t cover her head. She has no conviction whatsoever about that. And let’s say Nancy has a very strong conviction that she just cannot get away from that she should cover her head. OK, here’s the question: Who is going to be judgmental?

I think that most people would off the cuff say, “Nancy,” because we have this idea that people who have convictions that we don’t have must necessarily be legalistic and are therefore judgmental Pharisees who think we’re going to Hell…or something like that. But do you notice how judgmental that sounds?

I’ve been a Christian since I was four and a half years old, and while I am still quite young, I have had a bit of a journey already as I’ve gone from my childhood days in a large, less conservative evangelical church (read: women with pants and short hair giving missions reports before the drummer gets going again on the next worship set) to my early adulthood in a small, extremely conservative home church (read: women with modest dresses and long hair under head coverings sitting quietly while one of the men calls out the next hymn). So I’ve gotten to experience judgment from both sides. And you know what? It’s systemic. Jane is just as likely to be judging Nancy as Nancy is to be judging Jane.

We all have what I like to call a “subset of convictions.” This is the list of things that we feel the Lord truly wants us to do or not do to be pleasing to Him. For example, most of us probably believe that Christians shouldn’t kill people for their athletic shoes. Some of you might have the rule that Christians shouldn’t have rules, and that anyone who does have rules doesn’t understand grace, and is therefore not as good of a Christian as you, but I’m willing to bet that you still have the “No killing people for their shoes” rule. Other people have convictions about not lying, dressing modestly, letting God size their families, wearing headcoverings, going to church every time the doors are open, not drinking alcohol, etc. We’re all pretty familiar with this. (And please note that I’m not saying that it’s abstaining from killing people for their shoes that saves us! We are saved ONLY by the Lord Jesus Christ’s sacrificial death on our behalf. But the Bible does say that we are “created in Christ Jesus unto good works which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10). And I’m pretty sure that most Christians would agree that allowing someone to live, even if we do like his shoes, is a good work that God wants us to walk in.)

Now, the judgmentalism falls into two categories. Either the person we are encountering has fewer things in his subset of convictions than we do or more things, and based on that, we tend to think either:

1. “This person cannot possibly be sold out for Christ and have a vibrant, thriving relationship with Him because he is so disobedient.” OR

2. “This person cannot possibly be sold out for Christ and have a vibrant, thriving relationship with Him because he is so legalistic.”

Hmm. They sound so similar side by side, don’t they?

Not only this, but most of us also have chips on our shoulders and tend to judge each other for the judgment that we assume is being passed. “Hey, there’s Nancy Christian over there with her head covered. I bet she’s thinking I’m not really honoring the Lord because I’m not wearing a headcovering.” OR “Hey, there’s Jane Christian over there with her head uncovered. I bet she’s thinking I don’t have anything deep and meaningful to say about the Christian walk because I am so ‘legalistically’ wearing a headcovering.” Are you guilty? I am.

The somewhat obvious, easier said than done answer is for us all to just quit it, to stop being so mean to each other, stop feeling insecure about how other people view us and our convictions. It’s hard, though, because we all actually believe the things we believe. And for most of us, it’s not just an “I’m OK, you’re OK” sort of belief. Even if we have a good dose of humility and acknowledge that we could be wrong about a few things, the fact is, we don’t really think we are wrong because if we thought we were wrong on something, it wouldn’t be a conviction anymore. And if, for the sake of argument, there were a person who was convicted about exactly the right subset of convictions, then it would actually be true that those who were convicted about fewer were disobedient, and those who were convicted about more were adding to what the Lord wants us to do. We can’t stop feeling convicted about our convictions, but maybe we should stop judging other people’s motives. As Roman’s 14 points out, it is possible to do opposite things for the same reason.

One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord; and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it. He that eateth, eateth to the Lord, for he giveth God thanks; and he that eateth not, to the Lord he eateth not, and giveth God thanks (Romans 14:5-6).

It’s hard to be different. It feels safe, and cozy, and affirming when everyone around us is exactly like us. We all want to please the Lord, and it’s so easy to think we’re doing a good job when other people believe the same things we do. But for some reason, God didn’t work things out that way. Aside from not killing each other for our shoes, as perplexing as it is, we don’t all have the same set of convictions. We don’t get to be each other’s standard. You are not OK if Nancy approves of you, or Jane, or John, or Bob, or anyone else. To your own master you stand or fall. And so does everyone else. Maybe this is God’s way of helping us learn to stop being so self-focused and concerned with how we’re doing relative to the people around us and start really loving them even if they seem not to be able to read, er, I mean, have a different interpretation of Scripture than we do. Somehow, we have to quit judging each other. I think the real answer is to focus on the Lord and how we can serve Him, never mind the people around us. I’m praying about this one in my life. And when I get a little discouraged about it, I’m reminding myself that at least I’m starting to become aware of my sin, and like they used to say on the old G.I. Joe cartoon, “Knowing is half the battle!”

…I hope no one’s judging me for watching T.V. as a child…

Wow, ladies, for those of us who had an inkling that there was a cultural aspect to the isolation many woman feel staying home with babies, here’s an incredible breakdown of recent cultural shifts that puts it all in perspective.

Does anyone want to weigh in on this? Am I the only one who’s saying, “Ah ha!”?

If you missed the original discussion, you can find it here.

Here’s some delightful encouragement from Amy over at Amy’s Humble Musings.

Ladies,

I’d very much like to hear your ideas on something.

I was talking to a woman who had read my post, Ideas of Home, (which was sparked by a conversation with a young mom who felt like a zombie after several hours with her baby) and this other woman shared with me that, in her view, the fact is that some people just find babies boring. She felt that babies don’t really do much besides eat, sleep, and fill their diapers, and they require so much care that even if you’re doing things to keep your mind active, in the end you might still feel like a zombie.

I have never felt this way, but I sincerely want to understand people who do, and I want to learn how to help them because I believe that feeling joyful at home with your baby ought to be a big part of “loving your children,” and is therefore something that I’m supposed to be able to teach younger women about in a few years when I qualify as an “older woman.”

So I have a few questions, and if anyone has anything to share, I’d love to hear it.

1. Have you ever felt this way? And if so, did anything help you, or did you just have to “get through” your children’s babyhoods?

2. Do you think that this is just a personality issue, or is enjoying a baby a skill that can be learned? If it’s a skill, how do we learn it? If it’s a personality issue, how can we live joyful, God-honoring, productive lives during the “zombie years?”

3. The Bible calls children blessings. How should women who don’t like babies, or who find them boring, or who feel unfulfilled caring for them view their little ones? Is the baby a blessing to come, a sort of an investment, or is the baby actually a blessing right now? And if the baby is a blessing right now, how can women who don’t have a baby addict’s personality enjoy that blessing?

4. Is there anything cultural going on here? Have we somehow lost sight of some crucial ideas about babies and about life in general and been left without the resources to get through the baby years?

Let me know what you think.

I just discovered a wonderful blog by Kathy Adams, a mother of nine. It’s full of great, practical ideas for managing a busy home, homeschooling, decorating, even a recipe for chocolate chip cookies that makes nine dozen! Stop by. You won’t be sorry.