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.

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.

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.

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?”

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.

Since I read the first chapter of the biography of D.L. Moody to my children, I’ve been in the most pensive mood, mulling over what I read about Moody’s mother.  I was impressed by Moody’s influence when I read his biography as a child; But now, his mother amuses me more because I attribute so much of his success to her.

If we are to be mothers who desire to live lives worthy of the calling of Christ, devoted to bringing up godly children, determined to love fiercely as wives, committed to fighting in the battle that rages against the family, then by all means let us look back and glean from those who have done it so well.

That is what the “Rockin’ & Rulin’” series will be about when you see the title.  (Taken, of course, from the quote:  “The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.”)

One word describes Betsy Moody:  PLUCK.  And yet the word scarcely touches her.

Over the next few days (weeks?) I’m going to be posting excerpts about this incredible woman of faith and tenacity.

To begin this series about Betsy Holton Moody, I leave you with this:

“To rule a household [alone] of seven sturdy boys and two girls, the oldest twelve years old, required no ordinary tact and sound judgment, but so discreet was this loyal mother that to the very end she made “home” the most loved place on earth to her family, and so trained her children as to make them a blessing to society.”

This one hit me in a split second.  In one instance I refused the apology.  Not completely refused, but a “I’m still very upset with you and you apologize for the same thing over and over and over, and I just want to see change instead of another apol—”

Heart sank.  I was spouting the very words I hoped I would never hear my Father say.  And I feel sure I will not.

Stopped mid-sentence…tears streaming down both our faces.

“No…

I’m so sorry.  I beg God to forgive me for the same things over and over and–by His grace–I will continue to forgive you over and over as long as I live.”

Relief broke across the face…relief that could only come after such a terrifying thought that Mother had “met her forgiveness quota.”

Perhaps you are encouraged.

You must hear it from the start…

I have had hair woes my whole life. Too thin, too fine, too–not what I wanted it to be. I deal with it.

I married a man with thick, jet black hair, but several of our first girls inherited my hair. Life is still good.

Enter Mallie.

This child was born with a shock of full, fuzzy, black hair. It was comical…me, the fair-skinned blond lady holding this dark-skinned baby with…this HAIR.

I loved it from the start.  And it grew and was so thick and so long and so wavy and so…everything I had always wanted in hair.  And despite the torture of combing out tangles from this thick-maned three-year old, I loved it long (notice that was past tense).

Not braided, it had grown to her waist.

And then…

That tangle I couldn’t get out.  It came out of nowhere and so I had to do it–I cut it up almost to her chin.  I almost cried, but that would have been silly.

So we got used to her cute new haircut.

And then…

Enter Brooks–the 5-year-old that didn’t get the memo.

“She told me to”.  That was the best he could come up with.   (Didn’t Adam say that?)

So here’s the really good part…this happened on the same day I posted about teaching our children forgiveness. God does love a good, “let’s see what ya got?” doesn’t He?

Maybe I loved Mallie’s hair too much…

It’s even worse in the back.

I left it hacked up for 2 days before I could get the nerve to cut it.  And since we don’t have a sharp pair of scissors in the house, I grabbed the little red pair, the same pair Brooks used.

“I wanted hair like Avi.” I get sad every time I look at it.

A good reminder for all of us that:

Forgiveness is mandatory…no matter the mess we have to deal with.

Hair grows back.

There are consequences to our actions.

I need to remember to tell my other 5-year-olds about the hair thing.

We probably do things that leaves God shaking his head and saying, “What was she thinking?!” and He loves us anyway.

So what did I say besides “I’m so glad my son doesn’t show promise for Cosmetology”?

“Well, there’s only one thing left to do….blog about it.”

But there’s an enormous gulf now between “have to work” and “want to work”.  The gulf was a complicated build, and now we can’t even remember the “norm”, when women stayed at home because, well, there was a household to run and  important lives who depended on her, and it didn’t matter that they couldn’t afford new socks–it was her job to darn them so they didn’t have to.

No, our generation doesn’t remember because they were told another story.  They were told that women were home because they *had* to be, (not because it best served their families) and that one little word touches a rebellious chord in us and we jump on the band wagon to “save women from oppression”.  We think “stay” is a derogatory word and though all good sense said that a healthy family needs someone devoted to nurturing it, we passed up the job.

That’s not really what the post is about, but I can never just start in the middle

So now women, some of whom are entertaining the thoughts of coming back home (more and more exhausted working women are getting tired of the “have-it-all” lie and realize home comes closer to anything that offers “all”), don’t know about the art and profession of making a home and are asking, “but what do I do?”

Which strikes a veteran SAHM as comical, because she knows that tasks and opportunities alike present themselves faster than she can ever keep up.

And because readership of this blog makes up a widely-varied audience, I thought it timely to go back-to-basics for a moment and visit the question, “What does a stay-at-home mom do all day?” That is, what does a woman wishing to follow a Proverbs 31 model do?

Remember though...a list of what she “could” do is not the same as what she “should” do. Each woman is in a different season of life, some seasons allowing for greater opportunities than others.  Some are merely surviving with the basics during a busy season; others are finding time to flourish in their gifts and abilities.  But we could all study to be more efficient and become a better home-builders.

• She studies to provide at least somewhat healthy, somewhat economical meals for her family.  This can be a time-consuming job, but there are books written solely on the art of cooking and the incredible ministry found in entertaining your family and friends through the hospitality of the kitchen.  Study it!  (Another word about the ministry of hospitality soon!)  Just in the area of health alone, America is experiencing an epidemic of illness, largely from consuming so much pre-packaged food, a choice usually necessary to maintain the over-booked lives we live.

• If the Lord has given her children, she pours herself into their training, nurturing and developing.  Another full time job almost by itself.  If not, there are a myriad of “mothering” and ministering opportunities sorely in need of a servant-minded woman.

• She helps her husband.  This varies widely from home to home.  But much like an administrative assistant, she can be a “crown to her husband” instead of forcing him to hire another woman for that role.  This is where “the heart of her husband safely trusts her” as she runs a household and “he has no lack of gain”.

• She studies to keep her marriage happy.  The dearth of happy marriages–of marriages at all–is staggering.  Good marriages don’t just happen.  If they aren’t tended, they’ll wilt.

• She studies to save money, to make her home a warm, inviting place, to treat minor illnesses, to repair things, to make things, to plant things, to be busy with her hands.  Books are written–there is no end to this art.

• She engages in meaningful conversation with her children.  An often underrated, but vitally important job in their education–homeschooled or not.

• She “reaches”.  (“She reaches her hand to the needy”. Proverbs 31)  Whether this be the meeting of a physical need for the poor, or a need of a fellow believer, needs abound.  Many needs could be met in the form of an encouraging card, phone call or visit.  It’s just a suggestion, but maybe Prozac has largely filled our lack of availability to hurting women.

• She earns money.  Home industries are easier than ever to begin.  Saving money and making money are doable activities for the SAHM.

• She mentors other moms.

• She takes care of extended family members.  Nursing homes are new.

And I shall close for now, because I have lots of things to do today   Help me, each one of you, where you are, resurrect the art of homemaking.  We need homes…they’re actually pretty rare.