My friend, The Organizing Mommy, of Organized Everyday has written a very encouraging post on on her own organizing story. In it, she shares the place to start in getting organized, which is really the place to start in all of life, and that is GOD. It’s a refreshing reminder that we don’t have to have all the talent ourselves. We have access to the One who could create the whole universe out of nothing. He can surely handle our little problems, whether they have to do with organizing, cooking, potty training, or anything else. He is the beginning of every real solution. Take a look. You’ll breathe a big sigh of relief.

Recently, my husband and I have been questioning the way we dress for church. We used to have the mild inkling that wearing your “Sunday, go to meeting” clothes was a way of showing respect to the Lord. Most people in the churches we’ve attended wear their “best” clothes for church, and we always did, too. But we’ve started to see some problems with it.

For starters, clothes can be a status symbol. Last Wednesday, as my husband was driving home from work just in time for Prayer Meeting (which is held in our home), he found himself a bit uncomfortable in his dressy shirt, and sport jacket under his black wool trench coat. My husband dresses like that for his job, but he wasn’t so sure he wanted to walk in wearing those clothes because he thought wearing them might be drawing attention to the wrong things and possibly even “shaming them who have not” (similar to what was admonished against in 1 Corinthians 11:22). We women need to think about this as well, and not only this, but we have an added issue that I think deserves some consideration, the issue of not being a distraction to our brothers who have come to worship the Lord.

Our culture has developed a notion of dressing up for church. And “up” usually equals what we often think of as “attractive.” But recently I’ve been thinking about what the word “attractive” actually means. If we say that the south pole of a magnet attracts the north pole of another magnet, what are we saying? Unless something stops them, the two poles are drawn together until they touch. If a woman is “attractive,” it usually means she draws men to herself, and unless something stops them, they’ll eventually touch her. Attraction is the first step in sex.

OK, right about now, someone’s hitting the ceiling thinking I’m saying that if she doesn’t start looking unattractive or “repulsive” that I’m going to accuse them of initiating sex with everyone at church. Just come down for a minute and hear me out. Attractiveness is not a light switch, with only two positions: on and off. Attractiveness is a continuum.  It is not the case that you have to be disgusting in order to be considerate.

A lot of us are committed to modesty. After all, the Bible does say,

1Timothy 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.

But what is modesty anyway? Is it just a function of what percentage of your skin is showing, or is there something more to it? The essence of modesty is not drawing attention to yourself for the wrong reasons: your wealth, your beauty, your fabulous sense of style. My husband and I have been talking about this a lot lately, and he feels like a woman is immodest when her appearance says, “Look at me! Look at this part here!” My husband, like all the other men out there who are fighting hard for purity in our sex-obsessed world, does not want you to beg him to look at you. He is, in fact, trying NOT to look at you. He doesn’t want to be attracted to you. Attraction, to be quite blunt, is the desire for sex. Realizing this, and helping men as much as we can is a huge part of modesty. Our “adorning,” our ornaments, the things that people are supposed to notice about us, are our good works, our meek and quiet spirits. And when is this more important than on Sunday, when everyone’s mind is supposed to be focused on the Lord, not on our gorgeous this or that?

But most of us women, myself included, have spent our lives trying to look extra beautiful on Sunday mornings, and the result is that we are more attention-grabbing, and therefore actually less modest, than usual. We do this largely because of tradition and because women like an excuse to be feminine and pretty. Also, there’s the herd mentality that if all my friends are going to be dressed up, then I want to be, too, which can sometimes even lead to the “church as beauty pageant” mindset, which can definitely take the “contestants’” thoughts away from the Lord as they’re busily comparing themselves to others. And some of us are dressing up for our husbands, to give them a chance to see us all scrubbed, and polished, and um, attractive. Let me be absolutely clear here! Without a doubt our husbands deserve and even need this chance like a drowning man needs a life preserver. But is church the best place to give it to them?

At church, not only are we out in public, we’re out with our brothers and sisters in Christ, people we are supposed to be building intimate relationships with, relationships which require talking, interacting, looking at each other. If we’re flaunting our nice jewelry,  fancy clothes, and killer figures, how are our sisters going to feel up next to us? And if we’re looking attractive, what can our brothers do to keep from feeling attracted? Walk away? Not talk to us? What if we’re in some man’s line of sight as he tries to look at the preacher? What’s he going to do then? Stare at his lap the whole service? What if we’re walking right past a brother as we take a toddler to the bathroom? Is he going to have to expend mental energy on NOT feeling the way our delicate clothes, Sunday best make-up, and bust-line enhancing high heeled shoes are inviting him to feel?

I’m not saying we should look ugly, only that we should think of ourselves as going to church to interact with a large range of people, not to show off. We need to consider the effect we’re having. Don’t come in with garden dirt under your fingernails. But maybe save your $300 designer dress for your husband’s company banquet, and maybe don’t breeze past the brethren in a cloud of seductive perfume.

All of us are confronted by status and sexuality in the world all week. Shouldn’t church be a rest from all that? Why are we trying specifically to look extra attractive when we know we are going to be interacting with a whole lot of women who are continually trashed by the world’s obsession with appearance, and a whole lot men who are beaten up everywhere else they go by ungodly women trying to provoke them to lust? What if we tried to be clean and neat at church, but extra modest, even simpler and safer than usual, concealing our curves slightly more rather than slightly less, and left our attractive best for times when women who are less blessed either physically or financially won’t feel inadequate, and men besides our husbands are not forced to interact with us. And of course, when no one but our husbands can see us, ladies, let’s pull out ALL the stops: the shorter, tighter, lower-cut, more “heaven help them if they don’t touch us” the better.

But at church, maybe we should be adorned with good works and leave it at that.

Let me know what you think.

The first post in this series, talked about some of our “handicaps,” the ways modern society is set up to make being happy and successful as a stay at home mother much harder than it really should be. The end of that post, said that in order to overcome these handicaps, “You may also have to put yourself through rehabilitation and physical therapy for your attitudes.” Cristina wrote in and asked, “Please can you post an article about how to change the attitudes and start to rehabilitate?”

Here is my attempt at that post for Cristina. In a lot of ways I am still very much in rehabilitation myself. I still have so much to learn! But over the past several years, my attitudes really have changed. I have gone from feeling utterly worthless, forgotten, and sidelined to feeling excited, hopeful, and privileged.  I came to this new outlook along a very circuitous route, so I’ve tried to organize the steps I’ve taken into a more logical order to present them here. I don’t know if any of the things that have helped me will help others, but perhaps it will at least be encouraging to know that it is possible to change your cultural mindset, your value system, and your worldview.

Step 1: Exonerate Yourself and Your Noble Profession

The world has two lies about being a stay-at-home wife and mother: 1. that it’s easy, and 2. that it’s boring, depressing drudgery. So when we come to the realization that being at home isn’t easy, we are often tempted to blame ourselves and think that we’re somehow deficient in raw mothering material or innate womanly talent. And if our experience is one of boring, depressing drudgery, a lot of us never even think to do anything about it because it doesn’t occur to us that we can (short of returning to our previous employment). So the first step in rehabilitation is just to understand that these are lies, and give yourself permission to live like they are. The truth is that being a stay-at-home wife and mother is challenging and rewarding. Some of it does involve repetitive work, but so does being a lawyer, engineer, or organic farmer, and those professions don’t have anywhere near the bad reputations that mothering does. I don’t know you, but I can pretty much guarantee that the reason you’re struggling is NOT that you are too stupid, or too naturally disorganized, or just not enough of a “kid person” to succeed at this job. I can also tell you that you don’t have to be depressed or bored. Decide right now that you are going to turn your back on the world’s vision and do whatever it takes to get one of your own.

Step 2: Renew your mind

You can’t really get rid of a wrong way of thinking unless you have a better way of thinking to replace it. This is perhaps the strongest force for change in my life. There’s a saying, “You are what you think.” And it has certainly been true for me. Five years ago, while bouncing my first baby in her sling I read a book standing up that turned my whole world upside down. I was elated for weeks. I told my husband that finally I understood what I was supposed to be doing. The cloudy feeling of uselessness lifted. I got it. It was one of the biggest “Aha!” moments of my life. The book was Mary Pride’s The Way Home. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Another wonderful book that might have changed my life if it had been published when I was still feeling lost is Jennie Chancey and Stacy McDonald’s Passionate Housewives Desperate for God. Even though I read it recently, I still found it tremendously encouraging.

Both of these books will help you to glimpse how high your calling is and will shatter the myths of the world about your worth as a woman and your potential in the home. Get yourself some used copies and read them while you nurse the baby after the big kids are asleep.

Step 3: Find Fellowship

Nothing helps so much in any exercise program, whether physical or mental, as having friendly folks to do it with you. Mothers at home can feel isolated, lonely, and downright weird sometimes. It can make all the difference in the world to find other women who are working on the same things you are. If they don’t go to your church or live in your neighborhood, there’s always the community of cyberspace. Finding like-minded women on the Internet has been a tremendous source of strength and grounding for me.

A great place to find friends is through blogs. And for that Ladies Against Feminism is a great resource. Not only will you find lots of helpful articles on all aspects of being a wife, mother, and homemaker, but a great many of their articles are in the form of links to various blogs. Find some blogs that are encouraging to you, and become a regular commenter. Before you know it, you’ll be getting to know other commenters as well as the gal who writes the blog.

You can also visit other blogs and start reading the comments to look for other women you might have things in common with or want to learn from and start reading their blogs. Two great blogs with lots of encouraging content and a high volume of readers are Generation Cedar and Domestic Felicity. And it goes without saying that I’d love to get to know you here on my blog as well!

Step 4: Tackle your personal problem areas

OK, so you get to the point where you no longer feel like a stupid, deficient, worthless freak, but you still feel like you don’t know what you’re doing. Now’s the time to get specific about you. Make a list of the things that feel out of control in your life. Realize that they probably bother you because you lack the necessary skill set to deal with them, and then, like any good student, work on your three R’s: research, research, and research. Start with the area that gives you the most trouble, and work until you find some solutions. Talk to people. Search the Internet. Read books. And then, try it! Implement what you’ve learned. But this is the most important part, pay close attention: Give yourself permission to fail. You might have to try something several times before you get it. It is only in failing that you will be able to find the gaps in your knowledge and ability so that you can then go out and find the missing pieces. Don’t give up in despair. Few things ever go right the first time.

Nowhere was this more true in my life than in the area of cooking. When I got married, I did NOT know how to cook. Meal plans from my first year included things like spaghetti from a jar and pot pies. That gets old pretty fast, so bit by bit I learned to make the things I wanted to be able to eat. Making my own whole wheat bread was something that was always a dream of mine, so once a week, I baked a loaf. It never rose. We ate it hot with lots of butter to accompany our canned soup every Thursday evening. The next week, I would try a different recipe, which would likewise flop. For weeks I did this. For weeks we ate dense, flat bread. I kept trying to find out why my bread wouldn’t rise. I learned all about proper kneading technique, homemade dough enhancer, and vital wheat gluten. And you know what? Today I can make fabulous bread (if I do say so myself)…as long as I use packaged yeast. Sourdough is my next project, and I’ve already had one glorious failure, so I’m well on my way to mastery.

Here are some things that I’ve struggled with over the years along with some resources that helped me grow in each area. You may have already found things that work for you (and if so, I’d love for you to share them in the comments section!), but if you’re looking for ideas, you may find a gem or two here:

Confronting my own sinfulness (anger, feelings of entitlement, etc.): The Excellent Wife by Martha Peace. This is a great book on marriage, but it also has a special emphasis on personal holiness that has been a huge eye-opener for me. If you feel like you’re chafing under some of what the Bible commands (like forgiveness, dying to self, or submitting to your husband), this book will be a treasure! And Homeschooling with a Meek and Quiet Spirit by Teri Maxwell. This wonderful book isn’t just for moms whose children are old enough to be officially homeschooling! It could just as easily be called, Mothering with a Meek and Quiet Spirit, and it is GREAT if you’re like me, and you struggle with anger and irritation towards your family.

Feeling lonely and frustrated by the long hours my husband’s job demands: Creative Counterpart by Linda Dillow. This is a wonderful resource on marriage, mothering, and homemaking in general, but it has a lot to say to us wives of today who are suffering the effects of modern society on our beloved breadwinners’ career options. It won’t tell you how to fix your husband’s job, but it will help you with your own attitude.

Knowing what to do with a newborn: Breastfeeding Made Simple by Nancy Mohrbacher and Kathleen Kendall-Tackett. (Warning: this book has a not so discreet picture of a baby nursing on the cover. I just taped some paper over it and read it anyway. I was SO glad I did!) Not only is this the best researched book on breastfeeding I have ever seen, with the most up to date information on technicalities like latch positioning, but it also explains newborn behavior more clearly than anything I have ever read. I WISH it had been available before I had my first baby. It would have saved me so much consternation and bewilderment. Even reading it after my second baby was born, I was saying, “Oh! That explains it!” on nearly every page.

Child Training : Raising Godly Tomatoes. This is down to earth, common sense from a mother of ten on how to have the family you want. You can read it for free online or you can buy your own copy to cozy up with in your favorite chair. It’s a great sanity saver and slices cleanly through all the modern psychobabble about parenting so prevalent today. Also Shepherding a Child’s Heart by Tedd Tripp, an inspiring blueprint on how to nurture our children’s relationship with God. And Parenting from the Heart by Marilyn Boyer, mother of fourteen. This is a delightful book that covers all stages of childhood from birth to marriage, and is great for those times when you just don’t know what to do with a house full of kids.

Time management: Managers of Their Homes by Teri Maxwell. This is the classic for homeschool moms, but the principles can be a great help for women in general, even if your children are still young, or even if you don’t have any. I do need to offer one caveat, though. While this book is truly wonderful for the most part, it does have a chapter on scheduling babies that is not medically sound. If you are considering it, and you have a baby, please read Breastmilk, Ice Cream, and Infant Feeding Schedules: How Much Space is on YOUR Counter Top? for an explanation of breastfeeding physiology and why scheduling feedings can be dangerous for some babies.

Cooking: The Internet! It is great to be able to just type “recipe for______ (fill in the blank with anything from whole wheat bread to Hungarian goulash)” and instantly find several recipes to choose from, many with reviews, advice, even step by step pictures sometimes. Plus, the Internet will help you decipher cooking terms you may not know, and it’s a great place to be able to actually talk to people who know how to cook via their blogs. (My online friend, Kathy, at Bona Vita has been a delight for me in this way. Just a few weeks ago, I asked her how she cooks her Thanksgiving turkeys, and she wrote a post for me about it!) And of course, we can’t forget all the “real” (offline) people in your life, too. Whenever someone serves you something you like, ask for the recipe and go over it asking questions if you need to. Most people feel very complimented and are glad to share.

Organizing: This is still a big learning area for me, but I have been helped by another online friend’s blog, Organized Everyday, in particular the post, Organizing for the High-Brow Types, and the before and after pictures from various organizing projects around her house. I have also enjoyed the book Clutter Control by Jeff Campbell.

Housekeeping: The absolute must have here is Home Comforts by Cheryl Mendelson, the definitive encyclopedia for everything from how to properly set the table for every kind of meal to how to get baby spit up off your favorite dress. It is daunting if you try to read it cover to cover, but it’s invaluable when you have a specific question. Put it on your Christmas list. You’ll be delighted. Just remember not to hold yourself to Ms. Mendelson’s standards on frequency of household chores. She only has one child, and he’s not a baby anymore! This book is a fabulous guide for the how of housekeeping, not always the how often. For a more realistic picture of a weekly cleaning routine, check out Speed Cleaning by Jeff Campbell.

It’s easy to forget why I’m homeschooling sometimes, especially when I meet another homeschooling mother at McDonald’s Playplace who tells me her two-year-old is starting to read short words, or I listen to a friend talk about how she’s starting her twelve-year-old on calculus, or even when I think of my cousins who were working on graduate degrees when most kids their age were finishing high school. And then there’s hearing about everyone else’s curriculum choices and how well they’re working, followed by the agony of wondering whether I made the right ones after all. Next thing I know my prideful insecurities are knocking at my door with a goody basket full of useless questions. Are my children sufficiently ahead of their peers? Are they going to  win the National Spelling Bee or publish any novels before they can drive? Do they look genius enough that everyone will think I’m doing a great job??? It’s easy to think that I’m homeschooling because I want to enter my children in “The Smartest Kid on the Block” contest (or to be perfectly honest, “The Smartest Kid in the Western World” contest).

Homeschooling really does create an educational environment where children can succeed in some pretty stellar ways, and while, obviously, the chance for our children to be all they were created to be academically is one we want to take full advantage of, we can easily get a complex looking at other people’s brilliant type children and think that there’s something wrong with us and our children.

But my husband and I didn’t choose homeschooling because we wanted our children to be smarter than everyone else’s. We chose homeschooling because we wanted our children to be home with us, learning our values, walking alongside us, building relationships with us and with their brothers and sisters. We wanted to teach them. We wanted to lead them. After all, we’re the ones that God will hold accountable. On judgment day, the old “failing schools” excuse isn’t really going to cut it if we’ve squandered our children’s training years.

We need to help our children reach their full potential, learning all they can, and bringing their talents to full maturity, but not everyone’s child is going to be ready for college level work at thirteen. And that’s not the measure of our success anyway.

A friend of mine recently shared with me the very wise words of her mother, who had homeschooled her children: “If I had it to do over again, I would have told people, ‘I’m not homeschooling for the education. I’m homeschooling because I have a vision for family that the public schools cannot fulfill.’”

We have to have vision for our families, a vision for our children’s character development, a vision for godliness in their hearts and actions. And fulfilling that vision is why we’re keeping our children with us. There are things they’ll need to know to get along in life, so while they’re here with us, we’re working hard at mastering those things. But we ought to be working on them solely so that our children can live the lives God has for them, NOT so that we can show off to everyone that our kids have a better education than your kids, or Jane’s kids, or Rhonda’s kids, or anyone else’s. Knowledge is just a life tool. Godliness is life’s goal.

One of my favorite articles on parenting is Dr. S. M. Davis’s Changing the Heart of the Rebel. That piece has some very excellent things to say about homeschooling:

But we also need to be careful that we don’t elevate knowledge to a pinnacle that even the Bible doesn’t give it. FAITH #1, VIRTUE #2, KNOWLEDGE #3 2 Peter 1:5 gives God’s order in this area; “And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith, virtue, and to virtue knowledge.” God was not guessing when He gave that order. The top priority is faith - a person’s relationship with God. The very next priority is virtue, which is character or moral excellence. After “virtue” is “Knowledge”. In other words, God sees virtue and character as being more important than knowledge….

…I would rather have a child who cannot read and write his own name than to have a child who becomes a doctor and doesn’t have the wisdom to not kill babies! Better a little knowledge with a lot of wisdom than a little wisdom with a lot of knowledge….

…There may be a time when you have to choose between wisdom and knowledge. If you have to choose, choose attentiveness over algebra, generosity over geography, forgiveness over foreign language, compassion over chemistry, truthfulness over trigonometry, humility over the humanities, self-control over sociology and obedience over opthamology.

If we can produce godly children who are truly wise, full of faith and virtue, and also happen to start college at 12 or win the National Spelling Bee, fine. But if we ever feel like we have to choose, we need to choose our children’s godliness over wowing everyone with their academic success. Don’t get me wrong, education is a very important thing. It’s just not the most important thing. And having your children be better educated than everyone else’s children isn’t an important thing at all. It’s just a pride thing. It’s perfectly fine to smile sweetly at the mother of the preteen calculus student and tell her without any embarrassment that your twelve-year-old is just starting pre-algebra.

Thus saith the LORD, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches: But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the LORD which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the LORD –Jeremiah 9:23-24 (emphasis mine).

Here’s another classic from the ever charming Mrs. Anna T. Read Top Ten Ways to Lose Your Domestic Happiness. You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. (OK, maybe you won’t cry, but you just might be convicted!)

Our country has just been through the political process once again, and the divide between the religious and the non-religious among us is always felt during these times of decision and debate regarding our country’s direction. More and more, there are those who speak against Christians and other people of faith’s use of their religion in making their political choices. The argument goes something like this:

Religion is philosophy.

Religion is unprovable.

It is unethical to impose unprovable philosophy on others.

Therefore, it is unethical to use religion to make decisions in the political realm.

This line of reasoning is extremely popular today, and sounds quite reasonable to most people in our country. But there are two problems with this. One, all systems of thought are based on unprovable philosophy. And two, it is actually a hallmark of democracy to impose unprovable philosophy on others. It may or may not be unethical, but the practice is certainly not limited to those who hold to “religious” brands of unprovable philosophy. In fact, to single out religious unprovable philosophy as inapplicable to society at large while accepting non-religious forms of unprovable philosophy is a value judgment based in, you guessed it, more unprovable philosophy.

To illustrate what I  mean, let’s consider an issue folks in my area voted on last Tuesday. After marking our ballots for the big stuff like President and Senator and whether or not we wanted our state constitution amended to protect stem cell research, we were confronted with the decision of whether or not to continue a property tax that goes to support our county’s parks.

Now most of us have a feeling that parks are nice, even important and good for society. Someone may even be able to produce a study showing that as the number of parks increase, certain measures of happiness and well-being also increase. But it gets complicated as we explore the matter further, and eventually we are forced to resort to our own value systems to make our choices. Consider, for example, that in our semi-rural area, we don’t even really need parks to get outside and see nature. Nearly everyone in this county could go for a walk through our neighborhoods and enjoy plenty of grass and trees, hills and even (for a good number of us) farmland.

Add to all this the fact that the economy here in southeastern Michigan is one of the worst in the country. The auto industry is grossly crippled. There have been massive lay-offs, cut-backs, and plant closings. Families are struggling. People are unable to pay their bills. Are we justified in charging our neighbors more tax money in order to support our unprovable philosophical belief that parks are so nice that they should be sacrificed for?

Now imagine two voters go to the polls to vote on this issue. Charles belongs to the Church of the Celestial Hike, which teaches that natural areas are sacred and that we all have a responsibility to tend them. Molly is an avid jogger, who enjoys the nicely groomed trails down by the river and would hate to see them fall into disrepair. Charles and Molly both vote, Yes, on the tax. Charles did it for religious reasons. Molly did it for personal reasons. But both of them were relying on their own unprovable philosophies, and both of them were quite happy to impose their value judgments on their neighbors who may, or may not find it painless to pay for the tax.

Is Molly on some kind of morally higher ground than Charles because she had personal reasons for forcing her financially strapped neighbors to pay to maintain her jogging trails? Was it unethical of Charles to vote, Yes, on the tax since his vote was based on his religious belief in the sacredness of natural areas? Should he rather have voted, No, in order to refrain from imposing his religious beliefs on others?

And how can we possibly even begin to answer such questions? Without some kind of moral framework, we are in no position to even use words like “should.”

Without God, there is no “should” because there is no right and wrong. Without God, we have no choice but to become our own gods, our own standards of right and wrong. All we can possibly say is, “it’s right if I like it, and it’s wrong if I don’t.” Most people actually do think this way and yet don’t realize they’re doing it. But a great number of commonly held ideas were born of exactly this line of reasoning. People say, “I don’t like it when religious people tell me that something I like is wrong. That must be wrong for them to do. They should not ‘impose’ their beliefs on me. Therefore, people who vote, or write articles, or try to pass laws based on their religious convictions must be doing the wrong thing. I do like it when I get to have what I like, so that must be a right way to make decisions. Therefore, people who vote, or write articles, or try to pass laws based on their own sense of goodness must be doing the right thing…unless their sense of goodness requires them to do something that I don’t like such as censoring a television show that I wanted to watch. Then they must be doing the wrong thing.” This is just more unprovable philosophy.

Whether God is our standard, or whether we are our own standard, we are all, every single one of us, using unprovable philosophy in every decision. This is true of decisions about everything from parks to abortion and gay marriage. And we may feel a lot more emotionally charged about abortion than we do about parks, but we are no less justified in “imposing” our religious beliefs on pregnant women than Molly the jogger is in imposing her beliefs about parks on her neighbors.

It’s not the imposition or non-imposition of a law that makes it ethical or not. It is whether the thing that is being imposed on people is right. Consider the “imposition” of laws against rape, fraud, car-jacking, or child molestation.

The real question that we must all confront is not whether our philosophies are provable or not, but whether they are based on the truth. Is it true that there is no God? This is not a question for proof, but it is one that must be answered. Because if there is a God, then we are not the ultimate standards of right and wrong. He is the ultimate standard. If we are living our lives as if we are god when in fact there is a much bigger, all-powerful, all-knowing, unchanging, infinite, and immortal God out there, then we have really messed up. Because if there is God, then He is the standard of right and wrong, and His truth is the right philosophy for all areas of our lives, including the voting booth.

I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me:  That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else. I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. Drop down, ye heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness: let the earth open, and let them bring forth salvation, and let righteousness spring up together; I the LORD have created it. Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou? or thy work, He hath no hands? –Isaiah 45:5-9

Even though John Piper said these words before the election, they are still much needed as we process the results. I promise you’ll be encouraged. The Most Important Issues in the 2008 Election

All around me, young mothers are stretched, and stressed, and struggling. Mommy burnout is rampant. And while, I’m sure that to some extent, it’s always been hard to manage a house full of young children, I also have a sneaking suspicion that it’s worse today, that the women of modern generations face handicaps our foremothers didn’t have to.

There was a time in the not too distant past when families worked together toward common goals. The day began with Pa and the boys doing the chores while Ma and the girls got breakfast. Everyone ate together, and then the men folk went to work in the fields or the shop downstairs, while the ladies set about the baking, or washing, or gardening, or whatever else was needed that day. The family was all together again for the midday meal before heading off to their afternoon’s work, divided only by gender lines, and then it was back together again for the evening meal and a little family time before bed. Everyone grew up watching their parents train younger siblings to help with the work, and possibly did a fair amount of training and tending of little brothers and sisters themselves. Work was done together for the good of the family business, whether it was a farm or a blacksmith shop, tailor shop, or dry goods store. Society was family centered.

Enter the Industrial Revolution. Individuals left the family unit to work in factories for the good of their employers. All day long they gave their best to further the company, and at the end of the day they brought home a paycheck that enabled them to buy food and clothes and other things that families used to make for themselves. Life became individual centered, and individuals became peer focused as they spent the majority of their waking hours with co-workers rather than with family.

The result was our modern society in which fathers go off to work alone, often very early in the mornings thanks to long commutes, and get home late; children are splintered off to age-graded classrooms and activities until they reach adulthood when they take their own place in a corporation, living all day with co-workers, striving together for the good of the company.

Now suppose one of those employees is a woman. We’ll call her Jane. One day, smiling at her over the water cooler is Mr. Right. They tie the knot, and four years later (once they’ve had time “to get to know each other”), they decide to have a baby. Jane has always been a bit old fashioned, and she believes that children do best with care from their own mothers, so around her seventh month of pregnancy, she quits her job and gets ready to be a stay at home mom.

At first, it’s exciting. The baby’s on it’s way, and there’s lots to do to decorate the perfect nursery. But then one day, Jane finds herself in her pajamas at 11:00 in the morning with stringy hair and spit up down her back, trying to comfort an inconsolable baby, and wondering what happened to her life.

Fast forward four years. Things have improved slightly. Jane usually manages to get into sweats before the day gets too far along, but she’s bored and lonely, and her four year old and her two year old are constantly fighting. The living room floor is littered with toys. The laundry is never folded. And dinner was frozen pizza three nights last week. It drives Jane crazy, and she’d like to work on trying to solve some of her problems, if she could just figure out how to get a shower.

Why is it like this? I’ll admit this was a bit of a caricature, but not much. Nearly all of Jane’s woes have happened to me before, or at least I’ve heard multiple women complain about them, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m not the only one. What’s going on? I blame most of it on our handicaps.

Obviously, not all women have all of the handicaps that I’m about to enumerate (I don’t), and some may even sound a little foreign, depending on each person’s background, but I think that most of us are plagued by at least a few of the following.

1. We are handicapped by our society’s (begrudging at times) acceptance of mothers at home, but total lack of acceptance of women staying home without children. “There’s nothing to do,” the conventional wisdom goes, as if cooking, shopping, and laundry are so incidental as to fit nicely into cracks. The result of this is that, just like Jane in my story, most women don’t come home full time until they become mothers. What few of us take into account is that coming home after spending most of your life in school or at work is a MAJOR life change. We go from almost constant people contact and interaction to hours of solitude. We go from a life in which we are able to complete many tasks (like papers, and work projects) that we will not have to do again, to a world in which we will have to do most of our tasks over, and over, and over.  We go from a world in which our work was evaluated by others, and our schedules were, at least to some extent, controlled by others, to a world in which we are almost totally responsible for our own time management, and in which we are only seeking to please our husbands and the Lord. This can be hugely bewildering. It was for me. I was very depressed for a long time when I first came home after graduating from college. It took me between one and two years to wean myself away from dependence on the constant feedback of school grades to confirm my worth.

Becoming a mother is also a MAJOR life change. The responsibility can be overwhelming at times. For the first time in our lives, another human being is completely dependent upon us for everything. This little person can’t even change his own position if he gets uncomfortable or bored. We have to completely adjust our schedules to take into account the baby’s needs, and often our own needs seem lost in the shuffle. Many women face difficulties learning to breastfeed, figuring out sleeping, and yes, even showering with a new baby to care for. Marriages are often in flux at this point, too, as relationships adjust to account for a third family member. On top of this, many of us face the postpartum hormonal roller coaster and the physical pain and exhaustion of recovering from the birth.

It is insane that our culture expects us to go through both changes at once. And yet, for many women, this is the norm. We’ve all heard of “stay at home moms.” “Stay at home wives” and “stay at home daughters” are oddities in most circles.

2. We are handicapped by our society’s norm for raising children. Most of us did not spend much time at home growing up. The majority of our hours were spent at school or in age graded sports, music, or other activities. Add to that the fact that most women came from typical 2.1 child households, and the result is we know nothing about being home all day with small children. How many of us watched our mothers cook dinner every night with babies on their hips? How many of us were assigned the job of folding laundry with our three-year-old sister? How many of us helped with potty training or spent our pre-mommy lives thinking it was normal to have conversations with six-year-olds about dinosaurs or construction equipment? We have been thrown into a demanding job we have no experience for. We don’t know how to get our household jobs done with “help.” We loose our minds having “infantile” discussions with children all day and miss our “intelligent” peers and co-workers. We don’t have the management and multitasking skills to drive the household forward, and often wind up getting dragged behind a run-away mob of runny-nosed hooligans, maybe not every day, but often enough to lead to at least minor bouts of despair.

3. We are handicapped by our society’s view of home as end of the day landing site. We don’t know how to cope with being there all day. The majority of our before children creativity is devoted to careers and school. This means that when women come home, their minds are numbed by the sheer monotony of staying all day in the place the rest of the world only resorts to when they want to watch TV, eat a quick meal, or sleep. We have no vision of our homes as productive centers of education (both for our children and ourselves), outreach, artistic expression, and even entrepreneurship.  And those of us who do catch hold of the dream, usually have no examples to follow, and have to work out what that means all by ourselves from scratch, making all the inevitable mistakes along the way.

4. We are handicapped by our society’s undervaluing of homemaking. Home skills aren’t really respected because home isn’t seen as all that important. After all, wasn’t it the family farm we all wanted to get away from so badly in the Industrial Revolution? And we can thank the feminists of the 60’s and 70’s for reminding us that any brainless, dependent leech can keep things going at home. Work is the exciting place. Now some people will concede that children do better with their own mothers than in a daycare, so it’s OK with some people if mothers stay home to care for their children, but homemaking? That’s not really necessary. We don’t have any idea of what to do at home, so many women assume that they’re just kind of there as babysitters to keep the kids from killing themselves while they play all day and trash the house. There’s nothing more boring than having no goals, no real responsibilities, and no meaningful work. If you don’t cook, so what? There’s always McDonald’s. If you don’t clean, so what? The house is a disaster, and you’re depressed about it, but you have little kids, and who can really expect anything to be different?

5. We’re handicapped by our society’s view of fatherhood as financial support and nothing more. We women are home ALONE with our children. We’re no longer part of a team. Modern men don’t live in a family centered world. Instead of working downstairs in the shop or out in our own fields, they’re across town all day in an office. They aren’t home for a midday meal. They aren’t taking the children with them to do chores, or training the boys to work alongside them.

Men no longer see children as their “job.” Consequently, women have the full responsibility for the children in many households, which means they must be working, or at least “on-call” 24 hours a day, seven days a week, which translates into a 168 hour work week. Men think they’re working crazy hours when they hit 60 or 80 hours per week, but many dads still feel entitled to sit around in the evenings watching TV or surfing the web to decompress and still expect their wives to do all the parenting. Since the children aren’t their job anyway, even when they are home, many fathers don’t invest much in their children. But parenting IS the father’s job. Nearly every parenting command in the Bible is given to “fathers,” not mothers. Women are being asked to parent for two much of the time. And as anyone in the work world will tell you, doing your job AND someone else’s is exhausting.

A lot of dads (like my wonderful husband) believe that they need to parent with more than a paycheck and are making their children a priority. But they’re still stuck in the system. They’re still gone for hours. They still have to go to work alone instead of with their children. And for mothers, the lonely days can be long and hard.

So what’s the answer? Well, the best plan is to become a radical and create a Utopia. Seriously. Realize the mess our culture has made of motherhood, and make fixing it part of the micro-culture you create in your home. You may also have to put yourself through rehabilitation and physical therapy for your attitudes. And it may just be hard for a while, but at least maybe we can stop blaming ourselves for our lack of “talent,” or thinking that we aren’t cut out to be mothers and admit that we do actually have some challenges to overcome.

Note: I have a feeling that most of my regular readers are going to be horrified that I wrote this. So let me make it clear from the outset. I love you all, and I still count you as my friends even if you disagree with me 100% on this issue. Also, I am NOT SAYING ANYTHING about who should get your vote on November 4th. Let me repeat that. I AM NOT SAYING THAT YOU SHOULD NOT VOTE FOR McCAIN. I am only trying to call attention to what I perceive as dangerously faulty logic on the part of the evangelical community in America.

***

I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully. –1 Timothy 5:14

The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things;  That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed. –Titus 2:3-5

Most of us in the conservative Christian world see these verses as pointing women toward homemaking, especially women with young children. We counsel women to be their husband’s wives and their children’s mommies first and foremost in life. We write blog posts and articles about how important it is to be home. And we would never encourage a wife and mother who doesn’t need to work to put food on the table to go out and get a job just because she’d be so good at it. After all, the Bible says that when women neglect to obey these verses they are giving occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully, and opening the door for the word of God to be blasphemed. Those are pretty rough condemnations. So, never mind how brilliant you might be as an investment banker, dog catcher, or burger flipper, your family needs you at home, and your God has told you to be there. So put your vast talents to use where God has placed you, and leave the financial world, the stray dogs, and the hungry fast food customers in His hands.

OK, yup, yup. We’re all nodding our heads. So far, very few of you want to strangle me. But let’s say it’s not a question of stray dogs. Let’s say we’re talking about, oh, maybe the Office of the Vice President of the United States of America. Let’s say we’re talking about Sarah Palin. Screeeeeeeeech! Put on the brakes! Now watch as the entire evangelical community rises up in righteous indignation and shouts in unison:

BUT WHAT ABOUT DEBORAH?!

After all, Deborah was chosen by God as a leader of the nation of Israel, and she was a woman. This argument usually silences all naysayers. (Let’s not forget that her ticket is running against Barack Obama, and a vote against Sarah Palin is a vote for Communism, Terrorism, and Partial Birth Abortion. And seriously, who wants to do anything to further all that? Hey, people, don’t vote for Scary.)

Frankly, this response boggles my mind. If people were saying, look Barak Obama’s policies are horrendously bad for America, so maybe we should compromise and vote for the McCain Palin ticket even though it’s less than perfect, I would understand. I’d listen. I’d seriously consider. But this? Everyone in the pro-family world from James Dobson to quiverfull homeschool moms jumping for joy? What’s going on? We’re letting one example from the Old Testament negate clear commands from the New Testament.

Let’s apply this logic to another area and see where it takes us.

Let’s pretend that John McCain didn’t pick Sarah Palin as his running mate. Let’s pretend he picked Bob Smith, governor of the imaginary state of South Texas. Bob Smith is the Christian Right’s dream. He’s outspoken about his faith in the God of the Bible, goes to church every Sunday, and has a strong pro-life voting record. Not only that, but he’s the father of five children, including one with special needs. He’s got brilliant economic ideas, a disdain for big government, a history of standing up to the establishment for the good of the little guy, AND he’s a life member of the NRA who’s been known to serve rattlesnake steaks at his family ranch. Bob Smith also really likes to patronize prostitutes. He’s very careful to always obey the law, of course, and never solicits illegal prostitutes. He just takes all his vacations in Germany where prostitution is legal, and he can have have a good time with someone else every night. Mrs. Smith says she is just fine with this arrangement. This is the lifestyle that they have chosen, and she’s quite happy to be able to support her husband.

What is the response of the evangelical community going to be to Bob Smith as a Vice Presidential candidate? After all, the New Testament says clearly in 1 Corinthians 6:15:

Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid.

Is anyone going to say, “Look, Governor Smith, you claim to be a Christian, but you are disobeying the Bible. What you are doing is demeaning to your wife, detrimental to your marriage, and makes you unfit for leadership.”?

And what if people start thinking, “you know maybe I can’t vote for a man who claims to be a Christian but loves to patronize prostitutes.”? What if they start saying it out loud? Is the whole evangelical community going to rise up in righteous indignation and shout in unison,

BUT WHAT ABOUT SAMSON?!

After all, Samson was chosen by God to lead the nation of Israel, and he patronized prostitutes (Judges 16:1). Is that argument instantly going to silence all naysayers? Are we all going to sit back quietly and dutifully vote for Bob come election day without admitting that, yeah, we really don’t like the fact that he patronizes prostitutes, but we don’t want to vote for Scary? Are we going to write books about The Faith of Bob Smith, and tell everyone how he’s such a great role model for our sons? Are we all suddenly going to decide that we love McCain, even though he’s actually pro-choice and pro-big government, just because he picked Bob as his running mate? Are we going to forget all about that whole “lesser of two evils” thing we were thinking back when McCain didn’t have a VP, and toot our horns gleefully for Bob Smith, America’s Samson?

Are we?

Just something to think about.

As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths. –Isaiah 3:12

Joanna, of Jo-with-it’s Portfolio has tagged me. Here are the rules for her tag. I must list six things I’ve learned this month and then tag six friends. Everyone I’m tagging this time is someone who has played “tag” before, either by tagging me, or by passing along a tag of mine. As always, this is just for fun, and no one should feel obligated in any way to play along.

Here’s my list (this is all recent stuff, although, some of it may have been from last month–everything kind of runs together sometimes in my foggy brain).

1. I have learned that sometimes, if I just keep going, I can still do most of my work even when I’m feeling a bit on the yucky side. In previous pregnancies, I got a lot more rest, but the house was always a disaster. The dishes were never done, the laundry was never folded, and meals were shoddy and sometimes hit and miss. This time, by the Lord’s grace, when I think about how much I’d like to go rest, I just don’t sit down. As long as I’m already standing, I can put the dishes in the dishwasher and wipe the counters, and it isn’t so bad. Inertia is on my side. I’m almost through the first trimester, and there has not once been disgusting piles of food encrusted plates breeding bacteria on my counter top when I wake up in the morning. Not only that, but not one of my three older children has starved in the entire 12 weeks that I have been pregnant with number four. I will admit that the laundry is still a disaster, but there has to be room for improvement and growth in every person’s life, don’t you think?

2. I have learned (a little) about how to use a Mac. This is really scary to me, to be honest. I’ve used PC’s my whole life. Everything is just a bit different on a Mac, and I don’t like not knowing how to do things. But my husband, being an audio-visual type guy, bought a Mac recently because they’re so much better for media uses. And, remarkably, just after he bought it, our other desktop died, so there the Mac sits in our living room, and I’m learning (slowly) to live in the world of the one-button mouse.

3. I’ve learned how to make skirts out of pants–super useful for maternity wear since most clothing manufacturers apparently assume that all expectant mothers ever want to do is hang out watching TV in casual pants, or else go to cocktail parties in little black dresses, and never do anything else (certainly never homeschool in ankle lenth skirts!). There are actually a lot of places on line with directions, but here’s the page I used.

4. Some of you are going to be shocked that I’m writing this down in my fourth pregnancy. I’m a bit shocked myself considering all the reading I do, but this month I’ve learned that women have suppressed immune systems when they’re expecting, which gives them the illustrious distinction of being susceptible to things like toxoplasmosis and listeriosis, which usually only affect people with AIDS, and newborns, etc. This suppressed immune system is actually a good thing, though, because without it our immune systems would kill our babies! (Thankfully, I learned this by reading, and not because I actually got toxoplasmosis or anything.)

5. I have (re)learned my addition facts. Of course, I already knew my addition facts, but since I’ve been working with my kindergartner on them, I once again have them on the tip of my tongue. Go ahead, test me. 6+7? 13. 4+8? 12. See? This is yet another reason why homeschooling is great. I didn’t do so well at math the first time around, but this way I get to go through it all again, and maybe get a deeper understanding.

6. I’ve learned that some babies get a diaper rash when they’re teething. I’d been working to track down the reason for my one-year-old’s mysterious rash troubles. It seemed like it flared up when she was teething, and I remembered years ago, a friend telling me that she always knew when her children were teething because they would get a diaper rash. So the other night I looked it up on-line, and sure enough, the extra saliva from teething can cause runnier stools, which can cause skin irritation.

And now, I tag:
Kathryn Armstrong
Botanyhead
The Organizing Mommy
Kim from Canada
Mrs. Meghann Jones
Sammybunny

Our friends in Canada have just celebrated Thanksgiving, and in the spirit of the season, Kim, of The Executive Housewife, has recently posted this delightful list of things she is thankful for. I don’t want to spoil it by giving away any details, so I’m just going to say that you don’t want to miss this one.

“How do you even cook dinner with three kids?” It was an honest question, asked with a mixture of awe and incredulity, by one of my husband’s co-workers, the father of an only child. I explained that my children help some, and we save their computer time for the end of the day when I’m trying to make dinner. The way he and his wife listened made me feel like I was relating the secrets of climbing Mt. Everest.

But the truth is, my knowledge of big family management is something more akin to scaling a knoll in the middle of a park.

Only the day before, my cousin had brought over a young woman he was getting to know, that he was eagar for our family to meet. She was the third born in a family with ten children. My husband and I were amazed by her. We were both essentially only children (I do have a brother, but he’s almost twelve years younger), so my husband and I, though very committed to having a houseful of children, don’t really know what we’re doing at all because we didn’t grow up watching our parents do it. We’re struggling, failing, re-evaluating, and learning from our mistakes. Watching this young woman made us see that we have miles to go in developing big family reflexes. Every time one of our children spilled something, she somehow beat us to the towels. I handed her a bowl of potatoes, and instead of just taking one, she asked me how much my children would eat. She had already counted them and seen that there were fewer potatoes than people at the table. Before I could get all my children served, she was out of her seat, asking them what they would like. She beat us at refilling sippy cups. She beat us at wiping down the table. And every time I turned around, she was asking me if I needed any help. It all came naturally to her because she’d lived it her whole life.

Life in a big family is a skill that we don’t learn anymore, sort of like churning butter, or sewing entire dresses by hand. In the modern world big families are oddities, so much so that a mother of three can be awe inspiring. And for those of us who greatly desire a large family, this can pose a rather significant problem because, just like Fezzic said in The Princess Bride, “you use different moves when you’re fighting half a dozen people than when you only have to be worried about one.” Raising three children is not the same as raising one child three times. The strategies are different. The balance is different. You use different moves.

What’s different? Well, so far, I’ve learned that it involves more scheduling, more delegating, more managing, more multi-tasking, less freedom for everyone, and let’s not forget a higher noise and chaos threshold. These are all things that are easy to write out in a tidy little list, but they’re hard to actually develop. They’re reflexes, like leaning forward slightly to keep your balance when you’re climbing uphill. And if you don’t have them, then life is hard. You might fall down and get scraped up.

I’m convinced that this is a major reason that people don’t want big families. They don’t know how to handle them. And they don’t realize that big family know how is a skill that can be learned. Unfortunately, most of us didn’t have the privilege of growing up third born in a line of ten, so we’re going to have to learn as we go. And that means plenty of hopeful bumbling, reading, watching big families if we get the chance, talking to people who know what they’re doing, followed by lots more bumbling.

But all of us should take heart. We CAN do it. There was a time when big families were normal. And that means that they were headed up by ordinary people, not as many assume today, by people with special child-loving genes, or innate multitasking talents–a discouraging assumption for those of us who often feel untalented or genetically challenged. No, they were just regular folks, as weak as we are, with the same one-track minds, the same need for sleep, the same emotional and spiritual resources. The only difference is that they knew a lot better how to handle all those children because they’d more than likely grown up in a big family themselves, and even if they didn’t, most of their neighbors had big families, so they could easily see what to do. We may not have those benefits, but we can futz our way along until we figure out the path. You don’t have to be born in Nepal to be a mountain climber. And we bumbling mortals, struggling up the knolls in the park, can learn to scale Everest one dinner at a time.

Pursuing Titus 2 is back up and updated to the latest version of wordpress. Thank you for your patience.

Hi Ladies,

Many thanks to Holly of Snow on the Beach for letting me know that my comment links are currently non-functional. My apologies to anyone who’s tried to comment. My husband will look into it as soon as he can.

Last spring we were batting around the idea of moving. We’d even gotten a Realtor to show us a farm we loved. We were serious enough to start pricing barn restorations. But there’s this thing about buying a new house. For most people (and that would include us), when you buy a new house, you have to sell your old house. And that quickly posed a problem.

Now is not the time to sell a house.

There are too many houses for sale at rock bottom prices, and no one wants to buy. The house next door to us was foreclosed on this year, and the bank could not sell it, even though they were only asking about half of what it sold for three years ago. So we’re staying. And with the current financial mess our country is in, we may be staying for a long time.

As I’ve said before, this is a 1,200 square foot, three bedroom house, with a half basement. Cozy. Especially for a soon to be family of six. (Hence the idea of moving.) But we’re staying. And I could be grumpy about it, look at everyone else’s big house, and feel deprived in this world of McMansions. I could get frustrated at the idea of having four kids share one bedroom, worry about what people might think of visiting a house where the front door opens into the living room instead of a nifty entry hall, or fret about the narrowness of the kitchen.

Or I could count my blessings. It’s a lot more fun, and Biblical.

In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. –1Thessalonians 5:18

So, for everyone who lives in a small house, or even if you don’t, here are all little house blessings I can think of.

1. Less house = less stuff! That means less stuff to sort, keep track of, re-organize, and otherwise shuffle. And that means more time for other things like reading books, going to the park, or baking cookies.

2. Less house = less stuff for the kids, too! That means an earlier nipping of materialism in the bud. We’re out of space, so we just can’t do the huge birthday and Christmas thing. Our kids are growing up thinking that it’s normal to buy Christmas presents for kids in third world countries through the World Vision Gift Catalog, or that birthdays are about sharing an adventure with their family rather than opening mountains of presents. Less kids’ stuff also means a more manageable amount for small children to keep picked up and put away. (Notice I said, “more manageable,” not “manageable”–we still have too much, and it’s often not put away, but I’m holding out hope that with less stuff there’s more chance to conquer the junk pile.)

3. In a small house, everyone has to get along because there aren’t many places to skulk off to. And that means that we really have to learn to be kind or everyone’s miserable. You can’t fake it when you’re all in the same room for most of the day.

4. A small house is an adventure. It can really be challenging to get things optimized, figure out what you need, what truly makes life better, and what just gets in the way. We try one thing, then another, rearrange, and try again. It’s like a puzzle, fun if your attitude’s right.

5. In a small house, homeschooling is more integrated into everything else I do. I can set the kids up at the kitchen table with school work, and start in washing dishes, and then when my daughter calls out that “six and seven are thirteen,” I can say over my shoulder, “yes, very good!” And then of course when the children get up for the umpteenth time, I can notice it, even if I’m starting dinner. And if I’m reading to the baby on the couch, I’m still only a few feet away from the table, so I can still be answering questions.

6. And let’s not forget the obvious, small houses are easier to clean!

7. Life in a small house is like a constant vacation. Well, not really, but there are rich people with big houses who buy small houses, which they call “cottages,” that they retreat to for family togetherness and bonding and to enjoy a peaceful, more relaxed pace. We’ve got a great view, bunk beds in the kids room, and no TV–sounds like a “cottage” to me! Just think of all the family togetherness and bonding in our lives since we actually live here. (I’ve given up on the peaceful, more relaxed pace at this point because, like I said, we have three small children, with another on the way.)

And there you have it. Those are all the blessings my current brainstorm produced. Maybe you all can think of more?

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.