About a year ago, I wrote a post called, A Garden Enclosed: The Importance of Modesty…And Immodesty. In it, I discussed an issue that’s very near to my heart: the principle that the reason we are modest out in the world is that immodesty is so beautiful, so special, and so powerful. It is a force that feeds our marriages, thrills our husbands, and helps ensure that we produce the godly seed that the Lord says He desires (Malachi 2:15). It is a force that applied in the wrong place can be deadly, destroying purity, feeding lust, and leaving broken relationships in its wake.

Recently, a great comment was left on that post:

A question I have been pondering is how do we educate our daughters in this regard? As a young girl in a Christian home I received lots of teaching about not having sex before marriage, being modest etc. It was very hard for me to get my head around the fact that once I was married I could now be passionate and sexy without feeling bad. I want my children not to only receive “no” messages about intimacy as they grow up. How do we teach them about the “yes” messages without making it more difficult for them to remain pure?

This is so important. If we raise pure daughters by making them prudes, then we’ve crippled them. We’ve helped them save themselves for marriage without teaching them how to give themselves away when the time comes. They are treasures in a chest with no key that will have to be hacked open slowly, painfully, with frustration and disappointment. Every woman who’s had to struggle through that awful feeling of internal conflict when something that was “bad” her whole life is supposedly transformed into something “good” in the course of one afternoon just because she put on a fancy dress and got a new piece of jewelry, every one of them wants something better for her daughters.  But at the same time, every woman who watches her husband get beat up and brutalized by the daily battle for purity in an “if you’ve got it, flaunt it” world, wants her daughters to be considerate and not trash the men around her. How do we train them to be both pure  and modest in public and yet prepare them to one day be their husband’s burning fire in private?

My oldest daughter is still only five, so I cannot speak from the perspective of someone who’s walked this road all the way to the end (and I’d really love to hear from any older women out there who’ve actually raised daughters all the way to marriage), but my husband and I have given this a lot of thought, and I’m happy to share what we’re attempting to do in hopes that it sparks ideas for others.

My husband and I are taking a two-pronged approach. First, we try to tell it like it is. We believe that we cannot afford to take the easy path of ensuring our daughters’ modesty by grossing them out. “Oh dear, that nasty woman over there is showing her cleavage. Ew! We certainly don’t do that in this family.” We tell even our young children that God made our bodies beautiful, and that looking at immodest bodies is exciting, but the reason God made it that way is to bless our marriages. When we look at people we’re not married to, who are showing off their bodies in immodest ways, we’re stealing from our future spouse. We tell our children to look away from immodesty, not because it’s “yucky,” but because they need to “save their eyes.” We encourage them to be modest, not because immodesty is so “shocking” or “embarassing,” but because immodesty is “only for your husband to enjoy, not everyone else.”

Secondly, my husband and I try to be good examples to our children. Our culture is hyper-sexual, with indiscriminate use of immodesty everywhere: splashed across billboards, magazine covers, ads, fliers, even packaging (tried to buy anything for use in a swimming pool lately?). It would be easy to equate all immodesty with evil if you’re constantly inundated with the wrong uses of it. The only place our children have a chance of being exposed to godly uses of immodesty is at home. One way, we do that is at laundry folding time. Our children know that I don’t wear much to bed. We don’t go into any details about what might happen in bed. We simply say that it’s very important for husbands to get to see their wives’ bodies, and bed is a convenient time because then no one else is around who might be tempted to look at what isn’t theirs. So, out of the laundry basket comes something small and married, and I say cheerfully, “That’s one of my immodest nightgowns I wear for Daddy.” Sometimes, my older daughter will ask me why I wear immodest nightgowns for Daddy, and then I get to say, “Oh, because it’s so much fun for Daddy. God wants men to be able to enjoy their wives’ bodies.”

Now, a lot of people worry that any exposure to sexual subjects will make it harder for their children to be pure. But I think that mindset misses two important points. First, our children will be exposed to sexual things. We can’t prevent it unless we plan on moving to a desert island someplace. And the version of sexuality that the world promotes is warped, and twisted, and ungodly. We have to ask ourselves if that’s the only one we want our children to know, or if we’re willing and committed to offering an alternative.

Second, it’s going to be hard for our children to be pure. Even if we never say a word about sex, it’s going to be hard. Sex is a biological drive, like the drive to eat or sleep. By the time our daughters reach their early teen years, the vast majority of them are fertile, and let’s not ever forget what that means. It means that they have ALL the same hormones that we have. They may be pimply, they may make bad choices sometimes, they may still talk back, forget to do the dishes, or complain about a math lesson, but their bodies are just as eager to reproduce as ours are (possibly more so). If we are silent on sex, or worse yet, act embarrassed, disgusted, or like we can’t imagine its ever being even on their radar screens, we’re not discouraging our daughters from thinking about it, we’re discouraging them from talking to us about it. They need to know that we’re on their side, that we we want them to be modest and pure, not because we never want them to have sex, but because we want them to have the best sex possible: married sex, completely untainted by past experiences, lustful fantasies, or inappropriate emotional attachments.

That’s where my husband and I have come in our thinking so far. Does anyone have other ideas to share, things you’re doing to help your daughters, or ways your parents helped you? I’d love to hear about them, and I’m sure others would, too. If we want our daugters to have wonderful, healthy marriages, this is an issue we can’t afford to ignore.

OK, this one is not to be missed. If you have ever tried to go shopping for something modest to attractively cover the extra pounds gained in giving life to another human being, and wound up dragging yourself wearily from one depressing store to another, wondering who was responsible for stocking their ridiculous racks, then I Went Out to Buy a Skirt will condense all your pain into one hilarious read. Jennifer at Conversion Diary got permission from Simcha Fisher to reprint this, and I’m so glad she did. Here are some favorite quotes:

Well, except for the clean carpet, I might as well be at home. I have managed to find four outfits which are exactly like what I already own, only bigger. And anyway, I can’t wear black to a baptism! People will think I don’t like babies, and why would they think that? I giggle to myself, and my belly jiggles. Okay.

This time, when someone asks if I need help, I confess that I do. “I am looking,” I explain, “for a long skirt.”

The saleslady actually laughs.

She shows me what they do have, which is some kind of apparatus made of streamers and elastic, with tasteful iridescent sequins in the shape of sea horses. And there are also some tops, which were designed to be worn by — well, what did the designer have in mind, exactly? Prostitutes, certainly, but there is also some hint of the world of toddlers. And Elizabethan England, plus gymnastics class.

You can read the rest here.

Well, ladies, I told you I had a nearly finished draft. For those of you who are interested in the crazy experiment going on at my house, here’s the scoop:

My six week old baby goes potty in the toilet. This is even more amazing to me than the cat I heard about once who used the toilet. It’s called EC, or elimination communication, a fancy term for taking babies to the bathroom from birth (or babyhood) instead of training them to use diapers for two years or so, and then trying to potty train them. In our culture we are so used to thinking that babies have no control, no awareness of their elimination. But ever since the day my friend let me watch her one month old going potty, I’ve been wondering if we’d made a mistake in those cultural assumptions. Maybe babies really are aware of going potty. I was super curious. So I bought the book (Infant Potty Training by Laurie Boucke). I did my research. I washed my cloth diapers. I was psyched to begin.

My labor was long and emotionally draining, and afterwards I was so tired. But I was still committed to trying EC, so I kept dutifully taking my baby to the bathroom, hoping she’d go in the toilet. Nothing.

Then my milk came in, and on day four of my little girl’s life, she went potty in the toilet three times. I was thrilled. Ever since that day, I’ve been an excited EC convert. Some days are better than others. On the worst days, we only get one potty in the toilet. On the best days, she only goes in her diaper a few times. The record was three. It would have been two, except that I was busy boasting on Facebook about how she’d only used two diapers that day and I missed her signals. “Pride goeth before…” and all. On average, I think I’m getting her to the bathroom for about half of her potties, so we have not yet made the glorious leap to “diaper free” (although I’m really dreaming about it).

Intrigued? For anyone out there who would like to try it (or if you just want to read the details of this bizarre thing I’m doing, so you can shake an educated head at me), here’s my not very expert, still newbie, advice on the subject. (If you want the expert version, you’ll probably want to read the book.)

How to Get Started With EC

Almost everyone (baby or not) has to go when they first wake up. All this time I thought my babies were soaking their diapers in their sleep. Now that I’m paying attention, I’ve found (and my reading has confirmed) that babies usually don’t go in their sleep. They go right after they wake up (and they actually wake up in the middle of the night to go potty). But here’s the catch. They often don’t wait very long. As soon as they start to squirm and wiggle, take them to the bathroom. They’ll probably go within a minute or two unless they are fixated on filling their bellies first. Sometimes babies are just too hungry when they first wake up to think about pottying, and some need to be sucking on something in order to go. At first, I would nurse my baby over the toilet until she went (usually in under two minutes), and then I would move to a more comfortable spot. Once she got the hang of things, though, if she was ravenous, I would just nurse her on the first side, and she could usually hold it. We’d go to the bathroom, and then nurse on the other side.

Classic EC starts with an “observation phase,” and you’ll definitely want to do this because there may be other times that your baby goes potty besides when first waking up. The usual way to do this part is to leave your baby out of a diaper so you are sure of when they’re going. I found that I could just keep feeling my baby’s cloth diaper. What you want to pay attention to is pottyings in relation to naps and nursings. In general, a pretty clear pattern will show itself that’s different for every baby. Once you know when your baby is going, you also just might start to see those mysterious signs everyone’s always talking about. I discovered that (surprise!) my baby fusses before she goes. It’s a special, grunty sort of fuss, usually not a full blown cry (that happens if I fail to take her the bathroom and she’s wet, or if she’s trying really hard to hold it). I was pretty shocked about this because I realized that all my children had cried like that, and I had just jiggled them a little in their slings to “calm them down,” and gone on, oblivious, and totally convinced that they didn’t signal their potty needs. I’ll never know for sure, of course, but I can’t help but wonder if they were about to go. Even my five year old has learned to hear that fuss, and will frequently call me to take her baby sister to the bathroom.

When you take your baby to the bathroom, it’s important to use the potty position. Here’s my blogging friend, Meghann, demonstrating with her older baby. And here’s another friend’s sister with her six week old. Notice the position the babies’ legs are in. It’s like they’re squatting. Turns out, according to the book I read, that if a baby has to go, this is the easiest position for him to go in, and you’re fairly guaranteed a reward for your efforts.

In between potty visits, it really helps if you can use cloth diapers. Disposables are just way too absorbent. You’ll have a hard time noticing if your baby has gone, and worse yet, your baby will have a hard time noticing. You want your baby to know right away that relaxing his sphincter muscles when he’s wearing a diaper makes him feel wet and uncomfortable so he has a reason to try to go in the toilet. Once your baby figures out that you’ll take him to a potty place, you may find that he’s actually trying to do his potties in the toilet. My baby sure is! When I hold her over the toilet, I can tell she’s pushing. And if I take her away too soon when she really does have to go, she’ll cry.

The last thing you need to know about EC is how to communicate with your baby about it, how to tell him “here’s the spot, you can go now.” Most people all over the world, make some kind of whispery sound that varies from culture to culture, something like “psh psh.” That didn’t fit my personality, so I say, “Would you like to go potty?” Decide what your signal is going to be, and make it every time you are in a potty place. Or if you notice your baby is going, make it while he’s going. It’s good to get your baby latched on to a signal so you can take him in different places. Some babies get attached to one spot at home, and won’t go anywhere else. Take your baby in lots of places early on. We’ve gone in pubic bathrooms, bathrooms in friends’ houses, out in the woods on family rock climbing adventures (my hubby is quite a climber), and held over (not wearing!) a disposable diaper in the car if she needs to go when we’re on our way somewhere.

I am continually delighted that my baby can do this. I can honestly say that it’s made me much more aware of her personhood. Humans don’t like wetting themselves, and she’s human, so why shouldn’t she be aware of this? It’s a pretty big light bulb coming on in the brain of a girl who’s known nothing but changing diapers all her life. Like my friend’s sister said in her very excellent blog post on the subject,

I feel a bit like I think I would if I had discovered breastfeeding after having fed a baby routinely by intubation every few hours because I didn’t know a baby knew how to suck the milk out of a mother.

Like I said, I’m definitely not an expert yet. (I’m still rather dismal at catching number 2!) But if anyone would like to talk about EC with me, I’d love to share what I’ve learned so far.

I was working on my EC update when I realized something. It’s hard to write a post convincing everyone about how great potty training your baby is when I’ve failed to read my baby’s signals right every time she had to go for the entire day (except for once in the morning). At least, it’s hard to write about it in any sort of an authentic way.  Actually, EC was going really well, and if I recover from this bad day, I may even work up the gumption to pedantically tell all of you how you, too, can be as cool as I am. (After all, I have a nearly finished draft.)

But for now, let’s just think for a minute about gimicky parenting schemes and the Mommy Warriors who like to evangelize about them. “Oh, yes, we’re following Dr. Rev. Godly Wiseguy’s parenting book, How to Have Better Kids Than All Your Friends, And Please God, Too. And little Rupert hasn’t once wet his bed, or sassed his Mommy,  or turned up his nose at collard greens since we implemented the Seven Principles. He sleeps through the night, picks up his toys without being asked, and has led twelve neighborhood children in the Sinner’s Prayer. What’s that? You’ve never heard of the book? Here, let me loan you the copy I always keep in my purse…”

It’s really great when you find something that works for your family, really great, lifesaving even, depending on the problem you were trying to solve. And out here, surfing the vast waves of the Internet, it’s easy to run into people who have the answer, who will tell you all the marvelous ways this or that book or method has transformed their lives, their children’s lives, and the lives of their goldfish. But we all need to keep in mind that despite the life changing qualities of many a parenting trick, they will all fail in one area. They will not be able to take away our humanity, fallen and fallible. Even the best parents using the best ideas (and potty training your baby, my friends, is pretty snifty when it works), will still have bad days, days when nothing goes right, days when they fail to implement even three of the Seven Principles. We all have bad days. I, you, and everyone else. And if we’re really committed to the gimmicky scheme of the month, we may feel like bad mothers.

Let’s not forget that we are humans raising humans. Our homes are assailed by sin, hormones, sickness, tiredness, and just plain old human failure. And the real measure of our mothering metal is not how many brilliant principles we manage to implement, but how we care for our children on the days we fail.

I have a library full of lifechanging books, but there’s only one I always keep in my purse, and that’s the Bible. It’s the only parenting scheme that will ever be able to help my frail humanity and that of my children. Here’s a little quote that’s just right for the bad days.

Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him.  For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust.  As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth.  For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more. But the mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children’s children;  To such as keep his covenant, and to those that remember his commandments to do them. –Psalm 103:13-18

I walked across the street tonight, lugging a big bag of blessing: hand-me-down skirts and dresses for my girls, when they’re bigger. Skirts and dresses can be hard to come by, and they nearly always cost money, so when my neighbor offered to give me her daughters’ outgrown clothes, I said a thankful, YES, please!. But, even before I walked through the front door of our ever shrinking little house, I was thinking, now WHERE am I going to put these? How do I store an assortment of clothes, in multiple sizes, in any kind of usable way? How do I remember that I have this or that when one of my girls grows into it? So far, I’ve been using those Rubbermaid bins that seemed like such a good idea at the time, each one labeled with the gender and size of the child the clothes are intended for. But they’re miserable because they’re a fixed size. I don’t really want bins for every size from infant through adulthood filling my basement when my oldest child is only five. And I certainly don’t want huge bins that only have one or two skirts lying forlornly at the bottom. I tried to avoid this a couple years back when a friend passed on a mountain of clothes for my son, who was only a baby at the time. I put them all in a bin, ingeniously labeled “boys big clothes.” Uh huh. Guess how often I looked in that bin? Almost never. I had no idea what was in it. I sort of forgot about it, and wound up just buying what I needed when I needed it. Kind of defeats the purpose of having stuff squirreled away.

SO, ladies, what would you do? Have any of you faced something similar with your children’s clothes? Are any of you organizing gurus chomping at the bit with advice?

Some of you may have noticed the new button that appeared on my sidebar a few weeks back. A little while ago, I had the privilege of becoming a contributor for At the Well…In Pursuit of Titus 2, an online gathering place for Christian women, with articles written by around 20 ladies plus guests. They’ve just started a new series of questions and answers, and one of the questions was about modesty. Those of you who’ve gotten to know me will be able to imagine how my eyes lit up when I read that one. I wanted to share the question and my answer here. (And I encourage you all to check out the full post to read the other ladies thought-provoking responses as well.)

Here’s the question:

I was wondering how you view the Bible’s take on modesty? I was raised very conservative and still dress alot differently than the world, but it seems like so many Christian women don’t think that’s important anymore. Alot of people I know say it’s just a difference of opinion or a personal standard, but that doesn’t make much sense to me really. And I also struggle with knowing that it makes it more difficult for my husband when women in the church are dressed indecently. It’s bad enough that there’s so much temptation out there anyway but it seems like the men should get a break from that when they’re around fellow Christians. And unfortunately it’s not just the younger ones either, but alot of the older women that dress badly…ones that could be setting a better example. I’ve enjoyed reading all the posts on different topics and would love to hear someone else’s thoughts on this subject, according to what you think is right by the Bible and what the Lord would be pleased with us doing. I want to be someone who not only sets an example by my actions in this area, but also someone whose able to give a reason for why it’s the right thing to do when questioned.

And here’s my take on it:

Modesty is one of those Jell-O concepts. You try to pick it up, and it squishes fiendishly out between your fingers. 1 Timothy 2:9 commands women to dress modestly, but what does that actually mean when we’re getting dressed in the morning? How many inches long do our skirts really have to be? Some people have a hunch that there’s a cultural element in there somewhere. After all, in the Victorian era it was scandalous to let your ankles show, which makes the average Amish woman scandalous by Victorian standards. And then there’s our “freedom in Christ.” Modesty rules so often smack of legalism that a lot of people would like to throw them out completely. But then there’s that pesky 1 Timothy 2:9 again, commanding us to dress modestly.

What to do? What to do?

I believe the answer is: Be loving.

For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. –Galatians 5:13-14

Women’s bodies were designed to excite and delight men. It’s pretty simple biology: woman shows her body off, man notices it’s getting a little warm in here. But here’s the thing we all need to remember: God made women that way to bless our marriages, not to give men a constant buffet of lust-provoking eye candy.

Now for the love part. If the way I’m dressing is causing a man to take his eyes and mind off of his wife and put them on me, then I’m not being loving. Actually, I’m being selfish. I’m putting my own desire to be stylish, or to get attention, or to show off my cute figure above my brother’s purity or my sister’s marriage.

And it’s true that exactly where the line is will vary by culture, but since I’m a part of my culture, I really don’t have an excuse. I know what’s sexy in my sphere, and if I’m going to be loving, I had better save it for my husband alone and not flaunt it on the streets, or in the pew, or at my neighbor’s open house.

So when I’m getting dressed in the morning, I need to check my modesty level with my mirror, not my tape measure. It’s not really important how many inches my skirt is. What matters is whether my total package is “shamefacedness and sobriety” (1 Timothy 2:9) or “steamy little sex toy”. Guidelines may change, but our motivation should not. In our dress as well as in everything else, as Christian women, we should be ruled by love.

And then there was the time I tried to take a shower in a camp ground with my kindergartner, my toddler, and my three week old baby.

Children are blessings. Not always just because they are “so wonderful,” “so cute,” or “so much fun,” but also because life with children so often turns out to be a sanctifying adventure. You grow. You learn things. You face challenges you never would have if you hadn’t opened yourself up to these little lives. It’s not all about cozy out loud readings of Little House in the Big Woods and baking cookies together. At least, not in my world. In my world, diapers sometimes leak all over my denim skirt, every once in a while, a tantrum gets thrown in a public place, and once I was foolhardy enough to try to take a shower in a camp ground with my kindergartner, my toddler, and my three week old baby.

Since I tend to bounce back physically very quickly after a birth but struggle with feeling off kilter emotionally, we like to have lots of distraction and activity planned after a new baby is born. This time we went camping. Believe it or not, this is not the adventure part of the story. Actually, it was a pretty spiffy way to spend my post-postpartum time since my splendid hubby did everything for me: all the menu planning, shopping, campsite setup, cooking, dish washing, everything. I just sat out in the fresh air of late Spring and nursed my new little baby while my three older children ran around getting dirty. Very dirty. “Handfuls of dust in the hair” dirty. And “there’s no way we’re putting that much mess into brand new, not very washable sleeping bags” dirty. And thus, the adventure began.

All this sitting around nursing the baby had increased my confidence. After all, there I was handing ALL my duties so triumphantly: nurse the baby, cuddle the baby, take the baby potty (yes, friends, that EC post is coming, Lord willing). So, when my dear husband said that we needed to take the kids to the showers and get them cleaned up, I figured I could handle it. My husband thought that he should take our son and our 22 month old daughter with him, while I took our five year old daughter and the new baby with me.

This brings us to Lesson 1 (true adventures always result in life lessons being learned, or at least introduced). Lesson 1: Always listen to your husband. Oh, I thought, it’s not really necessary for my husband to take the toddler with him. It’ll be kind of tricky having a girl in the men’s room, even a toddler girl. I can handle it. I figured that the five year old could hold the baby while I washed the 22 month old and showered myself, and I could hold the baby while the five year old showered. It was so brilliant. We’d be all set. Ahem.

I took the baby, still nursing under the cover-up, in one arm, the bag of toiletries, with a big towel and PJ’s for the girls stacked on top, in the other arm, and off we went. First off, we trooped into the nice big handicapped stall (the only one that could comfortably hold the four of us) to use the bathroom before heading for the showers. I had the 22 month old hold up her jumper, so I could pull down her leggings. I stuck my thumbs under her little waistband, and right into something squishy and wet. Diarrhea. From the very back of her pull-up to the very front. I guess she’d had a little too much fruit… or something. This is the part of the story I’m not very proud of. You see, my precious little girl had been almost completely potty trained before her baby sister’s birth, but since I didn’t want her having accidents with all her different care-givers while I was laboring and recovering, I had put her back in pull-ups, and she had gone back to using them…for number one, but number two was still mostly going in the potty. This business of putting it in her pull-up was kind of a new thing, retro, and bad, like bell bottoms. And I was, um, annoyed. I began to lecture. And she began to cry. Ouch. Lesson 2: It’s so not worth crushing little spirits. Just don’t do it.

I wiped her up as best as I could with toilet paper (it hadn’t even occurred to me to bring wipes along), figuring that the shower would finish the job, and soon we were heading over to the shower area. I picked out the handicapped shower stall. It had two shower heads, one regular one, and one low enough for a person in a wheel chair, or, I thought to myself, someone little. Score. Also, there were two benches. Double score. We got in, closed the curtain, spread out our towel, PJ’s, shampoo bottles (grown-up and kids’), soap, and conditioner. I undressed the five year old and the 22 month old. Then I tried to turn on the shower.

And this is when I discovered that the showers have a button that you have to hold down, the entire time you want water. Hmm. Kind of throws a hitch in my plan to have the five year old take a shower by herself. This was going to be a problem. But it was nothing compared to the fact that there was no hot water. I fussed and fussed with the temperature control and that silly button, intermittently sending huge sprays of icy water in the general direction of my shivering, undressed daughters. Deep in thought, from somewhere I heard a whimper.

“Cold. I scared.”

I’m telling you this story so that if anything similar ever happens to you, you won’t think you’re the only one.

My toddler commenced terrified, heartbreaking wailing. (I’m one of those intelligent mothers who had never given her toddler a shower at home, but figured there’d be no problem giving her her first one in an unfamiliar shower stall in a camp ground.) I had to do something. I decided that I must find hot water. Someone had just gotten out of the (much smaller) shower stall across the room. I figured I’d just go check to see if it had hot water. But no sooner had I started to make my way over there but the screams reached ear piercing levels, and two naked little girls, horrified at being left alone in the aforementioned unfamiliar shower stall in a camp ground were following me out.

It was then that Stranger #1 approached. “Do you need any help? Can I hold your baby?” she asked kindly. OK, so I’m sure that this woman was just as sweet as she could be, bless her heart and all, but I DO NOT PASS MY BABIES OFF TO STRANGERS. I especially don’t pass them off to strangers and then get in the shower with my other children where I can’t see what’s happening to my baby (!!!???).

I tried to be polite while shooing my naked girls behind the second shower curtain. Hooray, this stall had hot water! Great! Now to get the towel, PJ’s, shampoo bottles (grown-up and kids’), soap, and conditioner all moved over while minimizing the exposure of the two undressed little girls (one of whom smelled strongly of the former contents of her pull-up and was still screaming). I was frantically shuttling toiletries from stall to stall when Stranger #2 came over, the picture of concern, “Can I hold your baby?” Dear woman. However, I DO NOT PASS MY BABIES OFF TO STRANGERS. I assured her, smiling through my clenched teeth that we would be fine.

At last we were safe in the new stall, with the blessed curtain closed protectively behind us. I went to turn on the water.

It was cold.

Five minutes ago it had been warm. I was determined, by sheer force of will, that it would be warm again, so I stood, still clothed, holding down that evil button, with my baby who had gone to sleep out of the cold water on one side of me while it ran down my skirt on the other. My toddler kept on wailing in misery. I tried to maintain a cheery, hopeful conversation with my kindergartner about how she could be a big girl and show her little sister how we take showers. At last, the water reached lukewarm, and my plucky oldest daughter thought she might be able to take a shower in it. We were making progress now. One of us was getting clean. My clothes were drenched, but I wasn’t about to put my baby down in a wet camp ground shower stall to try and get them off.

That was when the giant moth-like bug decided to start flying around the stall. “Bug! Bug!” Wouldn’t you know it? My toddler is afraid of bugs. And I am way too butter-hearted to kill them. Even this awful bug which managed to get knocked out of the air by the shower spray, land in the puddle under my kindergartner’s feet, get its wings wet so it couldn’t fly, and float helplessly in the water, waving its little legs in pitiful attempts to save itself from mortal peril. I rescued it with my shoe. But then, since it couldn’t fly, it kept crawling all over our stuff. Nasty.

Well, my kindergartner emerged from her coolish shower, got dressed, and sat down to hold the baby while I got out of my wet clothes to shower with the terrified toddler. I decided I had better pick her up and hold her in the shower “so she wouldn’t be scared.” Right. The screams were so loud my husband could hear them through the wall in the men’s room. One hand holding my toddler, the other alternately pushing the water button and trying to wash her bottom and dirt caked hair. Do you know what gets all over you when you hold a toddler on your hip that had diarrhea in her pull-up and you didn’t bring any wipes?

At last, I pronounced her semi-clean, and got her into her nightgown. Warm and cozy, her ordeal was over, and she began to calm down. Just in time for the baby to wake up. I had long since given up on the idea of a shower for myself, but there was the little matter of the stuff on my hip. I jumped back in and held the button down while the water slowly warmed, and my baby slowly lost her patience. At the point where she began to fuss in earnest for her next nursing, I jumped in, scrubbed my stinky hip, jumped out, dried off, and picked her up. Nursing would have to come before dressing.

Our gracious Lord, in His infinite mercy, prompted me to put my underwear back on (one-handed, while nursing, those of you who are mothers will understand the skills one develops). Because next thing I knew, there was a voice behind the curtain, “Are you still in the shower?”

Bewildered, I just repeated the question, “Am I still in the shower?”

And that was when the curtain pulled back and Stranger #3 popped her head in. I yanked the curtain shut in her face. But that didn’t stop her. She just popped right back in and stared at me in my underwear nursing my baby. “Your husband is here. He wants me to take some of the children out to him.” Well, it’s possible my husband sent you, dear, but how should I know? And anyway, I DO NOT PASS MY BABIES OFF TO STRANGERS. Also, in order to feel comfortable in a conversation, I like to be wearing clothes. She was still staring at me. “Um. Thank you. We’re not quite done,” I said, yanking the curtain back closed.

I sobbed silently for a few moments before getting dressed and heading back to the handicapped bathroom stall so we could all brush our teeth. One of the women we were camping with called to me through the door, “Do you want me to take any of the kids out?” I assured her that I could manage. “Your husband is very concerned.” I told her we were almost done. A minute later, she was back. My husband was taking our son and running to the store for a few things we needed the next day. “Tell him to bring me a treat!” I said.

That night, as I snuggled up with my Slush Puppy (my husband knows my intense weakness for all things slushy), I realized that Stranger #3 was actually the camp ground host. I had met her earlier that evening. And then I had yanked my shower curtain shut in her face. I guess my lack of clothes sort of affected my reasoning skills. Sigh. And that brings me to Lesson #3: You can’t always impress people with your grace. Sometimes, you’re just nursing in your underwear, still damp from washing diarrhea off your hip. But this is how you grow in humility. And Lesson #4: Sometimes motherhood is crazy this way, and you’re beaten up and bashed around, but you survive and you move on by the Lord’s grace, and it all makes for a great laugh once the bruises heal.

My husband and I crawled into our sleeping bags. “Wanna hear my war story?” I said.

Not feeling so much like Supermom today? Whenever I don’t feel like I’m exactly in the running for the Mother of the Year award, I think of Jennifer of Conversion Diary’s post, Motherhood: God Doesn’t Call the Equipped, He Equips the Called. It always makes me feel better.

That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ –1 Peter 1:7

I had gotten cocky about birth. After giving birth to my first child: 8 pounds, 9 ounces of pure posterior labor right through to the end, I had had two exceptionally fast and relatively easy births. The days had been spent savoring the delicious anticipation of early first stage, transitions had been quick (just one contraction for my third baby), pushing had been a little wild, but short, and then, oh! What a wonderful reward at the end! I had it through my head that first labors are hard, but that after that, you just pop ‘em out like nothing. Or, at least, I thought that was how my body worked. It was actually a form of pride, although I didn’t realize it. And leave it to the Lord to confront us with our sins–even the ones we don’t know about.

Through the end of my pregnancy, the Lord’s big lesson to me seemed to be about waiting on Him. I wrote a post about it and closed with these thoughts:

Maybe it’s just proof that I have a long way to go in actually learning to rest in the Lord instead of in my own schedules, devices, and plans. I should be glad for this chance to step outside of my own created order, glad for this chance to be reminded of Who it is who really runs the universe, this chance to work at being joyful and peaceful when I don’t get my way, to practice trusting, hoping, resting, waiting.

As it turned out, waiting for that first contraction was just the warm-up. The real test was still to come.

It all started at my father-in-law’s (day early) birthday party. We were in between the games and cake when I had a contraction, a big one. Hmm. And then I had another one.

As everyone was leaving, and saying how we’d see each other in church the next morning, one man said, “Maybe you’ll have the baby and you won’t be there.” I smiled, and said, “Hey, wouldn’t that be great! Let’s hope I’m not there.” And inside I thought, maybe, just maybe I wouldn’t be.

I kept on having contractions.

We got the children to bed, and as usual, I stayed with them while they fell asleep. The contractions were getting strong enough now that I was starting to feel like I needed to breathe through them. I put on music for the children and paced their room, leaning on the bunk bed rail for each contraction. They were pulling really hard. Things were moving very fast.

But when I left the focused darkness of the bedroom, and came out into the bright lights of the living room, my contractions began to space out and weaken. I kept walking to try to keep things going. My husband and I talked about baby names. We still needed a middle name for a girl.

It wasn’t long before I was really sleepy. I called my cousin whom I had invited to the birth to let her know that I thought I was in labor. And then I went to bed. The contractions had all but stopped.

I woke up a few hours later around 2:30.The house was dark and quiet. I decided that I wanted to have this baby, so I got back up. As soon as I stood up, the contractions started again. I paced around the living room, leaning on the back of the upright piano or the couch depending on where I was when the contractions hit. They were pulling hard again, and things seemed like they were getting serious. I called my cousin again at around 3:30 and told her to come. Then I got a pillow and sleeping bag ready for her on the couch. When I turned the light on in the guest room to get the pillow, things started slowing down again. I woke my husband up just to let him know what was happening, and he decided to get up and take a shower since he might not get one later that day.

My cousin arrived. I paced, talking to her about birth and labor. My husband came out and showed my cousin pictures from previous births, made coffee, and continued to share our natural, low-intervention, home birth philosophy. I walked. My legs were getting tired. And my contractions were getting lighter. Lighter. I was starting to feel a little frustrated, not to mention more than a little embarrassed that I had gotten everyone up from a nice, cozy sleep.

We started making plans for having my husband’s parents come and take the children to church, so they could have a normal Sunday morning. I fully expected we’d have our baby before the end of the morning meeting. But by 6:30 I was sleepy again and not much seemed to be happening. Despite the embarrassment, I went back to bed and promptly went to sleep. My husband and cousin sat on the couch in my room while I dozed in and out of consciousness catching bits of their conversation. At 7:30, I got up. It had been twelve hours since that first contraction, and as soon as I was out of bed, more contractions hit me again, and this time, I was shaking a bit, too. Shaking has historically been my “call the midwives NOW” sign, as the baby had followed in under an hour the last two times I’d given birth. But I was oddly not deep into myself the way I usually am when I shake. We thought we should call them anyway, though. So before long, two midwives and an apprentice were in our room setting up supplies while I sheepishly paced. Everything had slowed down again.

They checked the baby. Fetal heart tones were good, but the head was still high and ballotable. Our little one hadn’t dropped.

The kids went to church. The apprentice, tired from attending another birth over night as a doula, fell asleep on the guest bed. The midwives and my husband and cousin sat at the kitchen table, while I went back to bed, hardly in labor at all. The words failure to progress were doing battle in my head with the much more friendly term we learned way back in my Bradley Birth class, natural alignment plateau. I hoped this was “natural,” but mostly I felt like a “failure:” stupid for not knowing when I was really in labor, guilty for wasting everyone’s time, and totally incapable of bringing forth this child.

I fell asleep again in the contractionless stillness of that bright Sunday morning. When I woke up, we all had a chat. The midwives offered to check my dilation if that would make me feel any better. I didn’t really think it would. Finally, everyone decided to go home.

And there I was. I had gotten my cousin up at 3:30 in the morning to “hurry” to a birth that hadn’t happened by noon. I had sent my children away hours too early, and now it was nap time, and they weren’t at home. My entire church was waiting for news about my baby that hadn’t come.

But perhaps a little breathing room and a rest would start things up again. And it was nice to be alone with my husband for awhile. He went out to Taco Bell for some lunch for me. I went to sleep on the couch while I waited for him. We walked around the yard with our dog, pulling weeds here and there while I had quiet little contractions in the background. We came in, and I fell asleep again on the couch.

Around 3:00, my husband thought he should check in with the midwives again and let them know that nothing was happening. While he was on the phone, I had a huge contraction, the kind where I had to fight the urge to panic. And then I was shaking so hard my teeth were rattling. I went and sat on my bed while my husband called the midwives and my cousin to come right back. But the shaking slowly subsided, and I didn’t have any more big contractions. Everyone rushed back in to quietness.

This time, the midwife thought it would be a good idea to check me because, as she said, if I was only dilated to one, then we would know not to treat this like labor. I waited, breathless, to hear the pronouncement. I was complete. The baby was just so high that I had no urge to push.

We tried various positions. We bound my belly. I kept walking even though my legs were killing me by that point. The baby didn’t drop. Everyone else had dinner but I didn’t want anything. I was exhausted mentally and emotionally. I just wanted to have that baby. At 6:00, our oldest called. She wanted to come home, but the baby hadn’t come yet. I paced and paced in our bedroom until at last I crawled back into bed and fell asleep again. When I woke up, my cousin was gone. She had run out of time. Failure to progress. Failure. The midwives wanted to go for a walk. I lay there and cried. I missed my children. I missed my breezy confidence about birth. I wanted my baby. I felt like I was letting everyone down. Today was my father-in-law’s birthday, but what if I couldn’t give birth that day? What if I missed it? The midwife brought me tissue for my nose. “Stalled labors can be very humbling,” she said.

Finally, we decided to stop trying so hard. “Get your children home and tucked into bed,” said the midwife. “Maybe everything will pick up again once you know that everyone is OK. Just try to rest and be comfortable until then.” My husband suggested I get in the shower. He made arrangements for his parents to give the kids a snack after the evening church meeting and then bring them home for bed.

At first, the shower was relaxing. I kept crying and tried to talk to my husband about how I felt. A snatch of 1 Peter 1:7 was going through my head, “That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire…” …tried with fire…precious faith. My faith was more precious than my cocky confidence about my own ability to give birth. I had to trust the Lord. I had to have faith in HIM, not in myself.

Gradually the heat of the shower became irritating during contractions, and I went and sat on my bed. My husband wanted me to eat something. He suggested instant chicken soup and said he had some out in the car. I said that didn’t sound too bad, and he left to get it. As soon as he was gone, I had a sharp contraction. The minute it was over, I scrambled off the bed calling my husband’s name. It seemed like forever until he got back down the hall to our room. “I don’t want you to go,” I said. “Contractions are uncomfortable.”

It was a little after 8:30. I had been in labor for 25 hours, and finally, finally, the contractions were overwhelming, awkward, making me climb out of my skin. And then my water broke. Somewhere in my mind there was relief but it was swept away in the pushing contraction that followed hard after. I pushed like I had never pushed before. My children were coming home. I had suffered for hours the pain of failure and helplessness. And I was going to push that baby out. The apprentice kept adjusting things. I didn’t want to be bothered. They wanted to listen to the baby, but all they got was my heartbeat. Then they were pushing on me. “Don’t do that,” I said. I hadn’t realized that the baby was crowning. And then, at 8:59, just 14 minutes after my water broke,  my baby wiggled free. And the midwife was telling me that she was going to pass me my baby. “It’s pink!” my husband announced. I was shocked. I had thought all along that I was having a boy. But there she was, so tiny and beautiful, and I was desperate to hold her and cuddle her. “So precious!” I said over and over as I sank onto the bed with our baby daughter. “So precious.”

I had not done it. The Lord had, in His perfect timing. He had brought forth this infinitely precious child and brought me through a humbling brokenness to the moment of her birth. And at last our baby was in our arms. We named her Faith.

This is an unusual birth story, one that likely doesn’t happen very often, and that has led to some surprise over why we didn’t step in medically, why I went through this when I didn’t “have to.” For those who are wondering, here’s a brief glimpse into my husband’s and my personal view of my “failure to progress.”

The average hospital would never allow this kind of labor. They would certainly have broken my water hours before it broke on its own. They might have given me Pitocin when things slowed down. And I might even have wound up with a c-section when it appeared that I couldn’t do it on my own. Would that have been better? I don’t really think so. Faith and I were fine. (They kept checking.) I was suffering emotionally, but hardly going through anything physically. There was no emergency, just long, quiet hours of disappointment and waiting. I understand the desire to “do something.” (Boy, do I ever!) But in the end, I had a simple, uncomplicated birth with no tearing, no trauma, no problems at all for me or little Faith. Intervening simply to save everyone the wait might have turned out fine, but it also might not have. All interventions have risks, and many times one intervention leads to another, and another, and another. Eventually, I hope to write more about this. But for now, suffice it to say, that despite all the raw emotions, I wouldn’t really change anything.

The midwives told me after the birth that my baby had been born posterior. She was smaller than my others, too, and those together might have had something to do with her not dropping. But in the end, we’ll never really know for sure why this labor turned out the way it did. It’s just one more thing I have to have faith about, trusting the Lord to turn this trial “unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.”

Dear Friends, I’m working diligently on my birth story, but sometimes it’s slow going when I’m typing one handed and oh so distracted by a pair of dark gray eyes searching mine. So as I wait to regain my equilibrium enough to get some of my own posts up, I wanted to share a few of the wonderful things I’ve been reading while snuggling and nursing.

Mrs. Anna T. has written another gem, Fix Your Eyes on the Lovely Things. It’s an uplifting and spot on reminder to keep our minds on the right things.

Here is a GREAT post, written anonymously by a wife dealing with her husband’s pornography problem. I want to be careful in posting it, lest this woman’s personal story of coming to grips with her own sin make anyone think that all men’s pornography problems stem from these particular issues. Pornography addiction is so rampant, and the complicating factors are as individual as each struggling couple. However, the answer, the way of the cross, is much more universally applicable. Even if your husband has never had difficulty in this area, chances are you will one day encounter a woman whose husband does, and this gives solid Scriptural advice in testimony form on what to say and what NOT to say. I highly recommend The Pornography Net.

Meghann Jones has written a delightful post encouraging us to enjoy our husbands and leave convicting them to the Holy Spirit. Enjoying My Man.

This is also a great time to introduce you to something that I’ve really been enjoying, but since I don’t usually do memes, I haven’t had a good chance to share it. Organizing Mommy has a wonderful concept called the Blitz that has been a huge blessing at our house since she introduced it several months ago. Here’s her latest post about it, Blitzing with the Kids. You may also want to check out the first post, The ONE HOUR BLITZ.

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. –Philippians 4:8

I wanted to quickly check in and let everyone know that our new little daughter was born at home Sunday night at 8:59 (six days early, grin). She weighed 7 pounds, 8 ounces, and was just under 21 inches long. I hope to post her birth story soon. (Well, “soon” by postpartum standards may not be exactly “soon,” but I’ll do my best.)

I’m still pregnant.

This should not be too much of a surprise since I’m not even due until May 9th. But even though it’s not surprising, it is a little…disappointing, frustrating, wearying. Every morning I think, “I just wish I knew when the baby was coming. Then I could pace myself.” I keep telling the Lord that this or that would make a good birthday, but He, being infinitely wiser than I, has thus far disagreed. And I am waiting.

We get few chances in life for this kind of waiting. Usually, we have some kind of information, a tracking number for our package (look, it’s made it to the depot!), a date for our wedding (like my cousin’s delightful fiancee, who posted recently on Facebook that it was “four weeks and six days”). But when we’re pregnant, only God knows the schedule. We have a due date, of course, but it’s just the center of one of those old fashioned bell curves. We could easily be early, or late (sigh). A due date doesn’t define a day so much as an entire month of possibility. And all that month we sit on pins and needles, waiting.

And what are we waiting for? A baby, yes, but we’re also waiting on God, learning to trust His timing on something we earnestly desire, but have very little control over (the temptation to lace our cookie dough with Pitocin, notwithstanding), learning to say, “Yes, I thought April 28th would be a great day for a birth, but You know better than I do, and I’m just going to rest in Your knowledge and judgment, Your wisdom and plans, even when I’m waddling around like a scatterbrained duck, even when my hips ache, or my hand falls asleep (again!), even when a promising contraction is followed by…nothing. Even then, I have no other choice but to go on, waiting.

You would think that since I’ve done this three times before that somehow I would have already learned this lesson. Apparently, I haven’t. In fact, I’m more impatient than ever. Maybe it’s because I feel so prepared (”oh, yeah, bring on the baby; we got clothes; we got diapers; I know what to do with an infant!”). Maybe it’s a sense of entitlement (”my first baby was two weeks late; my second was two days late; my third was on her due date; so if we follow the trend, this one should be early!”). Maybe it’s just proof that I have a long way to go in actually learning to rest in the Lord instead of in my own schedules, devices, and plans. I should be glad for this chance to step outside of my own created order, glad for this chance to be reminded of Who it is who really runs the universe, this chance to work at being joyful and peaceful when I don’t get my way, to practice trusting, hoping, resting, waiting.

Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD. –Psalm 27:14

Spunky of Spunky Homeschool has written a rather thought-provoking (and amusing) piece on the choices we like to be able to make in our lives. I don’t want to give away her punch line, so I’ll refrain from telling you too much about it and settle instead for letting you read the opening paragraphs.

Imagine with me, if you will, that you just bought a new home. You are so excited. The rooms are spacious, the neighborhood lovely, and the surrounding community is spectacular. The area is loaded with restaurants, museums, orchestras, and cultural opportunities galore. All to entertain and educate you and your children. You wander around your new dwelling staring at boxes and dreaming of the future.

Suddenly, your dream is interrupted by a knock at the door. Wondering who it is, you peek through the door. It’s a face you don’t recognize. You greet the stranger warmly. He, however, appears to be all business. “Are you Mrs. Jones the new homeowner?”

Click on over and read the rest of Choice: It’s a beautiful thing.

Love is patient –1 Corinthians 13:4

And then there are the bad days. Like today, for instance, when we’re hopelessly behind schedule and the only way to get our morning seat work done is by skipping chores and clutter clean-up (the tension rises), when workbook pages are crammed down unwilling and fretful throats amid cries of “I can’t make an eight!”(the teeth clench), when lunch is so late the toddler is too hysterical to eat and has to be force-fed her first few bites until she calms down (the grumpy face sets), when the bickering, and needling, and disagreeing begins to rival the British Parliament and children have to be separated to stop the poking fingers (the tone of voice disintegrates), when just as we make it to nap time (an hour late, mind you), the toddler has to go number two (I’ve lost my patience), and I’m sitting in the bathroom wondering how to redeem the rest of my day.

Argh. Harumph. And grumble.

But this is only natural, right? What mother isn’t driven crazy sometimes? Who doesn’t have days when she wants to announce ruefully that she’s losing her patience? It’s normal, right?

It is socially acceptable these days to lose your patience (as long as you don’t get wildly out of control and break stuff). And it’s not just children that can send us over that selfish cliff. Everyone from annoying salespeople to chronically sinning and unrepentant adult family members are justified patience robbers. Just saying it, with that touch of gritty vehemence, “I’m losing my patience!” has such an edgy, modern, non-doormatish ring. No husband, or child, or irritating acquaintance is going to provoke me endlessly. No, ma’am. I have limits. I’m tired of the fussing. I’m tired of the fighting. I’m tired of the frustration. Now they’re going to have to reckon with me. I’m justified in saying something nasty.  I’m losing my patience.

But you know what’s brought me up short lately? It’s the fact that patience is one of the defining attributes of love. In fact, it’s the first one mentioned in Paul’s famous love chapter (1 Corinthians 13). If I’ve lost my patience, how loving am I really being? Not very. In fact, maybe it’s even safe to say that when I’m growling inwardly that I’ve “lost my patience,” that what I really ought to be saying is, “I’ve lost my love.”

Oooh.

That one has a much different ring to it. That one sounds pretty serious. I mean, there are some rather stern warnings about love, for example,

He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. –1 John 4:8

If I’ve lost my patience, I’m not being loving. If I’m not being loving, I’m acting like I don’t even know God. I’ve forsaken His greatest attribute. You can’t get much further removed from godliness than that.

Should I stop the bickering? Yes. Should I require that my children master writing the number eight joyfully? Of course. Should I try to reclaim the days when my sechedule goes haywire? Absolutely. But I should never do any of these things because I’m so mad, because I just “can’t take it anymore,” because I’ve lost my patience. I have to do these things only because they are my duty, my portion under the sun, my appointed tasks from my heavenly Father. Ditto for dealing with more serious patience robbers, like loved ones who hurt me repeatedly. I may very well need to confront them with thier sin, but not because I’ve lost my patience, not because they’ve pushed me to my breaking point, but because that’s what God has asked of me. Anything less, and I’m on wicked territory. Losing patience is losing love.

I am heading into the home stretch on this pregnancy. I only have about three and a half more weeks until my due date. The birth supplies are all laid out and covered with a sheet. The baby clothes (some in pink, some in blue since we like to be surprised about the sex of our new little blessings) are washed, and folded, and waiting in their drawer. We even bought the garlic yesterday for my postpartum herbal baths. The only thing that isn’t ready is the diapers.

I started out a staunch cloth diaper girl. It’s better for the environment, gentler on the pocketbook, safer on baby’s skin to avoid all those chemicals. Besides, I would rather wear cotton than paper and plastic all the time.

… And then I discovered the struggles, the fact that even with double diapering, we had a leak nearly every night, and then there was the leak nearly every morning after that first great big nursing, not to mention the fact that I never found a good way of getting the wet and messy diapers home in the diaper bag without making everything in the diaper bag smell like a diaper pail. And while we’re on the subject of diaper pails, I never figured out what to do with the diapers that were waiting to be washed without having them stink up the entire room. And speaking of washing, laundry is my downfall. I’m always behind, and using cloth diapers involves washing them, which means adding two or three loads a week to my already overloaded laundry schedule.

Which all explains why, despite my impassioned beginnings, cloth diapering fell by the wayside somewhere after the arrival of baby number two.

Enter EC. For those of you who have never heard of this, it stands for “Elimination Communication,” and it basically means letting your child go potty on the toilet, or in some other receptacle right from birth instead of forcing them to spend the first year or two of their lives sitting in their own urine and feces. I know. I know. At first, it sounds kind of nice, nice and bizarre, nice and impractical, nice and impossible. I heard about it for years myself before I even considered trying it because it depends on knowing when your baby needs to go. And I had no idea when my children needed to go. None. I was used to waiting until they could talk, and then trying to get them to say, “I need to go potty.” But then, you know, potty training a child who has spent his whole life being trained to make messes in his pants can be a harrowing experience. It takes FOREVER to convince him that all of a sudden he should not make messes in his pants, that it is no longer a brilliant plan just to go wherever he happens to be when he feels the urge.

Well, a couple of friends of mine (one from church and one from the blogosphere) tried EC with their babies. My friend from church even let me watch her little one month old in action. She held him in position, and he went, number one and number two. I picked my chin up off the floor, and gave it all some serious thought. I started applying some of the principles to my little one and a half year old, and lo and behold, so often when I thought she had been fussing for “no reason,” it was actually because she had to go, and she didn’t really want to go in her diaper. She used to wake up over and over at night and have an awful time going back to sleep. When I started taking her to the bathroom when she first woke up, she went right back to sleep immediately in perfect comfort. I realized she had been trying to sleep with a full bladder, which is very unsettling, and it kept waking her up.

As a general rule, I am leery of gimmicky parenting, but this one somehow makes sense to me. If I were weak and helpless, I would sure rather someone helped me to the bathroom instead of just sticking a diaper on me and changing it whenever it fit their schedule. And babies are no less human than adults. Could it be that our whole concept of their not having any preferences in this area is a little misguided?

SO, to make a long story short, I’m actually considering trying EC with our new little one, and EC is MUCH easier if you use cloth diapers. Babies dislike being wet, and disposables instantly turn the moisture into a gel which ruins the feedback babies would ordinarily get from wetting themselves. I have found that my toddler has one accident after another when she wears disposable training pants, but panics immediately (often enough to stop until she makes it to the bathroom) if she starts to have an accident in cloth.

The other day, I dug my newborn size diaper covers out of the old baby clothes bin and put them on the floor of the backlogged laundry room to await the next light colors load. I still have to find the rest of my stash of little, unbleached, organic prefolds and find another bucket that’s been emptied of the forty pounds of wheat berries it came to us with to use as a diaper pail. Then I should be all set for the next stage of my diapering adventures. Does anyone have any advice for me?

My friend, Kim from Canada, of The Executive Housewife, recently posted a great imaginary discussion she picked up at a homeschool conference. It turns all those socialization questions people ask on their heads and offers a totally fresh (though tongue in cheek) perspective on how children get to know life in the real world. Click on over and think outside the box.

I’ve been wrestling with a lot of discouragement lately, mostly the kind that comes at the end of a pregnancy when that nearly 50 pound belly I’m dragging around finally starts to sap enough of my energy that I can’t seem to do even the simplest things like laundry, and cooking, and staying on top of discipline and homeschooling. “I just made dinner last night,” I whined to my mother, “And now I have to make it again!”

Then one morning, as I lay in bed with my eyes burning, feeling sorry for myself that I had to get up, I realized something. The main reason I get discouraged is that I expect life to be easy, and I’m disappointed when it isn’t.

But God never promised me an easy life. Actually, life is pretty much guaranteed to be hard.

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

When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. –Isaiah 43:2

Notice it says, “When.” Hardship is inevitable.

Of course, the “hardship” at the end of a normal, healthy pregnancy is nothing compared to what a lot of people go through. In fact, it’s nothing compared to things I’ve gone through myself, broken bones and nearly dying of pneumonia, family stresses and assorted heartbreak. But somehow, even the smallest amount of interference with my plans for an easy, happy life tempts me to discouragement. I feel like I signed up for a spa retreat and instead found myself in combat, viciously assailed on every side, fighting a losing battle for my own joy and the joy of my family. But how silly of me to suppose that life on this fallen, broken, sin ravaged earth should ever be anything but war! I need to expect the trouble that God plainly tells me will come and greet it valiantly. I need to be a cheery pessimist.

Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you: But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy. –1 Peter 4:12,13

The only thing I can be optimistic about is that the Hero of the story (God) will show himself a mighty warrior in my raging battles. Any hardship is really just an opportunity to see His glory. My heavenly spa retreat is coming. Until then, it’s mortal combat every day for the souls of my family and those the Lord brings across my path. It’s mortal combat to glorify Him in my weak flesh, to be cheerful when I’m tired and faithful when I’d rather whine, patient and steadfast when I feel like giving up.

Get back, discouragement over having to do laundry at eight months gestation! Take that, self-pity, and that, grumpy attitude! I wasn’t put on this earth for a pedicure. This is a war zone, and I’m going to fight to the death.

Over the years, I’ve read a LOT on the Internet about mothering: blog posts, articles, some by professionals, some by Titus 2 women. And every now and then, there would be something that triggered a huge Ah, Ha!, something “mind blasting,” to quote my husband. Today, I’d like to share a few of those links with you, and I’d love to know what your all time favorite, most life changing links are, too.

Mothering Infants

Unto the Least of These
If you are a mother or soon to be mother of an infant, and you don’t read anything else I link to, read this one.

Woman to Woman
An eye-opening look at where we get our advice on how to be a mother. I don’t totally agree with the full scope of her conclusions, but her basic points are well worth considering.

Mothering Older Children

Raising Godly Tomatoes
This is a GREAT book, and you can read the whole thing online as well as enjoy a few “extras” here at the website.

Changing the Heart of a Rebel
This is a VERY convicting piece and one that I keep coming back to as I consider my philosophy of homeschooling.

Family Size

It’s the Demography, Stupid
Here’s one I just couldn’t help but throw in. It totally changed the way I viewed demographics and all the hype about overpopulation. And it’s just so well written. You’ll laugh. You’ll tremble at the state of Western Civilization. You’ll think about having another baby.

My good friend, Organizing Mommy, of Organized Everyday, has written a great post on being hospitable called, Hospitality 101: the mark of a gracious Christian. Here’s a little taste:

Hospitality is an great idea for all Christians, not just the ones who appear to have a natural ability in this endeavor. If it were up to natural abilities, I would not feel qualified to do this. I’m not fancy and fussy. I serve normal, plain food to people. My house is not spotless, and my kids are not perfect.

For some reason, I do not let those things stop me from having people over. I see this as something that God is in. It’s God’s work, so he promises to do the providing.

As someone who was “hospitably challenged” when I first got married, I can attest to the truth of her wonderful encouragement. Anyone can learn hospitality, even the people who (like me!) are more naturally suited to life on deserted islands, and the ideas in this post are a great place to start.

Better is a dry morsel, and quietness therewith, than an house full of sacrifices with strife. –Proverbs 17:1

Proverbs 17:1 is on the wall in my kitchen, written in a large font, a verse to pull me back from my perfectionism, my grandiose plans, and my daily temptations to keep up with Mrs. Homemaker Jones, a verse to remind me of what is better: quietness, a peaceful home. If I can’t do all the wonderful, worthwhile things rattling around in my head without falling into strife and grumpiness at my children, then it’s better to let them go. Lately, I’ve taken to paraphrasing this verse.

When I think regretfully back to last summer and my fanatical fears and tight voiced reprimands about my seedlings being trampled by little feet when I went out to weed, I remind myself: Better is a slightly injured vegetable garden and quietness therewith, than flawless beds with strife.

When a precious “homemaker in training” pushes a stool up to the counter and asks if she can help with the frosting, and the cakey flecks start to appear all over the creamy top, I silently recite: Better is a cake with crumbs in the frosting and quietness therewith, than Wilton Yearbook quality with strife.

When I’m racing around trying to get the house clean for company, and I’m starting to snap at my “sweeping crew” because they’re missing the dog fur in the corners, it’s time to remember that better are a few spare dog hairs and quietness therewith, than an immaculate floor with strife.

This is not a call to mediocrity–far from it. It’s a call to excellence in the things that truly matter, things like that meek and quiet spirit that’s of such great price in God’s eyes (1 Peter 3:4), or just giving my children memories of a happy mother who was delighted to have their help and companionship, who enjoyed working with them.

All too often, I’m not that kind of mother. I’m the hard-nosed mother, the mother whose self-image is all wrapped up in accomplishment, in looking good, and appearing to have it all together. I want everyone to be impressed with me, with my beautiful clean house, my fabulous cooking, my creative decorating. And when little hands are jeopardizing my “perfect” products by blood pressure tends to rise. Proverbs 17:1 reminds me that all those “sacrifices” I want to fill my house and my life with are actually worth even less than stale bread if I can’t do it all with quietness.

As is so often the case in the Christian life, attitude trumps accomplishment. We should aspire to do wonderful things with our lives and our homes, but we have to remember to start with hearts and relationships and continually put quietness before lavish sacrifice.

A birth report just came out that has conservatives concerned. According to the One News Now coverage of the report, 40% of all births in the U.S. in 2007 were to unwed mothers. Obviously, this is a bad thing. But what struck me was what Janice Crouse of Concerned Women For America was quoted as saying about it. After detailing the poverty and behavior problems that were statistically more likely to afflict these children, she lamented,

There’s no stigma attached to having a child [out of wedlock] and there’s no price to pay, no consequence…in terms of your acceptance within society. Some schools even have special classes now for girls who get pregnant while they’re still in school.

The report went on to say,

Crouse believes the survey is also a wakeup call to parents who have children enrolled in public school that comprehensive sex education is not working. She argues that schools are focusing too much on the act of sex and not enough on the ramifications of unwed pregnancies.

Now I usually like Concerned Women for America, but I have a problem with this. There is nothing immoral about having a baby out of wedlock. What is immoral is having sex out of wedlock. The reason that unwed pregnancy used to be stigmatized was that being pregnant implied you’d been having sex. Shifting the focus from the sex to the baby, in my mind, does one thing. It encourages abortion.

If we spend lots of time telling students about “the ramifications of unwed pregnancies,” we’re not going to discourage them from having sex. We’re going to make them believe that a baby will ruin their life. Sex and babies hardly go together anymore. Sex is for fun. And babies…well, there’s a pill for that. So when their birth control fails (and teens are notorious for not using it properly), a quick trip down to the local Planned Parenthood office will fix everything up, neat and tidy. There! No out of wedlock birth. Never mind the dismembered child, and the emotionally scarred woman who may face serious depression and even increased risk of breast cancer thanks to the solution to her dire “problem” of having a baby.

Yes, it is God’s design for children to grow up with two parents. And we should grieve for children who don’t have that chance and seek to help and defend the fatherless, whether they are the children of unwed mothers or the children of widows. But just as we don’t blame the children of widows for ruining their mothers’ lives (even if their mothers are struggling and impoverished), we shouldn’t blame the children of women who stumbled sexually for ruining their mothers’ lives. What devastated the widow was a death. What devastated the unwed mother was giving herself sexually to a man who had not covenanted to care for her and the baby they produced.

Let’s tell people the truth. A human being is infinitely valuable even if he is at risk for poverty or behavior problems. Babies don’t mess up your life. (They do drastically alter your plans, but they also bring with them incredible blessings. And since when were one person’s plans more important than another person’s life anyway?). But having sex with someone you’re not married to does mess up your life. Sex is not harmless fun. It binds you forever to another person. And not saving sex for marriage causes much more spiritual and emotional devastation than any baby ever will.

Some of you will remember a recent post called, How to Make Your Christian Child a Social Outcast: Send Him to Public School. As the (very good–thanks to everyone!) discussion was winding down, I got two comments from the Chatty Housewife asking some excellent and thought provoking questions. I thought they were so good that I didn’t want them to get lost at the tail end of a comment thread that no one was checking anymore, so with Chatty’s gracious permission, I am re-posting them here (slightly edited to combine them–the originals are still in the comments section of the other post).

As you read her questions, please keep in mind that they are sincere rather than rhetorical. As she explains, she is “thinking on paper” and genuinely struggling with this. She has not made up her mind that all Christian parents need to send their kids to public school, and she is not trying to convert “foolish” homeschool moms to her agenda. I don’t want to set this up as a debate with Chatty personally, but rather to give everyone a chance to discuss the issues she has raised, and I have promised her that I will not approve comments that lash out at her (not that I think any of my regular commenters are likely to be the least bit mean; I just want to be clear). I’ll kick the discussion off by giving my response after I share Chatty’s thoughts.

Here’s what Chatty had to say:

I am a Christian and I was public schooled.

In elementary school I was definitely called the teachers pet, or a brown noser because I was obedient. Because of my obedience, I was the one the teacher relied on for help. I remember being teased, never by my friends but by certain bullies who teased all the kids whether they were brown nosers or not.

I have never been to a dance in my life. While it was hard to explain to my friends the reason why I wasn’t allowed to go, I never became a “social outcast”. This was not because I had “spiritual fortitude” but because my friends accepted their confusion and continued to be friends with me in spite of it. Dances or parties were a big deal to the students the week before, but the week after everyone basically forgot about them and the fact that I hadn’t gone wasn’t an issue; life went back to normal. I was never judged for not going or made fun of; people really didn’t care that much.

At one point in my life (last day of college), I said goodbye to school friends and made a conscious decision in my life to focus on making deeper friendships with people who wouldn’t be confused as to my way of life. We had been growing apart because our differences had made it harder for me to feel comfortable being their friend. I felt as if they were the outcasts and I was the one who had the opportunity to have a fulfilling life.

You said “Good socialization is about being with worthwhile people on a frequent basis, people who will pull you up to their level, not despise you for failing to lower yourself” and I believe that is sometimes true. I also believe that a child has to learn how to react to sin, how to say no and choose God’s way, how to be a good Christian in today’s world and live as an alien IN this world. They need to learn how to be strong in the presence of people who could try and pull then down to their level, or despise them for failing to lower themselves. If we are to be aliens in this world, but still work and provide for ourselves, we need to have the skills to be IN the world but not BE OF IT. Are not those skills something that have to grow within a person from day one? Where does the strength to say no to the world come from, if it hasn’t been planted and watered within a child by their parents while they were going through school? It starts as a seed and you hope and pray that it is a strong, mature, stable plant when it has to go out in the wind by itself. It can rely on it’s root structure of “dealing-with-the-world history” to keep it upright. The wind in the past years of it’s life drove the roots deeper and deeper into the solid ground so that it was more than well prepared for the storms of the future.

I can’t say that I will never homeschool because it is looking more and more like public schools are not safe for Christian children. I am just voicing my concerns and confused thoughts out loud here, “on paper,” as almost a cry for answers to my doubts as to whether or not I believed homeschooling is the right way. I took the time to read through the rest of the comments for this post, which is something I should have done BEFORE I commented, but I just wanted to quote a few. These might not be word for word, as I am typing them from a sheet of paper I hastily wrote them down on.

“It’s important to teach our children how to live in the world, how to deal with inappropriate conduct…”
How do we do this if they aren’t living part of their days in the public and learning to deal with these things daily as they grow?

“Every child needs to learn to think for themself and stand up for their own beliefs… 12 years of age is not the best time for that”
So what age is better. 18? Why not never have that jump, that “best time”, but have it be a gradual thing of growth throughout their childhood? Why not let their roots grow deep into solid ground slowly instead of the shock of a storm that they have never felt the likes of before, and haven’t grown the proper root structure to hold them strong for?

I guess this brings up the greenhouse theory of one other commenter.

““hardening off” a greenhouse plant takes a lot of care and time – and so does preparing a Christian child for life as a Christian adult!”
I really appreciated this thought and found it very interesting. BUT why not start the little plants outdoors so that the hardening off doesn’t have to take place, and possibly be a failed mission? How can a plant live in a nice, easy situation and then be put out in nature to bear the brute force of storms if there is no root structure?

Sorry to use the same analogy over and over. It is obvious that I am struggling over this, thank you all for your help!

Here are my thoughts:

These are important questions! It would do absolutely no good to shelter a child his whole life, only to have him blown away by the first sign of adversity out in the real world. Every Christian parent needs to think through these things in planning how best to raise up the little olive shoots around the table.

So how do parents decide what the best plan is for raising their children? We need to begin by stepping back and looking at what the Bible has to say about how people develop discernment, wisdom, and spiritual strength and then apply that to our parenting and educational choices. Before we had children, as my husband and I were studying Proverbs, we came to a passage that startled me, and that has been foundational in my convictions about raising children.

When wisdom entereth into thine heart, and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul; Discretion shall preserve thee, understanding shall keep thee: To deliver thee from the way of the evil man, from the man that speaketh froward things; Who leave the paths of uprightness, to walk in the ways of darkness;  Who rejoice to do evil, and delight in the frowardness of the wicked;  Whose ways are crooked, and they froward in their paths: To deliver thee from the strange woman, even from the stranger which flattereth with her words; Which forsaketh the guide of her youth, and forgetteth the covenant of her God. For her house inclineth unto death, and her paths unto the dead. None that go unto her return again, neither take they hold of the paths of life. That thou mayest walk in the way of good men, and keep the paths of the righteous. –Proverbs 2:10-20

Did you catch that? We develop the discernment necessary to be delivered from the way of evil people by first having wisdom enter our hearts and knowledge be pleasant unto our souls. The Biblical keys to coping with evil are wisdom and knowledge, not exposure to evil over a long period of time. It’s not wind that drives roots down deep; it’s water.

And where do we get that water of wisdom and knowledge? It springs from one source: discipleship. Exposure to strength begets strength. Exposure to wisdom produces wisdom. We actually learn best by walking alongside a godly example. Consider the following verses:

He that walketh with wise men shall be wise: but a companion of fools shall be destroyed. –Proverbs 13:20

Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners. –1 Corinthians 15:33

Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night. –Psalm 1:1-2

Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good. –Isaiah 7:15

We don’t develop a distaste for evil by being around it all the time. In fact, we are much more likely to build up a tolerance and decide that maybe it isn’t such a big deal after all. Ever hear the excuse, “But everybody’s doing it?”

Now, having your children walk with wise men doesn’t mean zero exposure to the world until they reach some magic age where you turn them loose completely and hope for the best. This is more Russian roulette than good parenting. Effective sheltering is much more about limiting unsupported exposure to the world and maximizing discipleship. It means having your kids live in the real world with you.

Have unsaved co-workers and their families over for dinner. Let your kids help you serve meals at the local homeless shelter. Take them street preaching with Daddy, or let them help pass out tracts. Let them spend the afternoon making dinner for a stressed out mother, or cleaning house for an elderly lady who’s broken her hip. Let them see you standing up for what you believe even though it makes you different from the world. Let them see how you respond to ridicule and pressure. Give your kids chances to help with real ministry and chances to witness victories over the real world storms that assail believers. Walk with them throughout the day and let them see you applying Scripture to your life.

If you do this, your children won’t be hiding any more than their parents are hiding.  Notice that Proverbs 13:20 says, “he that walketh with wise men shall be wise,” not he that “hideth with wise men.” Yes we are “in the world.” But children can be in the world beside their parents. Practice the close discipleship of Deuteronomy 6.

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. –Deuteronomy 6:4-7

You can’t really do this if your kids are spending the majority of their waking hours away from you at school. Of course, you can discuss their days at night, pray with them, and offer godly advice, but this doesn’t really compare to being there beside them the whole time. (And really, doesn’t “when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up,” sound like an all day sort of a job?).

To sum up, I’m not homeschooling because I want to hide my children from the world but because I think the best place for them to learn to deal with it is at their parents’ sides rather than on their own.

What do you think about the issues raised by Chatty’s excellent questions?

Deputy Headmistress at the Common Room has written a great post called Homemaking on Purpose. It’s for everyone who feels pressure to be just like this or that friend, or relative, or stereotype. Read it, and give yourself permission to make your home a reflection of you, nevermind everyone else.

Sometimes we need a wake-up call.

Let this information from the article, What Parents Need to Know About Porn and Their Kids take a moment to sink into your mind:

…according to statistics cited by the non-profit advocacy organization Enough Is Enough, the largest group of viewers of Internet pornography is children between the ages of 12 and 17. And there’s more. The average age of first exposure to Internet pornography is 11. Eighty percent of 15- to 17-year-olds have had multiple exposures to hardcore pornography. Nine out of ten children between the ages of 8 and 16 with Internet access have viewed pornographic websites, sometimes inadvertently in the course of looking up information for homework.

Now that you’re awake, go over and read the rest of the article. Don’t worry, we’ll all wait for you.

So what are we, as parents, going to do about this? How are we going to guard our children’s hearts and minds in this new era of easy access to some of the most vile, defiling images known to man?

Recently, I received an e-mail from someone who reads my blog, wondering if I could recommend a good internet filter for a Mac so her kids could play games online. She was concerned about allowing them Internet access, and rightly so! I had to admit that we don’t have any experience with filters. Since our children are very young (our oldest is only five), we have simply not allowed them to surf. We have bookmarked a few select sites that we allow them to go to. The computer is in plain sight in the living room, and I can monitor to make sure they are only going where they are supposed to. But, like I told the lady who wrote me, this is just a Bandaid. As they grow, our children are going to need a lot more than this to help them.

A filter is a good start, and I’d love to hear from those of you who use filters what you have and how it’s working for you. But, as my husband pointed out to me, all a filter is is a list of sites that the computer will not load if you click on them. There is no way that list is going to have every porn site on it. According to Enough is Enough’s statistics page, there are 420 million pornographic web pages, and every 39 minutes, a new pornographic video is made in the United States.  A friend of mine has a filter, and she says that some stuff still gets through. And furthermore, a filter is not going to stop the page title and description from coming up, so even if they can’t click on the page, our children still run the risk of reading about what’s on it.

A filter is fundamentally a sheltering tool, and as I pointed out in another post, sheltering isn’t enough. Our children need to be aware of what’s out there, how it’s likely to make them feel, and how dangerous and destructive it really is. Also, we must never let a filter lull us into a false sense of security. We still need to be diligent in checking our children’s browser histories and in asking the hard questions. And if you think your children don’t have a problem with pornography, ask yourself how you would know if they did.

Pornography addiction is rampant and skyrocketing. It affects men and women, young and old, and is a danger for both our sons and our daughters. I’d love to hear from you what your family is doing to protect your children and to teach them how to live lives of integrity online.

We hear a lot of Christian parenting advice about “first time obedience,” the idea that children should only have to be asked once to do something, that they should immediately respond with a cheerful, “Yes, Mommy” (or “Yes, ma’am,” if you’re from the South), and then do what you’ve asked. This is great and a perfectly reasonable standard for children, and I must admit to feeling irritation when I find myself asking more than once about something.

But today I got to thinking about the spirit in my children when they ignore my first (or second, or third…) request. It’s a spirit of selfishness, of consumption with the present activity, of not wanting to change direction until it’s convenient, and I realized something. That’s the same spirit that I am exhibiting when I don’t correct them right away the first time they disobey, the first time I hear a scream of sinful anger or frustration, the first time I see signs of a brewing fight. When I put my phone conversation, my blog comment, my recipe ahead of doing my job as their mother at the first signal that they need me, then I am being a hypocrite if I expect them not to put their games, their block towers, their conflicts ahead of doing their jobs as children and obeying my voice. I’m always telling my children, “Slow obedience is no obedience.” Well, maybe slow mothering is no mothering. Doing what is right has to come before finishing the present project, and that goes for everyone, including me.

And just as I want them to obey me right away and with a cheerful attitude, I need to correct them right away and with a cheerful attitude. But how often am I annoyed that they “interrupted me,” as if mothering were less important than finishing the paragraph I was reading or the laundry I was folding? How is that any different from my children being annoyed that I interrupted them with a request that they set the table or include a younger sibling?

I used to think that I struggled with “consistency,” with applying the same standard at all times, but now I realize it isn’t “consistency” that I struggle with at all, it’s just selfishness, lazy selfishness. It’s not wanting to be interrupted. It’s not wanting to stand up, or walk down the hall, or ask my friend to wait a moment.

It’s time I held myself to the same standard I have for my children: “first time and with a cheerful attitude.”

In a perfect world, men would always be gallant and godly leaders, like prophets in their homes, wise spiritual heads, making inspired decisions and piloting the family ship through the rough seas of a fallen world with masterful skill and insight. And we ladies, their adoring fans and help meets, would follow gladly with the utmost respect, trust, and adoration. Sounds great. Then there’s reality.

In reality, men sometimes make decisions that seem frustrating, stupid, or just plain sinful. They don’t always share our convictions. And we don’t always feel very respectful, trusting, or adoring about it. Sometimes, our men will let us go ahead and do what we feel we must, but we feel terribly the lack of unity and wish we were being “led” the way we so deeply believe is right.

Recently someone asked the following:

Do you have any advice for women whose husbands are OK with them being at home but seriously admire and respect women with high powered careers? And “allow” them to be at home for the children but have no respect for what they are doing at all? And I don’t mean that the wife is sitting around being irresponsible all day.

This really isn’t all that uncommon. In fact, I would bet that every wife faces something like this over one issue or another at some point in her marriage. I know there have been times when my convictions didn’t match my husband’s. So when disagreements come, what do we do?

Step 1: Search the Scriptures

If you are going to presume to disagree with the authority God has placed over you, then you’d better make sure that your opinion is truly a Biblical one and not just a deep and heartfelt preference. If it does turn out to be a preference, then we need to submit, die to ourselves, and let Christ live through us. OUCH! I’m not even going to pretend that this isn’t very, very hard. But it is God’s standard, and what a marvelous opportunity to glorify Him and to see His miraculous power in our lives!

Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. –Ephesians 5:22-24

But what if, upon serious study and reflection, it still seems perfectly clear to you that following your husbands desires would be sin? Then, we must say with Peter and the other apostles,

We ought to obey God rather than men. –Acts 5:29

But how do we go about that? How do we remain sweet and submissive wives? How do we cope with our husbands’ lack of delight in us?

Step 2: Make sure you really understand your husband.

Talk about your feelings, not because you are trying to convince him that you are right, but because he is your leader, and he can’t lead you if he doesn’t know what’s going on inside you. Humbly, and that’s the operative word–remember “God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble” (James 4:6), explain why you feel you cannot follow him on this issue, then tell him that it is your great desire to be able to follow him, and ask for his help as your spiritual head. Try to find out where he’s coming from. It is always possible for wives to misunderstand. In the case of the situation the commenter brought up, it is possible the husband really doesn’t have any respect or admiration for his wife, but it’s also possible that she’s not reading his signals the right way. This is where a calm, loving heart to heart is desperately needed, not a debate about the issue, but an attempt to have both husband and wife genuinely understand the other’s feelings and convictions.

If, after gently drawing your husband out, and talking through all that both of you are feeling, you are still in disagreement, then it’s time to look for all the things that you CAN do to please your husband. Are there ways that you could become more like his ideal, even if it does not include overstepping a certain bound? It’s also time to work very hard at loving, honoring, respecting, and admiring your husband despite your differences. Women tend to get bitter in situations like this. I know because I am guilty, guilty, guilty. It is vital that we tell ourselves over and over that this is the man God has given me to love, and follow, and complete, not anyone else, this man, and so it must be possible for me to do it.

Also, be very, very sure that you don’t air your disagreements to all sorts of people. Women love to talk to and connect with other women, to get sympathy, and to vent. When this venting is about people, the Bible calls it, “talebearing,” and has nothing good to say about it.

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

The words of a talebearer are as wounds, and they go down into the innermost parts of the belly. –Proverbs 18:8

Honor your husband in every word you speak about him, and if you feel that you absolutely must get help and counsel, choose a godly, older woman, whom you know to be the model of discretion. Do your husband good and not evil all the days of your life (Proverbs 31: 12), including the days when you disagree.

Step 3: Pray like crazy

Never underestimate the power of prayer!

The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. –James 5:16b

When I was going through  a time of testing in this area, I prayed almost daily that the Lord would change the mind of whichever one of us was wrong. Praying that way enabled me to lift up the issue without becoming self-righteous about my “right” position. I also prayed in general for my husband to have wisdom to lead the family and about his walk with the Lord, his work, his fathering, our relationship, everything I could think of. I just prayed, and prayed, and prayed, and prayed. And you know what? The Lord worked it out. It took about four years, but we are now in complete agreement. The Lord did change the mind of the one of us who was wrong. It was a hard road, and some women walk it for a lot longer than four years, but having made it to the end of this one particular journey, I can see how the Lord has blessed us, strengthened our marriage, and is now even allowing us to help others who are facing similar issues.

For further reading, I highly recommend Kelly of Generation Cedar’s post, How Can a Wife Cope With an Unbelieving Husband. The comments are FULL of wise voices of experience that apply not just to this extreme example of conflict, but to lesser cases of disagreement as well.

Warning: This post contains some blunt material about the sexual behavior of local teens. Therefore, it is not for young readers.

Here, in my hometown (and we’ll just call it “Hometown” since this is, after all, the Internet), we have a top notch public school system. In fact, it’s so good that it’s one of the major draws of the community, with families frequently moving from nearby Big Town just so their kids can attend Hometown schools.

So, you can imagine my surprise the other week when one of the other women at the ladies gym where I exercise told me that her son had gone to an “anti-Hometown High School dance.” I must have had a quizzical look on my face because she went on to explain, “Because everyone humps at the Hometown High dances.”

Ah. I see.

Then she went on to describe how her son and several friends had gotten into a discussion about bras, and one of the girls at the “alternative” dance had wound up pulling her shirt down to show everyone part of her bra to illustrate a point. Apparently, this created a lot of conflict in her son. He didn’t know how to cope with the way seeing his friend’s bra made him feel, and he was so upset that it took him a few days just to tell his mom what was bothering him.

So, Mama Christian, I have a couple questions for you. Don’t worry, they’re multiple choice. One of the most common arguments against homeschooling is the lack of “socialization.” So let’s consider the social environment at Hometown High, and see what we think might be the best option for a Christian family.

1. If you want your child to have an excellent education, but you don’t want him to be a social outcast, do you:
A) Homeschool him, or
B) Send him to Hometown High?

If you picked B), continue below.

2. Given that the dances at Hometown High involve humping, do you:
A) Allow your child to attend the dances and hump his date, or
B) Allow your child to attend the dances, but tell him not to hump his date, and hope for the best, or
C) Send him to a “nice” alternative dance where other Hometown High students may wind up showing him their bras, or
D) Tell him he can’t go to dances and hope he has the spiritual fortitude to deal with the teasing, or
E) Return to question 1. and choose option A)?

The thing about “socialization” that so often gets forgotten is that kids who do not submit to the status quo get ostracized. If all the other kids are going to dances and humping their dates, kids who don’t are not going to be “cool.” In fact, once you get too many social infractions on your record, you’re not just un-cool, you’re a downright outcast. You’re that kid who always gets picked last and is the brunt of all the jokes. And suddenly your “socialization” is mostly just teaching you how it feels to be lonely in a crowded room. Now, I’m not saying that this ALWAYS happens. There ARE Christian kids who really do have the spiritual fortitude to deal with things, and who manage to stick happily to their convictions despite the pressure, but they are the exception, not the norm. The norm is some amount of compromise or some amount of misery, all too often a little of both.

I speak from experience. I was only subjected to public elementary school, so it wasn’t humping that everyone was doing, it was sassing authority figures. But this was still something I couldn’t do because I was a Christian. By the end of fifth grade, I had NO friends in my class. Not one. Everyday I listened to the other students whine, and complain, and talk back. I watched when one girl, ten years old though she was, decided that she was so mad at the teacher, she was just going to leave. So she did. I heard she went home. At any rate, I didn’t see her any more that day.

I was well “socialized.” I was especially well socialized about how bad my unshaven legs looked (I was ten, remember), about how I was the teacher’s pet (not hard when you’re the only one not cussing at him), about the various methods the other students planned to use to murder me (so creative, such a shame they didn’t channel it for good). In fact, I was so well socialized that I started having stomach problems frequently enough that the doctor thought I might have appendicitis, and the teacher thought my parents were keeping me home to abuse me. Good times.

Sixth grade came along, and my noble mother, facing much fear and trepidation, embarked on her homeschooling journey. And I embarked on my journey of social healing. We joined the local homeschool group where I met lots of girls who never sassed authority figures, or called each other names, or mentioned my unshaven legs. They even called my mother, “Mrs.” and seemed to like their siblings. They didn’t have dances, so when we hit high school, humping wasn’t an issue, either. When people heard I was homeschooled and asked in horror, “What about socialization!?” I would always laugh and say that I had so many more friends now that I was homeschooled than I ever had in public school.

Good socialization is not simply about being with people your own age all day. For a serious Christian young person, this can, more often than not, simply be the path to becoming a social outcast. That’s because in an ungodly environment, you either conform, or you face the consequences. If your convictions will not permit you to conform, then that only leaves the second scenario: consequences. Good socialization is about being with worthwhile people on a frequent basis, people who will pull you up to their level, not despise you for failing to lower yourself. That means spending time with other young people who will build you up in your faith and with godly mentors, especially the ones you call Mom and Dad.

Now someone’s going to point out that eventually, kids have to learn to face persecution and adversity and learn to be witnesses in a lost world. This is true, but most children lack the perspective to handle that much pressure without building up their strength on many smaller trials first. To expect them to live day in and day out in an environment where they are scorned is asking too much of a lot of kids. We shouldn’t send children alone into spiritual combat anymore than we would send them into real combat.

I empathized with that mom at the gym, agreed whole-heartedly that girls shouldn’t go around showing their guy friends their bras, and left that day feeling even more determined to keep my family out. Socialization. It’s one of the most important reasons to homeschool.

I had been thinking about writing a post about natural birth for a while, but then I discovered that Daja over at In Other Words has already done it so well that all I have to do is provide links to her excellent series. Daja is a doula and childbirth instructor who wrote this series after Kelly of Generation Cedar, a self-proclaimed epidural lover, challenged her to convince her of the superiority of natural childbirth.

Part 1 describes medical reasons for choosing to go drug free for labor. Part 2 covers religious reasons. And Part 3 examines cultural reasons.

In our current rough economic times, it’s especially nice to know that our purchasing power is going to support a family business. I know many of you have Etsy shops or other online businesses, and I thought it would be fun for everyone to have a chance to share. Leave a comment with your url and a little description of your business, and I’ll keep editing this post, adding links to everyone’s pages and trying to keep things categorized for ease of use. (Of course, it goes without saying that I reserve the right NOT to link to anything profane or otherwise contrary to the general tenor of this blog. Also, my beloved husband, ever the legal genius, wants me to say: This post does not constitute an endorsement of any of these shops, so use your own judgment, and always be careful when shopping online.)

Especially for Baby

West Side Baby
I learned how to knit about 5 years ago, but I dropped it shortly after and just really picked it up again about 2 years ago and haven’t been able to stop since (as witnessed by my huge stash of yarn) It’s very therapeutic and relaxing for me!

A friend of mine does the creative work on hats (decorations and such) and she also sews and will be putting burp cloths and bibs up. We also do custom orders, so just let me know!

–Kindra

Doubleddog

My younger sister doubleddog has an Etsy shop. (I do too actually although I have nothing for sale lately). I’ll give you her link though. She makes baby, nursing and pregnancy clothing. She specializes in recycling fabrics and textiles for each piece. Her little handmade baby shoes are my favorite thing she makes.

–Botanyhead

Fun Things for Ladies

Sweet Sparrow

Specializing in bird themed items and girlie goodies (editor’s note: lots of lovely wallets and purses especially)

–Sarah

Health Products

Life Force

I refer others to the product Body Balance (a raw whole-food nutritional supplement: aloe vera/sea vegetable juice).  It’s concentrated nutrition and my whole family drinks it.  I tell people about the product and the company pays me a commission if they become a customer.  There is also a commission (much greater) for signing up other members (a member is someone who tells others about the product)  The link basically is a presentation about the product and the business opportunity.  What I like about it is that the presentation just presents the facts (with a couple testimonies) and gives a release that “this may or may not be for you.”

Handmade Assortment

Made in the South

I sew, crochet, and other needlework.
–Nicole

Since the original posting of this piece, multiple people have misunderstood my position. This led me to add the some clarifications to the comment thread. I thought it might prevent further confusion to include them here as well. The original post follows these points.

1. The purpose of my post was to address our attitude toward children, NOT to advocate “producing as many children as humanly possible,” or “maximizing your output of babies.” The point of this post is that children are a blessing. That is all. And that is why I chose those verses (Psalm 127:3-5, Psalm 128:3-4). I do not think that those Psalms command anything. They are statements of fact.

2. There is NO command in Scripture to have as many children as possible.

3. If it were the goal to have as many children as possible, then I would be writing blog posts about how we should all stop breastfeeding, or at the very least stop nursing at night so that we can get our fertility back sooner and produce more babies. And while we’re at it, maybe we should all be taking fertility drugs to ensure that we have twins or triplets every time. Notice, I do not advocate any of this.

4. A woman is not an inferior Christian if she doesn’t have as many children as someone else. She is not sinning if she doesn’t have as many children as someone else. She is not serving God less, or whatever else. I do not use the number of children anyone has as my “measuring stick of the godliness of other believers.” This is why I talk in my post about “Jane,” the godly woman, who for some reason does not appear to be blessed in the area in question.

5. If a woman and her husband aren’t able to have any kids at all, I have nothing even remotely negative to say about them. That would be why I said in my post, “not all of us are actually capable of giving birth to ten children, or five, or any.”

6. BUT, WHY does “normal” in the area of childbearing mean, “go on birth control, and then ask God IF you should have kids”?

7. Having babies is the biological default. It is the normal function of our bodies. NOT having babies is proactive. Using birth control is intentionally doing something to stop your body from behaving the way God made it to. That makes avoiding children the extraordinary act, NOT having them.

8. If younger women are supposed to marry and bear children, then why do we today take as our baseline the prevention of children?

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

9. I am not advocating Quiver-stuffed parenting, but I am wondering why most of Christendom feels that Quiver-empty is the right thing until “we’re ready,” or until “we feel called,” etc.

***

Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate. –Psalm 127:3-5

Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house: thy children like olive plants round about thy table. Behold, that thus shall the man be blessed that feareth the LORD. –Psalm 128:3-4

Whenever I bring up birth control, I witness a strange phenomenon. I call it “Blessings, But.” This is how Christians attempt to reconcile what the Bible seems to say about children with something else, something their hearts are telling them, something born of suffering and struggle, something they’ve seen in others, or experienced themselves, something that tells them that children are one blessing they’d actually rather not have, or at least not in the abundance that the “Quiverfull” camp would celebrate. It goes like this, first you agree with the important sentiment that children are indeed blessings, and then you add your “but,” your reason for not wanting to be blessed at this time, or blessed very much, or for having anyone talk too much about the blessing. “Children are blessings, but they aren’t a requirement.” “Children are blessings, but we don’t want any more. We love the two we’ve got, of course, but we’re done.” “Children are blessings, but I think God wants us to use common sense.” “Children are blessings, but we need time to establish our marriage first.” “Children are blessings, but my friend, Jane, had an emergency hysterectomy and can’t have any more. Are you implying that she’s somehow less godly than women with ten children?”

Do you know what is implicit in all this? It’s the idea that children actually aren’t such blessings after all. If we really thought they were blessings, most of these “buts” would sound kind of hollow. To illustrate what I mean, imagine applying these same arguments to another blessing, good health.

“Good health is a blessing, but it isn’t a requirement.” Would any of us want to add under our breath, “And thank God it isn’t because I sure didn’t want to be too healthy!”? I’m guessing not. The fact is, most of us don’t really care whether we’re required to be healthy or not. We just know we hate being sick! Few of us would choose to have a cold or the flu, let alone cancer, or Alzheimer’s, or Parkinson’s disease. Never mind requirements. When it comes to being healthy, we’re quite happy to just go ahead and be blessed. It’s kind of like asking a kid whose parents took him out for ice cream if his dad was going to require him to eat his banana split. If the kid likes ice cream, then it’s totally irrelevant.

“Good health is a blessing, but I don’t want any more. I loved the health I had, of course, but I’m done.” This is like saying, “I was happy being healthy for a few years, but now I’m looking forward to hypertension and bad knees.” Nobody would say this. Those of us who like being healthy would like to continue to be healthy for a long, long time. We’ll take all the health we can get.

“Good health is a blessing, but I think God wants us to use common sense.” You know, because going to the gym is just too expensive; and cooking fresh vegetables is too time consuming; and some families run themselves into the ground financially trying to pay for vitamins and check-ups; and I know people who are always exercising, and it takes up so much time. Being healthy is great and all, but there are a lot of other things that are way more important. This is really just saying that good health isn’t actually so important at all, or isn’t really worth sacrificing, or prioritizing, or getting creative about. If there are problems with exercising and eating well, rather than solving them because taking care of ourselves is crucial, we’d rather just use “common sense” and forget about it.

“Good health is a blessing, but we need time to establish our marriage first.” This implies that good health gets in the way of a healthy marriage, that health is somehow at odds with a marriage, or that it unduly stresses a marriage in some way. Again, nobody would say this. Nearly all of us think that the blessing of good health is a benefit to anything we want to do, including establishing a marriage.

“Good health is a blessing, but my friend, Jane, has chronic fatigue syndrome and never feels good. Are you implying that she’s somehow less godly than healthy people?” Whenever we talk about a blessing, we have to confront the cases of people who love the Lord, but who appear not to be “blessed” in this particular area. And when that area is physical, either good health or the ability to bear children, we always have to come up against the Curse. We live in fallen bodies. They break. They get diseased. They’re susceptible to mental and physical illness, hormonal imbalance, and injury. Not all of us are going to have radiant health, just like not all of us are actually capable of giving birth to ten children, or five, or any.

What’s telling, here, though, is our attitude toward the blessing itself. When this problem of unequal blessing is brought up about children, the implication is usually, “So, quit putting so much emphasis on them!” But how does this sound for health? Would anyone conclude that since godly women like Jane don’t have all the health that others have, that health really isn’t such a blessing after all, or that if God doesn’t give it in equal measure to everyone, then it isn’t something to be desired? In the case of health, when we see a godly woman who is chronically ill, most of us are impressed by her faith, her love for the Lord, her steadfast perseverance in the face of a hard circumstance. “Wow, it’s really hard to be joyful when you’re denied the blessing of good health. But look at Jane! She’s such an example to us.” Few would take her case as proof that health isn’t beneficial, and we certainly wouldn’t consider it license to eat all our meals at McDonald’s or never leave the La-Z-Boy.

So, what does the fact that we do make all these statements about children really mean? I think it means that we don’t really think children are blessings. Even parents who ferociously love the ones they have, still may not think that all children and any children, including those born third, or seventh, or tenth, would actually bless them.

Why is that? Is God wrong about children being a blessing? How come the Bible doesn’t have any “buts” about this? It’s not because the idea of preventing unwanted children was unheard of. The story of Onan way back in Genesis proves that. What about families that are strapped financially, or mothers who are worn out, or parents who can’t seem to control the monstrous blessings they’ve already got? What about people who just “don’t like kids,” or who want to do things with their lives that children get in the way of (like climbing Mt. Everest, or becoming a CEO, or even spiritual things like mission work)? Would another child really bless these people? Are all children blessings, or only some, the ones we “want,” the ones that are “planned,” the ones that have handsome trust funds established at birth to cover Ivy League tuition, the ones that don’t disrupt our sleep and our lives, make us morning sick, or get in the way of our careers? Does the blessing vanish if another child means we have to shop at the thrift store, grab “dates” at home on the couch, or give up our dream of touring with Yo-Yo Ma? Are we only blessed if we are spared hard work and sacrifice? We can’t have it both ways. Either children are blessings or they aren’t. There are no such things as “Blessings, But.”

When one of my children is hungry usually they end up asking for a marshmallow. I don’t often give them marshmallows, though. I have mommy type things on my mind, like their health and growth, their need to take in vitamins, their emotional state a half hour from now when the sugar high wears off and the low hits. I wind up suggesting things like cereal, or fruit, or toast, you know, mommy stuff. They would rather have a marshmallow because it tastes good right now. I would rather they had an apple and grew up to be healthy and strong.

I think something similar happens when I’m hungry, when I feel that little empty longing inside like I want a pick me up of some sort, making me feel cozy and better, maybe even a touch giddy and energized, when the accomplishments of the world whisper that my husband’s and children’s approval and thanks aren’t enough, and I want everyone else to think I’m smart, and talented, and wonderful, too. I sure would like an emotional marshmallow. Accolades. Compliments. Chocolaty praise drizzled over my marshmallow of airy, sugary adoration. Yup. Good stuff.

But sometimes I get the distinct impression that my heavenly Father has God type stuff on His mind like my health and growth, my need to develop Christ likeness, my emotional state a half an hour from now when the sugar high has worn off and I find I’m still empty because only God can truly satisfy. I would rather have a marshmallow because it feels good right now. God would rather I had a big helping of humility and grew up to be healthy and strong.

Our little church has been studying the life of Jacob’s son, Joseph. A few weeks ago, we came to the part of the story in which Joseph is finally brought before Pharaoh to interpret the dream about the cows and the ears of corn. During the discussion time, my father-in-law pointed out that when Joseph was a teenager, he thought he was the stuff. He was very happy to wear his fancy coat of many colors and tell his grand dreams to his family about how they were all going to bow down to him. But then what happened? He got thrown in a pit by his brothers and sold into slavery. Rejection. Humiliation. Carrot sticks.

But then things seemed maybe not so bad. He did a really great job for his master. So great, in fact that he wound up in charge of the whole household. Maybe Joseph was the stuff after all. This wasn’t quite a whole bowl of marshmallows, but one or two, perhaps…until Joseph got falsely accused and thrown in prison and fed a steady diet of anonymity and bran flakes. Then Pharaoh’s butler and baker showed up and had dreams, which Joseph interpreted. The dreams came true, bad for the baker, but happy for the butler, and Joseph asked the butler to remember him. But, wouldn’t you know? He forgot. And Joseph ate his cheese and whole grain crackers alone again in prison.

And what was the result? Joseph was strong, spiritually healthy, ready to do the great task to Lord had for him. And then, brought before a powerful king, and asked, basically, “So, I hear you’re the stuff, the guy who can interpret dreams when no one else can,” Joseph answers, what is in Hebrew, only a single word, “It is not in me” (Genesis 41:16). Mr. “Guess what guys, you’re all going to bow down to me” says humbly, “It is not in me: God shall give Pharaoh an answer of peace.”

The rest is gourmet, expensive marshmallows, like those hand cut ones that I saw in a food catalog years ago that cost a dollar a piece. Power. Glory. Renown. Joseph’s brothers really did come and bow down to him, and Joseph was able to save the tiny seedling of the Nation Israel from starvation.

Joseph’s steady diet of humiliation produced in him the humility to go before Pharaoh and give God the glory when a lesser man might have been tempted to snatch up the glory for himself. Pharaoh certainly gave Joseph the opportunity. Funny how we know we ought to be humble, but few of us want to go through the process of being humbled. Kind of like last night when I watched my daughter fighting her gag reflex while she tried to get down the three snow pea pods I had placed on her plate.

We never know what God may have in store for us, either on this earth or in eternity. I don’t know about you, but I’d be excited if God had a job for me that required the great strength that only a wholesome diet could impart. I hope I can fight my gag reflex enough to swallow my vegetables. And when my flesh would prefer a marshmallow, I hope I’ll be able to remember Joseph and the work that God was preparing him for. If I can delight in God’s glory instead of my own, I may even discover that vegetables aren’t so bad when prepared well. God is a master chef, and those who love Him may find that He gives more of Himself with every trial, and that He serves their humility with cream sauce.

Two of my blogging friends have each recently posted some great thoughts.

Rina, at Into Still Waters published a truly inspiring post encouraging wives to joyfully reveal themselves to their husbands. In it, she includes a wonderful section written by her husband at her request describing how a godly man views his wife. Let Her Breasts Satisfy You At All Times (Not for young readers)

And Meghann, at The Jones Family published a very convicting post on putting your children ahead of housework and other interests (including writing and checking blogs!). A Good Week

I’ve been tagged again! This time, I got tagged twice on the same game. Rina of Into Still Waters and my friend, Rachel, on Facebook both tagged me in a meme that requires that I write 25 random things about myself. Then I’m supposed to tag 25 other people. I suppose this might be easy for the people on Facebook with 4097 “friends,” but I’m not anywhere near that popular. I’ve been on Facebook for less than a month and haven’t even made it to 40 friends, let alone 4097. So instead of choosing people to tag, it would be almost like I was choosing people not to tag. I finally decided that it would be fun to just throw the game out there and see if anyone would like to play. I’ll list 25 random things about myself. And if you’d like to do the same on your blog, just leave the url in the comments section. I’d love to know more about any and all of you, but as I always say when I play games like these, there is absolutely no pressure!

So, without further ado, here are 25 random things about me.

1. Even though, I’m a homeschool graduate, I am terrible at spelling. (You see how useless stereotypes can be?) I don’t blame my dear mother, though. By the time she took me out of public school at the beginning of sixth grade, I was already rather, shall we say, free-spirited and creative in the spelling department. I actually improved some once my mom started teaching me.

2. Thanks, in part, to the blessing of spell-checkers, I have a Bachelors from Stanford in linguistics with a double concentration on narrative structure and language acquisition.

3. I know enough to find my way around some in French and Hebrew. (A linguistics major thinks twice before she says she “speaks” anything but her native tongue, and anyway, I haven’t really used either language in years, so I’m as rusty as a ten-year-old car in the road salt-encrusted Midwest.)

4. I am chronically behind on my laundry. But I’m trying to improve!

5. I own an M4. I asked for it for Christmas. I haven’t shot it yet because I’m pregnant, and I don’t shoot when I’m pregnant because I’m worried it’s too loud for the baby’s ears. I got my rifle because it has all the features that were banned under the Clinton era assault weapons ban (you know, a collapsible butt stock, bayonet lug, pistol grip, high-capacity magazine, flash suppressor–anything with more than two of these features was given the scary term, “assault weapon,” which most people associate with military machine guns, even though in most states civilians only owned semi-auto versions). Since Joe Biden was the original author of the ban, Mr. Parunak and I thought something similar might go into effect again. If you already own a gun with banned features, it gets grandfathered in and becomes extremely valuable. So it’s sort of an investment…and a conversation piece. And I could take it hunting if we were ever starving or something. Otherwise, it looks cool, when it’s not locked up, which it is most of the time.

6. I don’t have a favorite color. I love so many different colors, it’s impossible to choose. Multiple shades of green, blue, purple, and pink are all in the running.

7. I helped pay for community college by teaching ballet and leading discussion groups for prospective nursing students who were taking their chemistry prerequisite.

8. I eat way too much chocolate.

9. I’m afraid of heights. (This is especially a bummer because my husband is an avid rock climber, and it sure would be nice to be able to share his hobby. I stand at the base of the wall, though, take lots of pictures, and cheer him on.)

10. When I exercise, I often wear one of two Big Family Shirts my husband bought for me. One says, “Yes, my hands are full…and I love it,” and the other one says “Militant Fecundity.”

11. I love long walks, along dirt roads, through the farm land our subdivision boarders.

12. My favorite “job” at home is homeschooling my children.

13. I was a candy striper in in a maternity ward in high school.

14. When I was eleven (almost twelve), my mom gave me the amazing gift of letting me witness my brother’s birth. I was awestruck, mesmerized, fascinated. The obstetrician, afraid I might be freaked out by the pain my mom was in, tried to reassure me that by the time I was having babies, doctors would have figured out how to make it painless. I nodded politely. I was already dreaming of trying for natural births. So far, I’ve been very thankful to have been able to have three at home with essentially no interventions or medications.

15. I fantasize about having a family cow and chickens.

16. I met my husband just before my fifteenth birthday. He had just turned sixteen. We figured out by about a month later that we wanted to get married. But it took seven long years of letters and visiting each other’s families before we had finished school. By two weeks after my college graduation we were married.

17. Before we were married, my husband wrote me a song about Jacob and Rachel who also had to wait seven years to get married.

18. I don’t recommend waiting seven years to get married.

19. I am a morning person.

20. I love baking.

21. I don’t like coffee, even fancy coffee that has way more sugar, cream, and syrup than actual coffee.

22. Our dog went deaf after a round of doggie vaccines. Apparently, Cavalier King Charles Spaniels are prone to vaccinosis. The things you find out the hard way.

23. My husband and I were wedding photographers together for a couple years back when we only had one baby. Once our second was born, I retired, and he continued without me for a while, but has finally restricted his work to just friends so that he has more time with our family.

24. The job I had to help pay for the university half of my college experience was in Stanford’s government documents library. I started out as a shelf reader. That meant that I went down the shelf reading every call number, looking for documents that were in the wrong place. Can you believe I loved it?! It was so peaceful, and dark, and quiet back in the stacks, and I felt like I was on such a noble mission–restoring order, making it possible for people to find things they needed.

25. I love living in a place with seasons. (I grew up in the Willamette valley in Oregon, where we had two seasons: wet and less wet.) I celebrate the changes in Michigan with different knick knacks, candles, hand towels, etc. for different times of year. “Changing the decorations” is a favorite activity for my children and me.

Note: This is Part 3 of a series on music. You may wish to begin with Part 1 and Part 2.

The last post on this topic, ended with a question:

We are not to love the world and the things that are in the world (1 John 2:15). We are right in wanting to be holy, set apart, different from the world, reflecting an identity as citizens of heaven and worshipers of the Lord Jesus Christ, not as sensual pagans and worshipers of demons and idols.

But how do we do that without adding rules to Scripture, rules that will change with every generation as the paganism of the day rears its demonic head in one musical form or another?

There was a time when I parsed the music world with a very easy formula. Drums = bad. No drums = good. This seemed to work most of the time since nearly everything being produced in the secular world had horrible lyrics, was performed by ungodly people, and also included drums. I figured that drums were pretty much the only evil I needed to watch out for in music. Anything “classical” (by which I mostly just meant “traditional, fairly old, Western music”) was considered fair game for my musical enjoyment.

But as I tried to express in Part 2, the Bible gives no such formula. In fact, the Bible does not give any direct guidance on musical style. But we do still need to make choices regarding music. And those choices are going to be based on those derived principles eluded to in Part 1.

All along I’ve said that I would share what my convictions were on this matter, but I want to make it very clear before I do that while I am about to list a bunch of scriptures that have helped me in my musical decisions, the verses themselves are not specifically about music, and I fully realize that other believers may come to other conclusions. Also, it’s important to mention that this is further than I usually go on this blog into the realm of theology, an area which I usually leave up to the men while I focus on the things the Lord has commanded women to teach each other (either learning them from you or sharing what the Lord’s been showing me lately.) I am doing this series specifically because I was asked my opinion by another woman. But I am in no way trying to set myself up as usurping men’s authority. As in all other areas of theology, we all need to ask our husbands first, and be sure we are implementing their plans in our homes. If you find anything in what I am about to share that you feel may be helpful for you or your family, do discuss it with your husband before you make any changes.

That being said, here is what we’ve come to at our house. (And hang on, this is pretty unusual stuff. I don’t think our family fits any stereotype on this one.)

The first and most foundational principle, the one that inspires and informs all of our musical decisions is that God does not change.

For I am the LORD, I change not…–Malachi 3:6a

Whatever principles we derive need to be universal. They need to “work” in any culture and at any time. If something is truly wrong, it will always be wrong since “wrong” is determined by those things which an unchanging God has declared to be contrary to His character. There has always been bad music. It is not a recent invention borne solely out of a backbeat. I want to be able to evaluate all music and choose what is really the best for my limited listening time. This desire leads me to the following principles:

1. The Bible is clear about what sorts of things should occupy our thoughts.

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. –Philippians 4:8

It is important to me that anything I put into my mind produce thoughts that fit this passage. That goes for books, movies, images, conversations, and also music.

2. We are not to spend time with foolish and ungodly people.

Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. –Psalm 1:1

Pro 13:20 He that walketh with wise men shall be wise: but a companion of fools shall be destroyed. –Proverbs 13:20

Go from the presence of a foolish man, when thou perceivest not in him the lips of knowledge. –Proverbs 14:7

Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners. –1 Corinthians 15:33

Spending “virtual” time with the foolish and ungodly strikes our family as equally unprofitable as spending real time with them, so again, this controls not only my choices of friends but also my choices of books, movies, images, and, you guessed it, music.

3. Music that claims to worship God must glorify God and not the performer.

I am the LORD: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images. –Isaiah 42:8

…that in all things he might have the preeminence. –Colossians 1:18b

If the musician is singing or playing with the goal of showing everyone his great skills on the drums, or his amazing abilities with harmony, or all the great notes he can hit, then it becomes about him and not about God. This can be a fine line to walk because, of course, we are supposed to “play skilfully” (Psalm 33:3). I have no way of knowing what is in a particular person’s heart, but the main thing in making my own musical decisions is what is distracting to me. Am I more impressed by the performer or by the Lord?

Put all this together together and you get (drum roll, please, or maybe “fanfare” so as not to include drums ), my personal guidelines for musical choices. To be worthwhile and wholesome for my consumption, music must: put my mind on what is true, honest, just, pure, lovely, virtuous, and praiseworthy; not be the message of an ungodly or foolish composer, lyricist, or performer; and if it’s about the Lord, it has to draw my attention to the Lord. I don’t define what is acceptable by a specific style because these change all the time. As I discussed in Part 2, the medium for ungodly people to communicate their sensual, pagan ideas in the first century was harp music. But we know from the Psalms that harp music is not inherently evil. What was evil about the music was the message and the messengers, not the medium.

Musical styles are like languages. A person can use German to praise the Lord. Someone else can use German to write a horrible, lecherous poem glorifying all manner of evil. The same can be said for Cantonese, Swahili, or English. One cannot say that all things written in Swahili are godly, while all things written in German are evil. Likewise all music played on the harp is not necessarily pagan. A musician can use a harp to praise the Lord. Or a musician can use a harp to lead the idolatrous into heightened sensuality. Personally, I would gladly listen to the first kind of harp music, but not the second. It does not matter to me that my culture does not use harp music in worship of demons. I believe in the power of music to speak to the soul and the spirit, and I see no reason to wallow in the sensual thoughts of first century idol worshipers.

When Alyssa made her original request for me to write about music, she included a link to a fascinating article by Kurt Woetzel on whether or not music is moral. In it, he argues quite persuasively that the secular world views music as entirely powerful, able to communicate feelings and ideas. At one point he quotes Dr. Peter Wicke, the Director of the Center of Popular Music Research at Humbolt University in Berlin:

Music is a medium which is able to convey meaning and values which-even (or, perhaps, particularly) if hidden within the indecipherable world of sound-can shape patterns of behavior imperceptibly over time until they become visible background of real political activity.

And while, I found Mr. Woetzel’s conclusion (basically, don’t listen to rock and jazz) to be over-simplified, I whole-heartedly agree with his premise. Music really does communicate. And, as in any communication I receive, I want to know who is talking to me, what they’re saying, and why they might be saying it. Any answer to one of these questions that violates one of my principles is a huge red flag that I don’t want to put my precious and limited time in on that music.

And that is why I don’t listen to the majority of secular music, including the new stuff on the radio, but also a lot of older music that a lot of other Chrisitans find acceptable, for example Elvis Presley’s Gospel music, which purports to be about the Lord, but from everything I know about the tragic Mr. Presley is probably much more about furthering the career of a rather ungodly man; and even (can you believe it?) a lot of “safe” Classical music like Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. To start with, Tchaikovsky was an ungodly man who engaged in homosexual behavior. Furthermore, the themes of Swan Lake are rebellion against parental authority, sorcery, seduction, and suicide. I am not interested in the musical musings of a homosexual on suicide (or any of the other themes for that matter). The fact that Swan Lake is high brow, generally accepted in polite and erudite circles, and even by most Christians does not really matter to me. I don’t see it as very different from a modern top 20 hit glorifying one of the same themes. If I believe music can communicate (and I do), then whether the message is conveyed via drum kit or oboe is irrelevant.

On the other side, I will listen to the vast majority of hymns and even the work of modern Christian musicians if from what I know of them, they are truly godly and truly interested in glorifying the Lord. (That isn’t all of them by any means!) Examples of musicians who I believe to be truly sincere are Keith Green and Michael Card. I have read Keith Green’s biography, and it seems to me that he was completely sold out for the Lord, to the point of opening his home to so many needy people that he eventually had to move himself and his family to an apartment for a time to give them a little personal space. And while his music does have a highly non-traditional sound, every song grew out of his experience of wanting to follow Christ in all areas. I do not believe at all that he is using a backbeat to encourage sinful or sensual behaviors.

The same goes for Michael Card. We own one of his books, have listened to several of his podcasts, and have been to two of his concerts. At one of them, we spoke to him personally, and I can say with great certainty that he is a humble man who wants nothing more than to draw his listeners to the Lord. The fact that he uses a variety of musical styles, including rock and jazz, does not bother me because what he is saying with those “languages” is not “do whatever you want” as some would have us believe is the message of all music with a backbeat, but rather, “surrender to the Lord.”

Conspicuously missing from my guidlines is the whole idea of whether the music appeals to my “flesh” or to my “spirit.” This argument seems to me to boil down to the idea that if the music makes a person want to dance, then it is “fleshly.” When people use this line of reasoning, they are also usually assuming that what makes people want to dance is that infamous backbeat and nothing else. This is, first of all, not really derived from anything biblical. And second, it seems to have as a presupposition that all dancing is evil.  But Psalms 149 and 150 both command us to praise the Lord through dance. I have seen (and, sadly, participated in) a lot of horrendously sensual dancing in my day. And I think Christians should have nothing to do with it. However, I do believe there are godly forms of dancing. If you’ve seen the film, A Journey Home, you saw a family that used dancing as part of their evening worship time, and to me it is a beautiful example of exactly what the Psalms are talking about.

Also, the idea that a backbeat is the only thing that makes people want to dance is entirely untrue in my own life. Maybe it’s because of my years of ballet training, but classical music also makes me feel like dancing. And in fact, the music I find the most irresistible is folk style music, especially Jewish and Irish.

And there you have it. When I have choices about what to listen to, this is how I make them. Others of you probably have other principles and guidelines, and I’m sure a lot of other ladies would love to hear about them (I know I would). Feel free to share them in the comments section.

Note: This is Part 2 of a series on music. You can read Part 1 here.

Whenever there’s a question of how the Lord wants us to approach any area of our lives, the place we should always start is with the Bible. We need to know what it actually says about the issue itself, rather than starting out making statements (in this case, about music) and looking for proof texts for those statements. With that in mind, I looked at every verse in the Bible with the word “music” in it. I also looked at every verse I could find that contained a reference to musical instruments. I was looking for all the commands regarding music as well as positive examples that would give an idea of the kind of music the Lord found acceptable. You can find a partial verse list at the end of this post. (I omitted anything obviously redundant.) My goal was to get as complete a picture as possible of what music truly pleases the Lord.

Here’s what I found. First, there are many, many commands to praise the Lord through music, but the type of music is mostly unspecified. The only instructions on musical style are that our worship should be skillful, loud, and joyful. I couldn’t find any verses about where the accents should fall in the measure, appropriate chord progressions, whether or not harmony was acceptable, etc. Here are some examples:

And David spake to the chief of the Levites to appoint their brethren to be the singers with instruments of musick, psalteries and harps and cymbals, sounding, by lifting up the voice with joy. –I Chronicles 15:16

Sing unto him a new song; play skilfully with a loud noise. –Psalm 33:3

If we take the list of instruments mentioned in the Bible as being used for worship, this is what we see: timbrels (tambourines), trumpets, harps, psaltries (similar to lyres), instruments of ten strings, cymbals, and “organs” (which are probably closer to pipes or reed instruments–according to Strong’s the word has to do with breath, and the ESV translates this “pipe”). Either you can say that these are the only approved instruments (which would therefore exclude pianos, pipe organs, violins, etc. from use in worship since they’re never mentioned), or you could take these as representative of the kinds of instruments allowed by God. And if you’re willing to take that position, notice that we have examples of all the major types of instruments: percussion (cymbals and timbrels), strings (harps, psaltries, instruments of ten strings), “brass” (although, they would have used animal horns in Bible times) (trumpets), and woodwinds (organs). I have a very difficult time thinking that our modern equivalents of these are somehow unacceptable or unholy in any way.

So, where does that leave us at this point? We are called to praise the Lord skillfully, loudly, and joyfully using all manner of instruments. There is nothing in the Bible that forbids four part harmony, or a back beat, or a blues scale, etc. And if we’re going to be completely honest, an acoustic guitar and a high hat (the cymbals in a traditional drum kit) probably sound closer to Bible times instruments than what we think of as “traditional” organ or piano music.

I can hear chins hitting desk tops in horror.

We have a visceral reaction to this, or a lot of us do. Why is that? Well, I think Lynn put it perfectly in her comment on Part 1:

Our music should glorify God, and how can God be glorified in music that sounds like and has all the trappings of the world’s music? If a church has what looks like a rock band, women in tight jeans gyrating on stage, men with shaggy long hair and piercings and tattoos “rocking for Jesus” how does it glorify God?

It doesn’t. We hate the idea of high hats and guitars because of what we associate with high hats and guitars: women disobeying God’s call to modesty (1 Timothy 2:9), men disobeying God’s teaching that long hair is a shame for a man (1 Corinthians 11:14), piercings and tattoos looking frighteningly like those “cuttings” and “marks” the children of Israel weren’t supposed to make in their flesh (Leviticus 19:28).

We see this as a total package, and for many of us, it’s a package we want nothing to do with. It’s all wrapped up in the filthy, rotting sin of the secular music world: drugs, promiscuity, immodesty, foul language, women throwing their panties, idolatrous worship of god-like rock stars. It isn’t really the music itself that so deeply offends the conservative spirit but what the music reminds us of.

It is absolutely true that many of these instruments, beat patterns, and chord progressions have been used by the world in recent times expressly for the purpose of communicating rebellion and sensuality. Music is a language. It does have the power to convey emotions, and I hope to get into this in a lot more depth in Part 3. My purpose here is simply to point out that when we recoil in disgust from this type of music, we are doing so because of the sinfulness that our culture has paired with it, not because there is anything in the Bible that specifically forbids any of the musical elements themselves.

But what about the fact that those “unforbidden” musical elements came straight out of pagan African musical traditions brought over by the slaves? Aren’t the rhythms themselves inherently evil? The African roots of modern jazz and rock seem to be a pretty non-disputed fact of music history. This article at Way of Life is an especially well researched (and chilling!) collection of quotes detailing exactly that, and at first reading something of this sort, I think the natural reaction of most Christians is to say, “Whoa! Jazz and rock and roll are just one step removed from voodoo ceremonies. Let’s run the other way as fast as we can.” (Note: sadly, days after I published this post, this article disappeared from the Way of Life site. I do not know why. I am trying to find an article of a similar caliber to replace my link with.) But here’s an odd question, where are you going to go? Most of our “safe, wholesome” Western music also has pagan roots.

The ancient Greeks and Romans were pagans. The Germans–pagan. The Brittans–pagan, too. The Celts–yup, really pagan. In fact, if you wanted to have an “Evil-Off” to decide who was more pagan, the African witch doctors or the Druids, I think you’d be hard-pressed to pick a winner. So why is there no movement among Christians to abolish all Celtic influence from our music? My hymn books says that Be Thou My Vision is an “ancient Irish Melody,” and yet I never heard of anyone being concerned about that. Why not? I truly think it’s because this is not the sound we associate with the evil of our day.

To illustrate what I mean, let me ask you this: how do you feel about harp or organ music at church?

The desire to avoid musical elements that we associate with sin is not at all new. It goes back to the foundations of the church, back when it wasn’t the drum kit of Satan that Christians feared, it was his harp and later his organ. Paganism, focus on entertainment, and worrisome associations with other religions have plagued church music for as long as there have been Christians to be troubled by it. The Interactive Bible has a fascinating list of quotes from early church fathers, historians, reformers, and other famous church leaders down through history detailing Christendom’s hate affair with the music of the world. (A big thank you to Mr. and Mrs. Alfano for sharing this site with me.) Here are some highlights:

AUGUSTINE “musical instruments were not used. The pipe, tabret, and harp here associate so intimately with the sensual heathen cults, as well as with the wild revelries and shameless performances of the degenerate theater and circus, it is easy to understand the prejudices against their use in the worship.” (Augustine 354 A.D., describing the singing at Alexandria under Athanasius)

ERASMUS “We have brought into our churches certain operatic and theatrical music; such a confused, disorderly chattering of some words as I hardly think was ever in any of the Grecian or Roman theatres. The church rings with the noise of trumpets, pipes, and dulcimers; and human voices strive to bear their part with them. Men run to church as to a theatre, to have their ears tickled. And for this end organ makers are hired with great salaries, and a company of boys, who waste all their time learning these whining tones.” (Erasmus, Commentary on I Cor. 14:19)

CALVIN “Musical instruments in celebrating the praises of God would be no more suitable than the burning of incense, the lighting of lamps, and the restoration of the other shadows of the law. The Papists therefore, have foolishly borrowed, this, as well as many other things, from the Jews. Men who are fond of outward pomp may delight in that noise; but the simplicity which God recommends to us by the apostles is far more pleasing to him.” (John Calvin, Commentary on Psalms 33)

LUTHER “The organ in the worship is the insignia of Baal.” (Martin Luther, Mcclintock & Strong’s Encyclopedia Volume VI, page 762)

There is historical precedent for eschewing anything that reminds us of the music of the world. But something about it bothers me. Here’s the thing. God does not change. Is harp music wrong?

Praise the LORD with harp: sing unto him with the psaltery and an instrument of ten strings. –Psalm 33:2

If harp music were inherently sinful, God would not specifically command His people to praise Him with it. Christians of years past got around this by saying that harps were OK for the Jews but not for Christians (you can read quotes about this on the Interactive Bible site), but the Bible never says this. There is no indication that God has musical standards that change from culture to culture.

However, the Bible does say that we are to be separate.

Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you… –2 Corinthians 6:14-17

We are not to love the world and the things that are in the world (1 John 2:15). We are right in wanting to be holy, set apart, different from the world, reflecting an identity as citizens of heaven and worshipers of the Lord Jesus Christ, not as sensual pagans and worshipers of demons and idols.

But how do we do that without adding rules to Scripture, rules that will change with every generation as the paganism of the day rears its demonic head in one musical form or another? Stay tuned for Part 3, in which I’m planning to finally share my extremely unusual convictions on this subject.

***

Partial Verse List on Music and Instruments in the Bible:

Exo 15:20 And Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances.
Exo 15:21 And Miriam answered them, Sing ye to the LORD, for he hath triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea.

1Ch 15:16 And David spake to the chief of the Levites to appoint their brethren to be the singers with instruments of musick, psalteries and harps and cymbals, sounding, by lifting up the voice with joy.

1Ch 25:1 Moreover David and the captains of the host separated to the service of the sons of Asaph, and of Heman, and of Jeduthun, who should prophesy with harps, with psalteries, and with cymbals: and the number of the workmen according to their service was:

1Ch 25:3 Of Jeduthun: the sons of Jeduthun; Gedaliah, and Zeri, and Jeshaiah, Hashabiah, and Mattithiah, six, under the hands of their father Jeduthun, who prophesied with a harp, to give thanks and to praise the LORD.

1Ch 25:7 So the number of them, with their brethren that were instructed in the songs of the LORD, even all that were cunning, was two hundred fourscore and eight.

2Ch 5:12 Also the Levites which were the singers, all of them of Asaph, of Heman, of Jeduthun, with their sons and their brethren, being arrayed in white linen, having cymbals and psalteries and harps, stood at the east end of the altar, and with them an hundred and twenty priests sounding with trumpets:)
2Ch 5:13 It came even to pass, as the trumpeters and singers were as one, to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking the LORD; and when they lifted up their voice with the trumpets and cymbals and instruments of musick, and praised the LORD, saying, For he is good; for his mercy endureth for ever: that then the house was filled with a cloud, even the house of the LORD;
2Ch 5:14 So that the priests could not stand to minister by reason of the cloud: for the glory of the LORD had filled the house of God.

Psa 33:2 Praise the LORD with harp: sing unto him with the psaltery and an instrument of ten strings.
Psa 33:3 Sing unto him a new song; play skilfully with a loud noise.

Psa 81:2 Take a psalm, and bring hither the timbrel, the pleasant harp with the psaltery.
Psa 81:3 Blow up the trumpet in the new moon, in the time appointed, on our solemn feast day.
Psa 81:4 For this was a statute for Israel, and a law of the God of Jacob.

Psa 103:3 Praise him with the sound of the trumpet: praise him with the psaltery and harp.
Psa 150:4 Praise him with the timbrel and dance: praise him with stringed instruments and organs (According to Strong’s, organ here probably means a reed instrument. The word has to do with blowing. The ESV translates it “pipe.”)
Psa 150:5 Praise him upon the loud cymbals: praise him upon the high sounding cymbals.
Psa 150:6 Let every thing that hath breath praise the LORD. Praise ye the LORD.

1Co 14:7 And even things without life giving sound, whether pipe or harp, except they give a distinction in the sounds, how shall it be known what is piped or harped?
1Co 14:8 For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?

Eph 5:19 Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord;

Col 3:16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.

A couple weeks ago, Alyssa wrote in with this comment:

I was wondering if you were planning on writing about the topic of music, both inside and outside of the corporate worship service. I’ve read a few articles lately about how music on the 2nd and 4th beat has an association with voodoo, and the lives of musicians in jazz and rock ‘n roll are very dark, with many of them dying young. We as Christians don’t want to add any rules to the scriptures, but we also want to be set apart from the world. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this issue, specifically regarding music OUTSIDE of the worship service (what about when I need upbeat music to clean or work out?!).

This issue is one of great importance because, short of living in silence on a deserted island, we can’t really get away from music. We all have to figure out where we stand and how our families will live in this world of sound. As I told Alyssa when she asked, I haven’t done research on this in years, but I’m dusting it all back off now, and I’m hoping to do a short series on music over the next few weeks.

I want to start with music inside the worship service and move outwards into the rest of life because if something is truly dishonoring to the Lord, then it should have no more place in a Christian’s life on Tuesday afternoon than it has on Sunday morning.

But before we get into the nitty gritty of this debate, I wanted to do an introductory post because I’ve seen a lot over the years that has really made me sad.

I grew up in a “contemporary” music church, the kind with drums, and guitars, and that little cluster of women singing harmony. We sang mostly “praise choruses,” with the words to the songs projected up on a screen. We had a “worship leader.” Sometimes he would get excited and jump up and down while he sang and played his guitar.

Now my family and I go to a little gathering of the more “traditional” musical style. We rarely have instruments other than a keyboard, with the breaking of bread service entirely a capella. Sometimes, one of the men will “lead,” but that simply entails calling out the hymn numbers. We sing a lot of very old songs (more Luther than Crosby), with a healthy dose of Psalms thrown into the mix. People don’t usually get very excited. No one ever jumps up and down. They don’t smile much either, unless they’re looking at one of the children.

Not only have I attended churches on both sides of the drum kit, I’ve been part of them. These were my brothers and sisters, the ones I was close to, growing alongside. I knew these people, talked freely with them, and in the process I heard a lot of very candid comments about people in the “other” kind of church. And you know what? Love was rarely in the equation.

The contemporary music crowd accused the traditionalists of being “spiritually dead,” of knowing nothing about true worship, and even of being so Pharisaically legalistic that they must surely not have anything beyond the most rudimentary of relationships with the Lord, if they truly knew Him at all.

The traditionalists accused the contemporary types of being theologically shallow, fleshly, utterly consumed with their own entertainment, and even of being so disgracefully libertine that they must not have anything beyond the most rudimentary of relationships with the Lord, if they truly knew Him at all.

Sisters, them’s fightin’ words. And as I’ve looked into this topic anew for this series, I’ve seen a lot more of the same. In fact, I’ve seen some of the nastiest, most venomous, vitriolic name calling I’ve ever encountered from one Christian leveled at another. This really, really grieves me. We have no business treating each other this way. We are taking our feelings about derived principles, and placing them above God’s direct commands to gentleness, meekness, kindness, and love. Not that derived principles have no place in our lives. Sometimes, that’s all we have to help us make decisions, and in the rest of this little series, I’ll be talking a lot about derived principles. But when we’re using guidelines that are a step removed from what the Scriptures plainly teach, we need to admit it. And we need to give our brothers and sisters room to come to a different conclusion. As Alyssa said in her original request, “We as Christians don’t want to add any rules to the scriptures.” There is no verse that says, “The Lord thy God prefereth music with the accent upon the first beat of the measure above that in which the accent falleth upon the second or fourth beat,” or “The Lord thy God liketh not piano music for it boreth him, therefore let each of you play skillfully on his drums and electric bass.” But there are numerous verses about how we are to treat each other.

I am not trying to say that there are no Scriptural principles that can help us make musical decisions. I believe there are, and, Lord willing, I will talk about them in upcoming posts, but for now, I would like to humbly submit that the following verses and others like them should rule our attitudes and discussions in this matter (and indeed every matter). Here are some to think about.

And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth; And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will. –2 Timothy 2:24-26

Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom. But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth. This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace. –James 3:13-18

We can and should talk about our musical convictions. But musical conviction is not a litmus test for spirituality. And in the debate that follows (as I’m sure it will because I have some pretty unorthodox ideas to share ), I hope that we can all speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15) and endeavor to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace (Ephesians 4:3).

When I was in college, one of my assigned projects for math class was to write a paper on a population model that predicted a horrible future for planet Earth as unchecked population growth rapidly consumed all our resources and eventually outpaced farmers’ ability to provide food. The teacher failed to provide any information besides the terrifying population model and left us to form our own conclusions. I’m guessing that the majority of her students left her class believing firmly in the need to prevent this catastrophic future through the use of birth control. I knew at the time that something wasn’t quite right, but being entirely wet behind my ears, I only managed to suggest lamely that humans would find ways to deal with it–like maybe we could colonize the moon?

And now here I am, pregnant with my fourth, with no plans to slow down, glibly contributing to mass starvation and the total depletion of all the Earth’s resources. Hmm. Time to look into lunar real estate?

Well, maybe not.

Actually, as it turns out, far from destroying the world by our fruitfulness, it could be that we’re helping to save it.

This Christmas, I received a DVD of the film, Demographic Winter: the decline of the human family. This is a startling, sobering must see film for anyone who cares about the future of humanity. It details a different kind of population bomb, one caused not by soaring birthrates, but plummeting, death spiraling birthrates. All over the world people are having fewer babies, and in the West, we are having so few that many, many countries are well below replacement level (2.1 children per woman). As Demographic Winter’s website explains:

Worldwide, birthrates have been halved in the past 50 years. There are now 59 nations, with 44% of the world’s population, with below-replacement fertility.

Sometime in this century, the world’s population will begin to decline. At a certain point, the decline will become rapid. We may even reach population free-fall in our lifetimes.

For some countries, population decline is already a reality. Russia is losing three-quarters-of-a-million people a year. Its population (currently 145 million) is expected to fall by one-third by 2050.

What does population decline mean for society? According to the film, it means a mammoth tax burden on the workers of the future as aging societies divert more and more funds to programs for the elderly such as social security and medicare, it means deserted neighborhoods and closing schools, it means struggling economies since there will be fewer customers for nearly every kind of business, and it means major labor shortages. Again from Demographic Winter’s website:

If present low birthrates persist, the European Union estimates there will be a continent-wide shortfall of 20 million workers by 2030.

Who will operate the factories and farms in the Europe of the future? Who will develop the natural resources? Where will Russia find the soldiers to guard the frontiers of the largest nation on Earth?

Who will care for a graying population? A burgeoning elderly population combined with a shrinking work force will lead to a train-wreck for state pension systems.

So far, as the developed world has produced fewer and fewer workers of its own, dependence has grown on immigration to fill the labor shortage, but as this film points out, this has a negative effect on developing countries as their best workers leave in droves. This exodus not only leaves poorer countries without the workers to develop industries of their own, but in many cases, it leaves families without fathers as often it is only the men who emigrate because they cannot afford to bring their families with them.

Some may argue that the world doesn’t seem underpopulated, and in fact, didn’t the population of the world go up dramatically in the last century? These are both quite true, but they ignore the facts about birth rate. The reason the population went up in the last century was not that we “started multiplying like rabbits,” as the film put it, “but that we stopped dying like flies.” In other words, this growth has been mainly due to advances in medicine, sanitation, farming, etc., not to any increase in birth rate. Since people are living longer and longer, the population in pure numbers is still quite high, but this can create a false sense of security. If we want to know what is going to happen to the population long term, we have to look at the number of children being born to replace this aging population. And right now, there simply aren’t enough of them.

I highly recommend this fascinating documentary. You can head on over to the Demographic Winter website and have a look at the trailer and the FAQ. You may even want to purchase the film.

As for me, I hope the Lord gives me more babies. And the moon can stay a barren rock for a little while longer. It’s kind of exciting to be saving the world.

Recently, I received the following note from Linda:

… I know of the magazine girlhood companion and internet site genteel girlhood, is there anything similar for homeschool boys? We get clubhouse at the moment and we can’t do keepers as we live in another country.I know pumpkinseed sells good manuals like keepers, doorposts etc but is there something interactive for the children like the girl ones so they can interact with similar peers and share life problems?

My children are still quite young, and we have not begun any magazine subscriptions for them, so I did not have any good advice to offer Linda. Now, I’m turning it over to you. What wholesome magazines do you know of for boys? And while we’re at it, if you have any ideas for girls, too, I know I’d love to hear them, and I’m sure others would as well. I had never heard of Girlhood Home Companion before, but their website looks lovely.

Help!

We have a little couch in our bedroom, just right for snuggling on early in the morning for devotions together (on the days we manage to get up early ), and for several months it has been covered by a big piece of semi-atrocious green fabric. My beloved husband would like me to make a slipcover for it, AND this weekend the fabric store has home decorator fabrics on sale 50% off, so I’ve decided that now’s the time. But, while I have done a lot of sewing for humans, I have never sewn for a couch before, and I’m rather nervous, especially since I don’t have a pattern, and home decorator fabric is expensive (even at 50% off), and I’d rather not butcher my first attempt. Do any of you have some advice for me?

This past weekend, our family spent the day flying home from visiting my parents and brother out in Oregon. Walking through the airports proved harrowing and grieving as we passed newsstand after newsstand dripping with filth. The worst was GQ magazine. Its cover featured a beautiful woman wearing a tie…

…and nothing else.

Her legs were crossed and hands strategically placed so her nipples weren’t exposed. But there she was, smiling at my children as we hurried past, she and her friends like the woman in Maxim, legs spread for the camera, oversized blouse just barely falling between them as well as falling off her top half.

I know that some people don’t see anything wrong with images like this, but I find them tragic. They divorce sexual excitement and fulfillment from the relationships that God designed those feelings to feed and cement. In short, they are robbing marriages. Bit by bit, they are slowly eating away at men’s enjoyment of and whole-hearted union with their wives. Rather than being a special, sacred glue that holds a man and wife together, sexual gratification becomes a free for all. Provide it for whomever. Get it from whomever. And it’s not just currently married men who are being damaged. Young men who become addicted to lust in their youth will carry their skewed version of sex into their future marriages, losing the depth of delight that God intended for them, and often leaving them sneaking around behind their wives’ backs collecting titillation from the same shallow, glossy sources they did in their single years.

Thankfully, my children were distracted by the airport tram and looking the other way. My three year old son probably isn’t struggling with lust too much yet anyway, but he is beginning to notice the world we live in. Just a few days before this miserable episode, as we sat at the lunch table, he pulled his sleeve down his arm, tucked his little baby cheek down on his bare shoulder, and looking up at me through his eyelashes asked, “Mommy, why do ladies in magazines look like this?”

The usual method for raising godly children in Smutland is sheltering. And sheltering is a good, good thing, both for our children and for ourselves, but you can only shelter so much. We don’t have a TV, we don’t get the newspaper (lingerie adds and all), we avoid most movies, we even stopped going to 7-eleven because of the “men’s” magazines under the counter right at children’s eye level. But we can’t protect our children from every sexual image. We can’t drive down the highway without seeing billboards. We can’t get through the check lane at the grocery store without seeing magazines. We can’t surf the Internet without seeing ads. And we can’t take our children on an airplane trip to see their grandparents without passing newsstands.

And while many parents seem to hope that their children are just oblivious, that there will always be that convenient tram, I’m way too jaded for that. Maybe as preschoolers they aren’t suffering too much, but the day is coming, and coming fast when every fiber of their being will be screaming at them to notice. The teen years will be here before I know it, years when their bodies will be fully functioning, ready to have babies, and not the least bit concerned with whether they’re through with their studies or well prepared for a stable financial future. They’ll be like dieting housewives with empty stomachs shopping for groceries on Saturday afternoon, free samples around every corner. “Would you like to try a mini cream puff?”

I’ve seen a lot of parents who find the idea of their children’s budding sexuality a little embarrassing and hope that as long as they don’t tell their kids too much or talk about the images and experiences the world is all too willing to offer, that their children won’t get involved. They blush and act squeamish when questions come up and are quick to emphasize that “that won’t matter for you until you’re much older.” This is a bit like acting squeamish and embarrassed about food. There’s nothing wrong or unnatural about liking food. As long as we’re eating the food the Lord has given us, food is a blessing. The problem comes when we’re stealing from other people’s lunch boxes. Pretending that food doesn’t exist, or that it isn’t an issue for our children is like pretending a starving man won’t notice your sandwich. A child who discovers that he likes the way food smells and looks may feel a bit ashamed of his fancy if it clearly embarrasses his parents, but he isn’t going to stop liking it. And if he doesn’t have his own lunch box yet, he’ll be all too happy to grab a chip here and a cookie there from the free sample stations that the world has set up at the end of every aisle. “Would you like to see what a woman looks like with her clothes off?”

If we expect our children to be able to win this battle, or even to fight in the first place, we need to prepare them for it. They need to know their enemy, and they need to know how to fight.

Proverbs chapters 5, 7, and 9 all contain detailed warnings to young men about harlots. I don’t think the modern day woman on the cover of GQ is all that different. After all, she’s giving away something that should only belong to a husband (the right to see and enjoy her body) for the sake of profit. So I think the Proverbs approach is probably a good one for helping our children learn to confront these kinds of temptations. These three chapters contain wonderful descriptions of the “enemy,” the women who are trying to trap them, as well as the consequences of going after these women. You may want to consider reading them frequently to your sons or having them memorize parts, but at the very least, go over them thoroughly. Here are a few highlights (and notice how this advice is addressed to “children;” this is not just advice for “adults,” it’s something that we need to teach our children before the temptations are assaulting them):

For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil: But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a twoedged sword. Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell. Lest thou shouldest ponder the path of life, her ways are moveable, that thou canst not know them. Hear me now therefore, O ye children, and depart not from the words of my mouth. Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the door of her house: Lest thou give thine honour unto others, and thy years unto the cruel: Lest strangers be filled with thy wealth; and thy labours be in the house of a stranger; And thou mourn at the last, when thy flesh and thy body are consumed –Proverbs 5:3-11

For at the window of my house I looked through my casement,  And beheld among the simple ones, I discerned among the youths, a young man void of understanding, Passing through the street near her corner; and he went the way to her house, In the twilight, in the evening, in the black and dark night: And, behold, there met him a woman with the attire of an harlot, and subtil of heart. (She is loud and stubborn; her feet abide not in her house: Now is she without, now in the streets, and lieth in wait at every corner.)…He goeth after her straightway, as an ox goeth to the slaughter, or as a fool to the correction of the stocks; Till a dart strike through his liver; as a bird hasteth to the snare, and knoweth not that it is for his life.  Hearken unto me now therefore, O ye children, and attend to the words of my mouth. Let not thine heart decline to her ways, go not astray in her paths. For she hath cast down many wounded: yea, many strong men have been slain by her.  Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death.  –Provers 7:6-12, 22-27

A foolish woman is clamorous: she is simple, and knoweth nothing. For she sitteth at the door of her house, on a seat in the high places of the city, To call passengers who go right on their ways:  Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither: and as for him that wanteth understanding, she saith to him, Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.  But he knoweth not that the dead are there; and that her guests are in the depths of hell. –Proverbs 9:13-18

There’s a LOT we can learn from these passages, but some important things are these: the harlot is enticing, she is everywhere, and she is deadly. No man should think himself immune (”many strong men have been slain by her”), but it is the fool, the simpleton, the “young man void of understanding” that she calls in particular. Lets look at these one by one.

The harlot is enticing. Naked women and sexual release make men feel wonderful and go hand in hand. We must admit this or we will lose all credibility with our sons. They need to be warned that when they see a woman with “the attire of an harlot” that it’s going to be titillating, exciting, even empowering. Otherwise, we run the risk of having them reason, “Naked women make Mom feel squeamish, but she just doesn’t understand how much fun it is for me. I’ll keep this to myself. I know it’s probably wrong to keep looking at women this way, but it makes me feel so good I can’t stop.”

The harlot is everywhere. “Now she is without, now in the streets, and lieth in wait at every corner.” We do all we can to avoid her, but there will be times we have to confront her. She’s just an innocent click away on the Internet, waiting around the corner on the billboard, or hanging from the department store ceiling under a sign reading “Intimate Apparel.”  Our sons need to know they have to be ready always and never let down their guard.

The harlot is deadly. This is where the sternest warning is needed.  For all her enticements, she has the power to destroy our sons’ souls, poison their marriages, cripple their futures. Solomon does not mince words, and neither should we. Our sons must know in no uncertain terms that “her guests are in the depths of hell.”

The harlot especially targets the simple and the foolish. Seeking genuine, biblical wisdom that starts with the fear of the Lord (Proverbs 9:10) is a strong defense. After all, those who are walking in the spirit will not fulfill the lust of the flesh (Galatians 5:16).

Once our sons know their enemy, they have to know how they’re going to fight. And it is up to parents to teach them these skills. Just knowing that lust is wrong is not enough. Our sons have absolutely no clue how to deal with it on their own, and they will fail unless they are shown a way out.

Their most powerful weapon is retreat. They need to run away, to “flee youthful lusts” (2 Timothy 2:22). And to be able to do that, they need to train their eyes not to get stuck on images they should be running from. Our sons need to understand that they have no right to let their eyes stay on a woman who is not their wife.

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

I made a covenant with mine eyes; why then should I think upon a maid?–Job 31:1

Like Job, our sons need to make a covenant with their eyes. They need to train their eyes to “bounce,” to borrow a term from the excellent book, Every Man’s Battle (which my husband strongly recommends). That simply means that if they see anything that even begins to titillate, they need to look instantly away. They can’t “think upon a maid,” either. That means no dwelling on what they’ve accidentally seen. Our sons need to simply acknowledge the unintentional charge they felt and let it go. It doesn’t belong to them. No long looks. No second looks. No lingering thoughts. It isn’t theirs. Tell the free sample lady you’re saving your appetite for the dinner your Father is preparing.

Our sons also need to be taught how to be careful not to go “nigh the door of her house,” in other words, they have to learn to shelter themselves when Mom and Dad can’t, to “make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof” (Romans 13:14). That means if they even see a newsstand up ahead, they should already be looking the other way before they catch a glimpse of GQ or Maxim. If they have to shop at the mall, they should plan a route that doesn’t take them past the larger than life posters of lingerie models at Victoria’s Secret. If they’re in a check lane, their eyes should be looking straight ahead before they see the woman on the cover of Cosmopolitan spilling her not so mini cream puffs out of her dress.

Last of all, our children need the accountability that can only come from a close relationship with the people the Lord has provided for their protection, their parents.

My son, give me thine heart, and let thine eyes observe my ways. For a whore is a deep ditch; and a strange woman is a narrow pit. –Proverbs 23:27, 28

When we have our children’s hearts, we have a much greater chance of having an open enough relationship with them that they will tell us about their struggles. However, we may need to ask! Don’t expect your children to come to you and talk about this sort of thing on their own, especially if you’ve had the attitude in the past that they couldn’t possibly be having trouble with lust at their “young” age. They may be all too happy not to shatter your good opinion of them and mistakenly believe that they can handle things on their own.

We need to take seriously the difficult position our children find themselves in today with sexual free samples available at every turn and a huge gap, often on the order of a decade or more between discovering how hungry they are and actually getting a legitimate meal. They are starving in a world of free samples, and if we want them to have a chance of saying no the smiling sample ladies, we had better get busy and prepare them for it before they get their first taste of mini cream puff.

I haven’t talked much about this (yet! ) on my blog, but all three of our babies were born at home, and we are praying for and planning a fourth homebirth for the newest little Parunak on the way. Christine, over at Lily of the Valley, just published some nice links on mothering (one of them was to my humble blog–thanks, Christine!), and among these was a link to a recent article in the Los Angeles Times singing the praises of midwives. Now, I’ve thought for a long time that midwives do great work, but it sure was nice to see the mainstream media saying the same thing. Whether you’ve been part of the homebirth movement for a while, or you have all your babies in the hospital, I think you’ll find some good food for thought in Midwives Deliver.

Consumer Reports Health has a fascinating quiz on maternity care that just may surprise you. Here are a few of the questions to give you a taste. True or False:

“Breaking the waters” helps hasten labor.
Epidural anesthesia presents risks to newborns.
Episiotomies reduce the risk of perineal tearing.

Click on over and give it a try. You might learn something. I sure did.

Many thanks to Marcia Wilwerding of eHomebody for sharing this great quiz on her lovely blog.

Whenever I talk about modesty, I always try to emphasize that the reason it is so important is that immodesty is so special. It is truly a delight for men, but it’s supposed to lead them to revel in their wives, not go around their days in a constant state of semi-arousal while they look with lust at every inch of female flesh in their vicinity.

But while there are some women who struggle with giving up the attention and stylishness of dressing immodestly at inappropriate times, there are also plenty of women who struggle with being immodest when it’s immanently appropriate, when they’re doing it for their husbands.

Thanks to our flesh obsessed culture, we are all treated daily to visions of perfection, not only in the real life, half-clad college students we pass picking up a couple of apples and some Diet Coke while we wrestle an overloaded cart of family packs and several preschoolers down the supermarket isles, but countless images of flawlessness smile up at us from magazine covers, billboards, even the labels on our bras. They’re all the same: young, thin, creamy skinned, large breasted, looking like they’ve never had a baby in their lives, mocking our stretch marks and laugh lines, the extra pounds we gained giving life to other human beings, and the unfortunate facts of biology that only a small handful of us can both be a size four and wear a DD bra cup without plastic surgery. And so we wilt a little and feel the temptation to hide our deficiencies, even from the one person from whom we aren’t supposed to have any secrets.

Recently, I received a comment from Rina on one of my first modesty posts, A Garden Enclosed: The Importance of Modesty…and Immodesty. She says,

…I love what you’ve written here and wonder if you might have any advice for those of us who don’t feel very comfortable with our own bodies and have trouble being revealing, even to our own husbands. After struggles with annorexia in the past, and having five children, I’m overweight and would be embarrassed to let my husband see me in an “immodest nightgown.” Do you have any advice for those of us who struggle with this?

This is  such a good question! I hope many of you will weigh in on this as well, but here are my humble two cents.

To start with, I can relate! And so, I think, can most women, even the ones who approach our culture’s ideal. I’ll never forget a dancer I knew in high school, who to me seemed to have everything: flat tummy, ample bosom, skinny thighs. I would have thought she’d be happy. She wasn’t. She felt that her backside wasn’t cute. To her, it was too flat,  and she was so embarrassed about it that she nearly always wore a sweater tied around her waist so no one could see her “flaw.”

The desire to cover up our “flaws” is natural, but when it comes to marriage, it isn’t good. Our bodies were created for our husbands to enjoy. Take a glance through Song of Solomon and watch the Bride and Bridegroom praise each and every part of each other’s bodies. They’d be hard-pressed to do that if they couldn’t see each other’s bodies.

But how do we get to the point of being comfortable with being revealing? I think the best answer comes from Martha Peace’s wonderful book, The Excellent Wife. She calls it “The Put Off/ Put On Dynamic,” and in my experience, it’s the best way to deal with any kind of wrong thinking. Basically, when we find ourselves overcome with a worldly, sinful, or otherwise just plain hurtful idea, we can’t truly get rid of it until we replace it with the truth. In other words, we can’t put something off until we put something else on. So with that in mind, let’s look at some Scriptures containing truth we can put on as we attempt to put off any embarrassment we might feel being revealing in front of our husbands.

1. Don’t Compare

…but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise. — 2 Corinthians 10:12

If only I could get this one through my thick skull! I’d be a much happier person in general as well as a more radiant wife. It applies to so much of life, and nowhere more than our physical appearance. As we go about facing college students and bra labels, what do we do? Well, I don’t know about you, but I compare. And I almost never look at the things that are actually beautiful about the body God has given me. Oh, no. I always zero in on the one thing the other woman has that’s better than the corresponding body part on my body. Then, it’s just a heartbeat to the inevitable feelings of inferiority and the worries about how my husband could possibly be attracted to me when xyz body parts don’t look like Buffy’s over there. But this is not wise! In fact, it’s foolish. Comparing myself to other women is always foolish. This is the body that God has put me in to fulfill all the duties He has for me, including the very pleasant duty of being my husband’s delight. God didn’t choose any other body for me, so looking at other bodies and thinking about how this or that attribute is so much more “serviceable” is pointless, even ungrateful and faithless. And sometimes just quoting this verse to myself can stop me in my tracks, “they…comparing  themselves among themselves are not wise.”

2. Don’t Focus on the Past

Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. –Philippians 3:13,14

Not only are we tempted to compare ourselves to other women, so often we are also tempted to compare ourselves now to a younger, thinner, better rested, etc. version of ourselves. This is only a good thing when it prompts us to make positive changes, eating better, getting more sleep or exercise. There is always room for improvement, and we should always be seeking to improve, but we need to press forward, not look back, and sometimes comparing ourselves today to ourselves in the past is as far as we get, and we just feel depressed and unattractive. The thought may even cross our minds that maybe if we stay covered up, then our husbands won’t notice how we’ve changed. But we need to make what we have right now as beautiful as possible, working with what we’ve got, finding our best attributes and accentuating them, wearing colors that make our skin glow, trying a little perfume, fixing our hair. (Even if you wear a head covering, there are times you’ll want to take it off for your husband.) And we should try to see the blessing in the things that bother us. Overweight? You probably have lovely cleavage. Now’s the time to use it. Bust line or backside too flat? It probably means you’re nice and thin elsewhere, so show off those lanky legs or that delicate collar bone.

3. Remember God’s Plan for Marriage

Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. –Genesis 2:24

Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband. Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband. The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife. –1Corinthians 7:2-4

God intended for married people to be physically one. He wants you and your husband to have sex, often! He says that your husband’s body is under your power, and yours is under your husband’s. Most men enjoy sex a whole lot more if they can see their wife’s body, and since my body is under my husband’s power, if he wants to see it, then he should get to see it. It’s not about my feelings of embarrassment over looking too pregnant, or still working off baby weight, or whatever. It’s about my body’s belonging to my husband. It’s about his freedom to enjoy what is his.

4. Remember that Your Husband Doesn’t Get to Enjoy Anybody Else

Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well. Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and rivers of waters in the streets. Let them be only thine own, and not strangers’ with thee. Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love. And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger? For the ways of man are before the eyes of the LORD, and he pondereth all his goings. His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins. He shall die without instruction; and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray. –Proverbs 5:15-23

God means for your husband to enjoy you and you alone. Not only is it true that your husband has power over your body, but it is also true that he does not have power over anyone else’s. Your husband must be ravished with you and not with a “strange woman.” That can be tremendously freeing. I’m not competing with Buffy the Bra Model, or the college girl in the produce section. My husband has no right to look at them. If he does, then he is sinning. It’s natural for a woman whose husband does that to feel crushed and compared. But the truth is that life isn’t a beauty pageant. I need to be as beautiful as I can for my husband because I belong to him and because pleasing him pleases the Lord, never because of how anyone else looks who might catch my husband’s eye. The LORD is pondering my husband’s goings. I don’t need to live in fear of another woman’s provoking my husband to lust. I need to be what God created me to be. I am my husband’s cistern. I am his water source. When he is thirsty for a cool drink of sweet femininity he gets to come to me. I am what God thinks he needs, and what God declares to be enough for him. I just need to be joyfully and freely open to satisfying my husband’s thirst.

You may find these or other verses helpful, but find some that address your specific hang-ups and focus on them. Pray about them and about how you can be all that God intended you to be for your husband.

Then, once you get a good start on renewing your mind, it’s time to take the plunge. Comfort never grows without practice. Swallow your fears and try. Talk about your feelings with your husband, and ask him what would please him most.  If your budget permits, maybe a shopping trip for something new to wear to bed is in order. Or maybe you can get creative with what you already have. Remember, you’re trying to please your particular husband, so find out what he’d like to see you in. Most men would be thrilled with these kinds of questions and feel very loved that you’re trying so hard to take care of them.

These are my thoughts on this, but I’d love to hear from all of you as well. What advice do you have for overcoming those all too common feelings of just not being pretty enough to be that undressed?

When my mother taught women’s Bible study at her church, she had a ground rule for the discussion time: We can debate ideas, but we love people. In this post, I’m going to tackle a very emotional and hotly debated topic, so I’d like to adopt that ground rule here as well. Over the years, I have seen some unbelievably rude and mean spirited comments from both sides leveled at the people who practiced the other side’s ideas. So, before I even start sharing my thoughts on this, I want to say that I sincerely believe that the mothers on both sides of this debate truly love their babies and want what is best for them.

There’s an idea out there that children need to be trained from the day they’re born. That makes sense. After all, children are learning even in the womb, and certainly from the moment of their birth, they’re learning constantly. The important questions are: What should we be teaching them? and How should we go about doing it?

I believe that the ultimate goal of Christian parenting should be to teach our children how to relate to God. That is the reason behind everything else. Why should children obey their parents? Because God Almighty commanded them to. Why should we be unselfish? Because this life is not about us; it’s about God. Why should we be polite and kind? Because God is pleased when we esteem others as better than ourselves, etc. Everything we want our children to know and do springs from a correct understanding of God.

A lot of people out there (such as Gary Ezzo of Babywise and others) teach that the first lesson we should give our babies is the lesson that they are not the center of the universe and that they must submit to parental authority. Those are good lessons, and certainly ones that need to be begun during the first year. But here’s where it gets dicey. The main method that is supposed to transmit these lessons is a schedule, or some people call it a “routine,” but the idea is that if the baby is allowed food and sleep only when the parents think he should have them, then he will learn submission and even grow to be less selfish. If he does not want to sleep or eat on his parents’ schedule, then many people say that he should be left to cry. And here’s the crux of it, they call this being left to cry “discipline.”

I have a lot of problems with this. I addressed the main biological/physiological problem with feeding schedules in my post, Breastmilk, Ice Cream, and Infant Feeding Schedules: How Much Space is on YOUR Counter Top?. Here, I’d like to talk about my main theological concern.

The Bible has much to say about child training in general, and discipline specifically. In my personal study, I have found numerous passages on giving verbal instruction, reproofs, and rebukes to our children. And I have also seen several verses advocating the use of the “rod,” or spankings.

He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes. –Proverbs 13:24

Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him. –Proverbs 22:15

Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell. –Proverbs 23:13-14

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

There is no verse that says, “Feeding schedules, and enforced bedtimes give wisdom, but a child rocked to sleep bringeth his mother to shame,” or, “Thou shalt isolate him in his crib and shalt deliver his soul from hell.” But strangely enough, people are actually out there teaching that this kind of “discipline” is necessary, foundational, even the key to preventing the terrible twos and teenage rebellion, and that parents who don’t do this are “spoiling” their children, practicing New Age parenting, or are just plain less Christian than the ones who do.

Now, it’s true that the other side very often recommends unbiblical discipline, too. They will tell you that you should let your baby eat when he’s hungry and sleep when he’s tired, that he should never be left lonely and bewildered, crying himself to sleep in his crib, and oh, by the way, you shouldn’t spank him when he’s two, either, because that’s mean. Just distract and redirect. And don’t worry, he won’t misbehave that much because once he’s spent so many cozy months bonding with you, he’ll never want to displease you, anyway. This is also completely unbiblical. Again, there are no verses that say “Preemptive bonding and responsive parenting give wisdom, but a child on a schedule bringeth his mother to shame,” or, “Thou shalt distract him with other toys and shalt deliver his soul from hell.”

The fact is that biblically speaking, BOTH these parenting schemes have nothing to do with real discipline.  Neither one bears any resemblance to the Bible’s method for effecting genuine change in a child’s foolish, sinful heart. The Bible calls for the rod and reproof. An infant is not ready for either one.

An infant is not ready for biblical discipline because an infant cannot truly obey yet, and therefore cannot truly disobey, either. In her excellent booklet, Unto the Least of These, Rebecca Lewis points out that in order to obey or disobey a child must be able to do three things:

1. Your child must be able to understand what it is you want him to do or not do;
2. Your child must understand that you are requesting him to do it / or not do it; and
3. Your child must be capable of obeying your command.

In my experience, these criteria are met well before the first year, but children are not born with these abilities. Around the time they develop to the point of reaching out to grab something, they can easily learn, “No.” And you can expect obedience or else you will need to discipline with a small spanking. However, a two month old waiting all night to eat is not obeying. You cannot say to an infant, “Go to sleep and wait patiently for your next feeding time.” There’s no way for him to understand what you want, or that you’re requesting it, that the fact that you put him in his crib at this time means that he’s not supposed to want food for eight hours, whereas other times you put him in his crib, you’re willing to get him and feed him after only three. Also, he’s not really capable of obeying. If he’s hungry, he’s going to cry. If he’s uncomfortable and can’t get back to sleep, he’s going to cry. If he’s scared or lonely, he’s going to cry. If after being ignored night after night, he finally gives up and stops crying, it isn’t because he’s learned to “obey,” it’s because he’s learned either that no one can hear him, or that no one cares. This is not submission to authority. It’s resignation, giving up, for some babies, it’s even despair. It’s not the same as when an older baby stops reaching for a hot stove because his mother said, “No,” and enforced it with a spanking.

Now, of course, there are babies who naturally sleep through the night, without being left to cry. But these babies are not submitting, either. They are simply not hungry or uncomfortable, most likely because their mothers have milk supplies on the large side, and because the babies are not in the middle of a growth spurt, or teething, or struggling with reflux, or gas, or diaper rash, etc.

All right, so maybe letting babies cry isn’t the biblical discipline needed later in life, but what about the fact that it seems to work so well for some people? Why not use it and recommend it? Well, for starters, we need to be absolutely clear on what the Bible actually teaches so that we do not place undue burdens on each other, and so that we do not fall into pride when others don’t parent the way we do. There are prophets of doom out there who claim that if their own pet parenting method is not followed, your children will grow up to be horrible, spoiled brats. The Bible does not say this. The Bible calls for the rod and reproof. The Bible calls for discipleship (Dueteronomy 6:6,7). But the Bible is silent on whether babies should get to nurse at night, silent on how much time should pass between feedings, silent on whether babies should be snuggled to sleep or fall asleep on their own.

But there’s something else wrapped up in all this, something I do not believe the Bible is silent about, and that brings me back to my premise that the ultimate goal of Christian parenting should be helping our children develop a right relationship with God. And with that in mind, consider this: God does not abandon His children to cry alone.

The way that we treat our children is their earliest education in how they can relate to God. A quick concordance search on words like “call” and “cry” yields some interesting results. Here is just the smallest taste:

First, God hears His people and responds to them.

The eyes of the LORD are upon the righteous, and his ears are open unto their cry. –Psalm 34:15

He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him. –Psalm 91:15

The LORD is nigh unto all them that call upon him, to all that call upon him in truth. He will fulfill the desire of them that fear him: he also will hear their cry, and will save them. –Psalm 145:18,19

Second, one sign that we belong to God is that He hears us when we call to Him.

And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The LORD is my God. –Zechariah 13:9

Third, those whom the Lord will not listen to when they cry are those whom he is intending to destroy.

When they fast, I will not hear their cry; and when they offer burnt offering and an oblation, I will not accept them: but I will consume them by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence. –Jeremiah 14:12

If we believe that we should be teaching our children, first and foremost, how to relate to God, then it is crucial that we are godly ourselves, that we model behavior consistent with God’s character. Letting our children cry because it is not the “scheduled” time for us to do something for them is not only not biblical discipline, but it’s also not consistent with God’s character. He never says to us, “This is your scheduled rest time, you will have to pray about your financial difficulties later,” or, “I know you’re upset, but you just fed on my Word an hour ago, you may read another Psalm at 4:00.” No, God is always there for us.

The permissive parenting so often preached by the “don’t let your baby cry” crowd is also not consistent with God’s character. God is holy. He does not tolerate sin. As parents we shouldn’t tolerate it either. Children need to be confronted with their sin, not distracted from it. God never says, “Oh look, Sherry’s yelling at her children again, I’ll just bring a cheery visitor to her door to redirect her to smile.” No, it’s much more likely He’ll bring something along that will smite Sherry’s heart with conviction.

For whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. –Hebrews 12:6

Our children need to know both that God is always there for them, that he will never leave them nor forsake them (Hebrews 13:5), AND that God is absolutely intolerant of sin, that He is an authority that must be obeyed. Any time we branch off into unbiblical parenting methods, either by embracing false “discipline” that ignores our children’s cries, or by tolerating their sin, we give them a wrong impression of who God is.

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

In the twentieth century, society undertook a vast experiment. Women sought to free themselves from the pain, the work, the exhaustion of big families. They took “control” of their biological systems, and in the process, they put all their female organs on the shelf, refusing to breastfeed their children, and even refusing to bear those children in the first place, with the exception of one, or maybe two, when the timing was just right. Later, the small family philosophy was reinforced by the “Population Bomb” scare of the seventies, leading many women to think that having a large family was simply irresponsible. It was the century of birth control and formula feeding, when motherhood was placed in the hands of science, and women were liberated from the chains of their own biology.

But then, after a while, disturbing things began to surface. We discovered that science had not done such a good job at feeding our children. Year after year, new research came out on the miraculous nature of human milk, and slowly the pendulum swung back as more and more women returned to breastfeeding as the very best beginning they could give their babies.

Yet, the other part of the experiment, the part about refusing to bear those babies in the first place, has remained for the most part unquestioned. Sure, there have been a few “religious nuts” here and there who’ve preached that the Bible teaches that children are a blessing, but mainstream science never seemed to back up the idea.

Until now.

What’s going on, why the turn away from such a treasured idea as birth control? Well, to be blunt, women are dying. Those female organs we put on the shelf turned out not to have quite the shelf life we had assumed. They started to fall apart, victims of cancer. Breast cancer rates are soaring. A 2002 article in New Scientist proclaimed that modern women in the UK were facing breast cancer rates as high as those of childless nuns in the nineteenth century and said,

Western women could reduce their breast cancer risk by nearly 60 per cent if they returned to pre-industrial levels of fertility and breastfeeding….For each child a woman has, her risk of the disease declines by 7.0 per cent. On top of this, for every year that she breast feeds, her risk declines by 4.3 per cent.

Birth control is a strange issue. Like breastfeeding, it’s a matter of health. And for many women, it involves putting chemicals into their bodies, which ought to make us wary enough to talk a lot about it. But it also has to do with marital intimacy, and the highly personal and emotionally charged questions of family size and the timing of births, and because of that, there’s a general reticence to discuss it, a squeamish, hush hush feeling of “whatever you and your husband decide must be fine for you.”

But here and there, I’ve come across these alarming articles, tidbits of indicting information that have led me to the conclusion that birth control is not good for you. I’m of the quiver-full mindset, but I’ll save those “religious nut,” Biblical arguments on the blessings of children for another post. Today, I really just want to share what I’ve learned from a purely health related perspective, the kind of information that should be readily available for everyone to weigh whether or not they’re open to having as many children as God gives them.

You see, the choices we make for how we use our bodies, what we put into them, what we ask them to do day by day, all have an effect on our health. Most of us are used to hearing about how important it is to eat right and exercise. We’re aware of the research that shows that whole grains are better for you than refined flours. We may make the lifestyle choice to buy Wonder bread instead of Aunt Millie’s 100% whole wheat, but at least we don’t get offended at the idea that it should be an informed decision. Same for choosing not to exercise. When you choose not to exercise, you are choosing to put your health at risk. And it’s time we got over the squeamishness and were willing to talk about the fact that when you choose not to have children, you are also choosing to put your health at risk.

So how does this work? Why would a “return to pre-industrial fertility” help save women’s lives? Why is it that any decrease in childbearing, or postponement of childbearing increases your breast cancer risk? It’s because estrogen itself is a carcinogen. Every month a woman has a menstrual cycle, she is exposing herself to estrogen. That’s dangerous any time it happens, but it’s worse if she hasn’t had a full term pregnancy yet. This is why delaying childbearing “until you and your husband have gotten to know each other,” or “until you get your career established,” is actually risky business. The earlier you have your first baby, the lower your breast cancer risk. According to Daniel B. Kopans, M.D., Director of the Breast Imaging Center at Massachusetts General Hospital,

…a woman who has her first full-term pregnancy by the age of 18 has about one-third the risk of developing breast cancer as a woman who has her first full-term pregnancy after age 30.

When a girl reaches puberty, her breasts start to develop, but they don’t actually finish developing until she begins making milk for her first baby. The immature breasts of a woman who has not yet gone through pregnancy and breastfeeding are composed of type 1 and 2 lobules. (A lobule is a milk duct and several milk producing glands around it.) In fact, 70% of this woman’s breast tissue is type 1. Type 1 lobules are the most susceptible to breast cancer. 80% of breast cancers are formed in Type 1 lobules. 10% form in type 2 lobules. When women reach the last eight weeks of their first full term pregnancy, at least 70% of their breast tissue matures to type 3 lobules, and then when they begin nursing, their breasts fill with milk and become type 4 lobules. Type 3 and 4 lobules are cancer resistant. The sooner a woman’s breast tissue matures to type 3 and 4 lobules, the safer she will be from breast cancer because she will have exposed her cancer-vulnerable, immature breasts to fewer menstrual cycles, and therefore fewer onslaughts of estrogen. And the more babies she has, the more lobules will mature. (For more information, click here and read the excellent FAQ.)

But not only do many women delay and/or decrease childbearing, they do so through hormonal contraception (like the Pill), which contains steroidal estrogen. And while it is claimed that estrogen given with progesterone (as it always is in hormonal birth control) is not dangerous, there have been numerous studies linking hormonal contraception with increased breast cancer risk. A Mayo clinic meta-analysis of 23 studies found that 21implied increased risk, and combining the studies gave an estimated 44% increase in pre-menopausal breast cancer risk in women who used the Pill before their first full term pregnancy. The World Health Organization, in its own studies, found the risk to be slightly lower (24%), but still high enough to be scary, to me anyway. (Read more here. Click on “Girls on Steroids”)

Is it possible that we’re killing ourselves, dying to avoid a large family?

Obviously there are many, many women who struggle with fertility issues, who actually cannot have more children. But this should not stop us from sharing the information on the risks of choosing not to let natural fertility take its course any more than the fact that there are people with medical conditions which prevent them from exercising should stop us from declaring the benefits of exercise for the rest of us. For most human beings, exercise is necessary for good health, and choosing not to exercise because it’s not the lifestyle you want is going to come with health risks. No one minds if we say this. We need to come to the point of being willing to tell the truth about birth control, too. It was a bad experiment. God designed women’s bodies, not for years and years of monthly cycles, but for pregnancy and breastfeeding. And choosing not to have children because it isn’t the lifestyle you want is going to come with health risks.

“Do you think Santa will be able to find you at your Grandma’s house?” asked our friendly vet. “Maybe you should leave a note at your house.”

My daughter cast a sideways glance at me, “Um…I don’t think he knows where we live…”

Our family doesn’t “do” Santa Clause. I’ve explained to our children some of the stories about the historical Nicholas of Myra, what many of our culture’s “Santa” traditions are, that some families like to pretend about Santa, and that some parents actually do lie to their children about him. Our children know it’s important that they don’t tell other children that Santa isn’t real because it upsets some people. (I learned that one the hard way when I was around five. I told a true Santa believer that it was just a game some families played. She went crying to her mother, and maternal wrath came down upon my poor bewildered head.)

At our house, Christmas is for Jesus. But year after year, we get these awkward questions from well-meaning adults, and this year it occurred to me that this is actually a chance for our children to have a gentle witness. It’s a chance for them to give an answer for the hope that’s within them.

But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear: –1 Peter 3:15

My husband and I have been brainstorming ways for our children to sweetly and respectfully reply to Santa questions while still bringing out the fact that the best thing to celebrate at Christmas is Jesus, and I’d love to hear your thoughts, too. What does your family do about Santa Clause, and if you’re like us in that you don’t pretend about him at Christmas, what have you taught your children about appropriate responses to the adults who ask about him?

I know many of you probably already saw this over at Organized Everyday, but it’s so funny that I just had to post it here, too. As a homeschool graduate, this one really tickles me. The kids in my homeschool group were exactly like this when I was growing up. (And you know, it’s actually not such a bad way to be!)

Last June, I asked for thoughts on what made staying home with a baby difficult for so many women and what might make it a little easier. Rina, a self-proclaimed non-baby person, AND mother of five (you see, there’s hope!), of Rina’s Reflections, started out writing a comment on that post and wound up writing a post of her own, called Bonding With Babies, in which she shares some extremely thought provoking information she has learned about how we can work with the natural hormonal processes God has created to accompany pregnancy, birth, and breastfeeding in order to make it easier to enjoy our tiniest blessings. There’s a lot in our modern culture that has short-circuited the natural processes God set up. But the more we understand our amazing and miraculous bodies, the better we can work with them to reap the benefits of God’s design. Truly, we are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14)! If you’re pregnant, hoping to have more children in the future, or in a position of giving counsel to ladies who are, you’ll want to seriously consider the information Rina shares.

I talk a lot on this blog about our small house and all my adventures trying to fit our bloated collection of junk into it gracefully enough to manage living here. Well, lately, I’d been feeling like we were doing a pretty decent job. I was content, even excited. We were doing it. We were making it work. Order was slowly consuming the chaos, neatness was creeping towards the corners as the junk piles shrank. I’d kept the basement toy area organized for nearly a month straight. And the tide had finally turned in the laundry room such that I began to have hope of crawling out from under the years of poorly orchestrated work flow that had left a tsunami-like aftermath of stained clothing strewn around the room, awaiting yet another treatment of Oxiclean.

Sure, the house had it’s cramped parts, like way the enormous boxes of beautiful old furniture I’d inherited from my grandmother had no place to go besides the living room until we could move them to storage. And sure, I still faced my struggles, like what to do with those bins and bins of off season and in-between children clothes. But all in all, I was pretty happy. I was ready to have two, maybe even three more children in this house. It was an adventure. We were cheerfully explaining to people why it made the best financial sense to stay here and save, and I was peacefully on-board with it all.

That is, until I saw the Castle House. My husband found it on a real estate website. We had actually considered it briefly last spring when we’d been thinking about moving, but back then the house had only come with ten acres. After months of watching it sit on the market, the sellers had added another ten acres onto the parcel and had dropped the price by almost a third. I stared, breathless, at the listing. 3000 square feet. A mother-in-law suite with a full bath on the first floor (well, that would just be perfect for us since we’re committed to looking after our mothers in the somewhat likely event that they should outlive our fathers). Lots of big bay windows. And twenty acres. The kitchen even had two ovens. I nearly had to wipe the drool off my laptop.

For an evening, we entertained the possibility. But by morning, my wise husband had thought things through a bit more. It didn’t really make sense for us given the loss we’d have to take on our current house and the amount of savings we’d have to put in to make up for it on our mortgage, assuming we could even sell it, which really wasn’t a given. And if we couldn’t sell it, we’d have two mortgages, which was dumb, dumb, dumb, especially in this economy. It was pretty obvious. Great deal though it was, we’d better let this one go.

Oh.

And with that, I was back in my little house, the house I’d been quite content in just the day before. Nothing had changed. All my good progress, all our creative solutions were there, same as before. The only thing was, I was different. I was restless, dissatisfied. 3000 square feet…20 acres…And those beautiful bay windows! Where was my plucky pioneer spirit? I had traded it in for a fantasy life in my Castle House.

There’s a strange thing about contentment. You can lose it in a heartbeat the instant you start looking hard at what isn’t yours. Contentment can’t live with lust. You let lust into your heart, and contentment quietly leaves. Lust is more than the oft discussed, “man wants woman who isn’t his wife.” It’s lust just the same when a woman wants a house the Lord hasn’t given her. Lust is just a strong desire for anything, a hunger. And, as we all know, you can’t be full and hungry at the same time.

I had succumbed to the “lust of the eyes.” I had seen this gorgeous house, and I had mentally moved in. Now I was having to mentally move back out, and it felt like such a loss. But the real loss, the loss I should have mourned, was the loss of my contentment.

But godliness with contentment is great gain. 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 (or live in a big, fancy house) fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. –1Timothy 6:6-9 (addition mine).

I have everything I need, plently to eat, and plenty to wear, with money to buy more of both should the need arise. And part of the big family on one income lifestyle that we’ve chosen is being willing to work with less. I don’t need one of those mansion-type houses the world says I do (and is quite happy to send Mommy to the office to earn the money to buy). We’re just camping here anyway, on this wagon trail to Eternity.

It’s high time I closed that browser window on the real estate listing and took a good look around at all the blessings we do have.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

My kids toys are not organized.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So, will y’all brainstorm with me?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thus ends my humble confession Anybody have any gracious ideas?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Or maybe another broken cistern?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Both these extremes are wrong.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 ***

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Have y’all seen this one? It’s great.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rom 14:4

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ladies,

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

I was talking to a woman who had read my post,