Preparing My Two-Year-Old for Her Wedding

I ran across this older picture of Mallie. So yeah, maybe as we read through Proverbs 31 we'll hang out in the "clothes herself with fine linens" section.

“Unless God gives you the unique gift of singleness, the Bible says ‘it is a good thing’ for you to get married and have a family. Raise your hand if you hope to be a wife and mother one day”, I asked my little girls, down to the two-year-old.

And then I read….

“An excellent wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels.The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain. She does him good, and not harm, all the days of her life.” Proverbs 31:10-12

That’s packed full of good stuff! “Who can find her?” She was rare then and rare now. An “excellent wife” isn’t just born. I want my girls to know that raising children and being a wife is a monumental task. One that will require all their energies, all their hearts and all their attention. It will utilize all their gifts and creativity. It will take enormous wisdom and fortitude. It is a full time job. That is, to be an “excellent” wife. A “virtuous” wife. It’s a job for which they must begin now to prepare.

We must do the counter-cultural job of teaching our girls, from a young age, that they are likely entering upon the job of a lifetime–a job that will change the world if they embrace it. We must be willing to bear the criticism (ironic, isn’t it?) and teach them to as well. We must learn to give an answer in truth and in love.

It always stumps me that the job of helping a husband, running an efficient home and raising the next generation has been ridiculed into a tiny corner until it is hardly recognized as a “job” anymore. Marriages, the ministry of home, children-turning-adults…how could any other pursuit be more worth our following?

That part doesn’t surprise me. What does surprise me, and saddens me, is that Christians followed suit. We know better. And until we reclaim the home as a place in which soldiers are raised, marriages become a reflection of the gospel, and the family gains enough strength to reach beyond itself and lend a life-saving hand to the lost, we will continue to wonder why the church is impotent and our society ravished.

Yes, it takes time to undo generations of effects that pull some from home. But we have to have a “true north” starting point. We have to recognize truth before we can follow it.

It is our one mission, dear Church, to glorify Him with our lives. It is our mission to stop bending the knee to a humanistic god. It is our mission to raise children who will carry the Light of Christ, the Hope of the world, into the next generation.

Let’s do it.

Confessions of a Woman Duped by Feminism

Since it doesn’t look like there’s a baby in my very near future and I’m largely restricted (no pun intended) to the couch these days, I thought I might as well bring up a controversial discussion  Maybe it will make me go into labor.

I received this email from my inbox last week and it pierced my heart…

“Dear Kelly,

I wanted to write to encourage you to keep speaking on the hard topics–I wish someone had told me.

I went the typical routine–high school–”what are you going do now”–college–then pursuing my “good job” because that’s what you do and besides, you need to be able to take care of yourself.

I get married in my early twenties, we made good money and we spent it well:  nice house, new furniture, two new cars, vacations, etc.

When my first baby came along, I was blown away by my love for her. And not once had I thought about (or been told) that given the lifestyle we had acquired, I would be forced to go back to work when she was just a few months old.  It floored me.

But surprisingly, no one else seemed to think it odd that I was struggling.  It’s what everyone did.  Of course we were obligated to find best day care and that would make all the difference, and then I could carry on, guilt-free, fulfilling my duty as a wife who made half the income.  But when I handed my tiny baby over into the hands of someone I barely new, I might as well have given her my heart too.

Here’s the one thing I can’t get past: if feminism is so “liberating”, why did I feel so enslaved, without a choice, (emphasis mine) bound to a decision I didn’t want to make?  The choice was being a mother who could take care of and nurture this beautiful gift God had given me, or handing her over to a complete stranger and go back to my “liberating job”, because I’m a woman and I can do what I want to do.

What kind of choice is that? “You can have it all?” No you can’t.  And it’s cruel to even suggest it.

I know not all women will feel this way, and from my experience, it’s because the whole movement itself was intended to callous a mother’s heart toward her children and family so she would be more aggressive in the man’s world.  They knew unless she was brainwashed to think that motherhood was just a side job and anyone else could do as good as she could, women would never “roar and conquer” in the man’s world.

And I’ll go ahead and add that I think the whole idea was Satan’s in the first place…what a clever way to destroy families than to get Mom out of the home?

But some of us kept our tender love in tact and have lived to regret that not one woman cared enough to tell me that the pursuit of motherhood was worthy of my entire devotion.”

Heart-broken,

Leah

 

Man Whisperer vs. True Woman

“The self-proclaimed feminist authors claim that feminism has made a mess of male/female relationships. “Feminism teaches women that they are equal to men, but when it comes to love, romance, attraction, and chemistry – men don’t fall in love with a woman because she is an equal. Men fall in love with women who are their compliment: feminine, loving and appreciative.”

Gotta love it!  Turns out the Bible is right after all, we just have different motives for following its principles.

Read the rest of Man Whisperer vs. True Woman

Don’t forget to come back and tell me what you think!

Stop Denying the Truth About Feminism and Its Harmful Effects

All it takes is a word about feminism, like yesterday’s post, and the feminists jump up to defend it.  ”Feminism is ONLY about choice,” they say.  ”You sound ignorant when you stereotype feminists as being against the stay-at-home mom.”

Many women still desperately want to believe that feminism is only about total freedom of choice.  That it’s only about valuing all vocations and making sure no one is abused.  No doubt, many women who call themselves feminist do sincerely hold to these claims. But the movement itself doesn’t even pretend about its agenda.  It is not about choice.

One only need listen to its proponents to hear its agenda:

Gloria Feldt, leading feminist activist and former CEO of Planned Parenthood, was interviewed by the NY Times, clearly stating the truth about feminism.  Why are feminist still defending what is being openly taught?

“It should be acceptable criticism to point out that, although everyone has the right to make their own life decisions, choosing to “opt out” reinforces stereotypes about women’s priorities that we’ve been working for decades to shatter, so just cut it out. And, the “individual choice” women have to become stay-at-home moms becomes precarious when they try to return to the workplace and find their earning power and options reduced. If we could see child-rearing as a necessary task and not an identity, and if we could collectively recognize that facilitating it benefits us all, we would go much further in guaranteeing women’s choices than we do when we are expected to uncritically celebrate every individual’s decisions.” From Where is the Female Steve Jobs

In case you missed it, here’s what Feldt is saying:

“Technically women have a choice but if you make the choice to be a stay at home mom you destroy everything feminism has worked to gain so we must criticize (and that should be acceptable) the women who choose to stay home with their children.  Oh, and raising children is just a task that anyone can do.”

Perhaps you get tired of my talking about feminism.  Perhaps you don’t realize how important it is that we understand its true colors and recognize its dangers to the family and ultimately to all of us.  I get really impatient with the defense of feminism and the accusations that I’m simply “uninformed” when there is such blatant evidence of the feminist agenda splattered across the NT Times and everywhere else you care to look.

There is no reason to get upset at those of us who oppose the true agenda behind feminism.  It is precisely because I desire to defend women and children and families that I fight so vehemently against it!  I know the typical replies: “Because of feminism women can vote and women can work and women can do such and such.” Let it be said that I don’t propose that nothing good has come out of the feminist agenda.  But the harm far outweighs the benefits (I for one don’t get excited about “my right to vote”.  I had a right before women’s suffrage.  The right to stay in my cozy house while my one-flesh husband casted our house vote )

I don’t have to be a feminist to recognize the incredible value of women.  I don’t have to be a feminist to feel empowered.  I was crafted by the Master Creator with the ultimate gifts and abilities to make the world a better place.  As feminists continue to destroy the blessedness of home, let us weep for their destruction and never stop proclaiming the truth that God’s blueprint for family is the only hope for salvaging society.

Grieving June Cleaver: The Woman Feminists Hate

Actress Barbara Billingsley, best known for her portrayal as June Cleaver, died at the age of 94.  She was an important icon, though she is now virtually villainized for her portrayal of “the perfect housewife”.  Mary Kassian has some great thoughts regarding the influence feminist thinking had on the role of wife and mother:

“In the early sixties, a landmark book, “The Feminine Mystique,” burst onto the scene. It claimed that women were NOT happy as housewives—at least they shouldn’t be happy in that role!  Those women who were content as wives and moms simply hadn’t had their eyes opened to the extent of their oppression. Men had duped them to believe that a June Cleaver-type of existence was worthwhile and satisfying, when, in fact, such a role was subservient, and demeaning. As this feminist message spread, women in the sixties and seventies began to vilify Billingsley’s June Cleaver ideal….

Whether a woman ought to pursue an education, career, or have a job outside of the home is not at question here. The question in my mind is, ‘Do we as a society believe that family is so important that we uphold caring for home and children as the best and most important job a woman might ever have?’ “

Read “Grieving June Cleaver” by Mary Kassian

Strangest/Sweetest Reaction to Dress I’ve Ever Received

It was too precious not to tell.

My oldest daughter and I went for a grocery outing/Hobby Lobby stop yesterday. It’s always so fun for the two of us to get out and chat together.

As we were headed across the parking lot, a gentleman was walking in our direction. (I feel that his race is important to note–he was black–because of the warm, jovial, southern tone in which he spoke that a typical white man doesn’t normally use…it was simply endearing.) He literally stopped in his tracks, looked at us and said,

“Well, praise the Lord, look how nice you look! Are you sisters? (Yessssss!)”

“No, we’re mother and daughter.”

“Look at those smiles! You look so nice…it’s so wonderful! It’s just wonderful!  God bless y’all!”

It really made me think more about my dress and how much our outward appearance speaks (or should?) about us.  We can’t get it backward though–”white washed exteriors with dead men’s bones within”.  But don’t we “speak” with our outward appearance?

Was it the refreshment of simple feminity displayed? (I’m not pretending to be “all femininity”; I don’t always wear skirts and dresses, but more often than not.)

I don’t know.  I do know that once there were clear and obvious distinctions, that women gloried in their femininity, and that even the most feminine-loving of us have grown up in a culture where it doesn’t seem to matter much and we struggle ourselves over appropriate dress.  Lines have definintely been blurred and the blurring defended so vehemently that even talking about dress gets people all bent out of shape.

Still, it was an interesting experience that made me think.