As the Family Goes, So Goes Civilization

Teach it to your children…

Family and marriage are institutions designed by God–they are not man-made.  Perhaps then, we shouldn’t be surprised that the family is becoming an enemy. Who would have ever believed there would come a time when society would be hostile to what has always been considered the basic unit of its existence?  It is why I think feminism has had the most damaging impact on our culture…because at the core, it seeks to separate family…with destruction as a result.

We have slid down a slippery slope and arrived at the belief that the basic unit of society is the INDIVIDUAL.  (Think about it for a minute…look at all the ways families are divided and the expectations that is should be so…even within the church.)  And when that is believed, the individual is very quickly lost in the state.

“Dr. Carle C. Zimmerman, Harvard University spent his life studying the history of the family.  He has pointed out the family’s significance:  that whenever the atomistic (separate, unrelated members) family develops, in which the authority of the father is no longer paramount, then there is a very quick disintegration of society, the total state takes over, and there is a radical collapse of civilization…..

With the development of the atomistic family–which is really no family at all–the home is simply a place to room and board while the state takes over the role as father–to take care of the family in its every need, providing for the children and the parents; the family no longer cares for itself; civilization collapses. ” -R.J. Rushdoony

(By the way, this paradigm does not exclude the rare single men and women not called to marriage;  all still belong to a family and have a major importance in that role.)

Listen to  Zimmerman’s conclusions:

He believed…

“..that a fundamental purpose of civilization is the empowerment and enabling of the family — and is absolutely key to the health of any civilization. … Nobody undertakes to have a large family because it’s fun, or, in advanced societies, because it’s economically beneficial. They do it because they believe that’s what people do. In other words, they believe that children are a blessing from God, and that we humans are participating in the divine will by begetting children and raising them up to carry on our civilization….

Mankind has consumed not only the crop, but the seed for the next planting as well. Whatever may be our Pollyanna inclination, this fact cannot be avoided. Under any assumptions, the implications will be far-reaching for the future not only of the family but of our civilization as well. The question is no longer a moral one; it is social.”

Building the family is the only option for surviving–slice it any way you like, our ideals and personal opinions won’t erase factual reality.

Words and Choosing to Love

Issues of the parent-heart about which the Lord is dealing heavily with me…

Living in a house, all day, with lots of children creates almost constant training opportunities.  And none are so available as those that involve the use of words.  And yet, it isn’t words really.  “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.”

I maintain that we can’t truly love others out there until we truly love each other here.  And of course, we do love each other.  But I mean we must truly demonstrate that love to each other.  So it’s one thing for a brother to love his sister and be willing to fight for her honor.  But do his words reveal it?  Does he choose to show love..even in the ordinary moments?

“Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.” Ephesians 4:29

Do we build up?

And then I remember a familiar warning:  “More is caught than taught”.

And the very thing I spend my days trying to form into the character of my children, I often find sorely lacking in my own.  It’s easy to use build-up words on the good days…but do I use them when I’m put to the test?  “Out of the abundance of the heart…” The fruit of the Spirit is seen best where the fruit is squeezed.

Me thinks that work on myself is the principal thing…removing the plank to aptly assist my children with their specks.

Deliberate Moments of Motherhood

Mothers wear more hats than Minnie Pearl.  A friend recently called and described the feeling of “wearing 10 hats while riding a unicycle”.  Yep, we’re all nodding heads.

Which is why deliberate mothering is so important.  Deliberate mothering involves, to me, those seemingly smaller things, that are actually the bigger things, that can get so easily crowded out in a busy day.

Things like lingering eye contact, both during instruction and to express deep fondness.  Taking time to cuddle small children–and big ones, read to them or just enjoy child-talk.

Taking walks, talking of God’s greatness, His provision for daily bread, His new morning-mercy, and His deep love for us–small moments of greatness.

Deliberate mothering is remembering to teach eager little hands how to crack an egg, and not get too upset when they drop it on the floor…because that moment holds an even bigger “deliberate opportunity”.  (I write it…but I’m still aspiring to live it.)

A word of friendship, a word of inspiration (“I love that part of who you are”), small moments each day that weave together a strong, beautiful tapestry of who our children will become.

I will interject a word of warning here:  the opposite it also true.  If the bulk of their days is spent receiving insult and injury, either by a parent or by peers who seem to default to “survival of the fittest”, so much is lost and so much of that tapestry is left thread-bare.

Gigantic days are made up of small, deliberate moments.  Let’s make them.

Mothering With a Solomon Sincerity

How is it that a Word so old can continue to spring fresh every time it is read?  You know the story…God asked Solomon what he wanted and Solomon said “wisdom” so God gave it to him, and then some,  since he didn’t ask selfishly.

But there is so much more there!  And it met me as a mother.

Read:

“Solomon went up there before the LORD to the bronze altar which was at the tent of meeting, and offered a thousand burnt offerings on it.”

I’m sorry, but did you get that?  1,000.  I’m no theologian, but I think it was a pretty timely process to offer any burnt offerings.  Maybe it was just vegetation offerings, but I’m thinking animals were involved.

Do you know how paltry this makes my pathetic little petitions to God look?  My sit-in-my-comfy-chair-with-coffee prayers?

Solomon wanted God to answer him and he was serious about getting His attention.  I’m not asserting that God doesn’t listen until we do something radical, but maybe, just maybe, He knows when we are really serious about seeking Him and when we just treat Him as a favor-machine.

So God finally answers, “Ask!  What shall I give you?” Or, “What do you want?”

The second part is just as good as the first.  Solomon didn’t just ask for wisdom; he had a motive that drove him to ask for that.  Solomon said,

“Give me now wisdom and knowledge, that I may go out and come in before this people, for who can rule this great people of Yours?”

He realized that his position as King was grave and his subjects’ health, success and welfare depended on his ability to rule.  He asked for them. His heart was such that he gave up his own desires, wants and needs, and asked solely for what those in his charge would need from him.

Wow!  He asked for their benefit, and he asked with all his heart, petitioning the Lord with a tenacity few of us could even touch.

Do we press Him?  And do we love those in our charge enough to give up rights to ourselves and seek only what is needful for them?

“Give me wisdom for these people in my charge!” Pursue Him until He says, “What do you want?”

True Woman

We are having a great time at the True Woman conference.  I’ve already met some of you and it has been so neat to see real faces and hug real bodies!

I’m sitting now in bed, eating dark chocolate and my blogging friend Kathy is in the other bed with her laptop (I just emailed her…how pathetic is that? )  The other friend with us happens to be a reader I met a while back providentially through a mutual friend who is now my own dear friend!

I’ve gleaned so much from the fabulous teaching this weekend and I’ll probably be able to formulate several posts after I process it all.

What this conference is about, in a nutshell, is an attempt to ignite a “counter-cultural revolution” to combat what the feminist movement has done to families.  Given the very real power God gave women concerning their husbands and children, it’s a pretty safe statement to say, “As goes the woman, so goes the culture”. The enemy knows that and has largely used lies of that movement to effect destruction of the home.  What we need is women who, to paraphrase Mary Kassian, “are willing to love God enough to do things His way”.

Yes, that’s the snapshot version and there are lots of other factors involved in our culture’s demise, but revisiting God’s design, which includes the mysterious power of woman, evokes fear and trembling in my heart, and brings me to my knees, begging the Lord to preserve me and keep me and empower me to fulfill the beautiful design He has for me–the design that will reveal His glory in my home and extend to the culture.

Yes, Lord, I want to be a true woman.

True Woman Manifesto: Read it, Sign it, Live it.

True Woman Manifesto