For such a time as this

I have been struggling with Significance.  I capitalize the word as it has been so pervasively on my mind, as if it has become a dominant character in my life.  What is my significance as a human being?  Why am I here?  Do I matter?  Will I be remembered after I’m gone?

As a young woman I had ambition, dreams, plans.  I had a clear vision of my future and it involved success, prosperity, and acclaim.  I was an excellent promoter, handled the media with aplomb, and became an excellent speaker.  I was disciplined and well organized and could put together events and projects with ease.  Yadda yadda.

God had another plan for me, one that I had not been prepared for in my youth, and one that He revealed to me over many years.  Wife, Mother, Homemaker.  Surprisingly, these are the roles that bring me the greatest satisfaction and pleasure.  Still, I struggle.  Perhaps I fall into the world’s deceit that I must be more, I must be a success, I must compete in the world.  I think it is because I feel the blessing of many areas of giftedness, yet I don’t have time to pursue any of them with the intent of achieving excellence.

There is a growing movement to reclaim the honor of godly womanhood and all that includes – supportive and respectful wife, loving and instructive mother, capable homemaker.  It is encouraging beyond measure to know that, while we may be in the minority, we are strong in number.  I receive a bi-monthly newsletter called the New Harvest Homestead that focuses on these very issues and participate in ongoing discussions with a like-minded group of godly women.  Earlier I read on Girl Talk a wonderful quote by respected British author G.K. Chesterton:

The woman is expected to cook: not to excel in cooking, but to cook; to cook better than her husband who is earning [a living] by lecturing on botany or breaking stones….the woman is expected to tell tales to the children, not original and artistic tales, but tales–better tales than would probably be told by a first-class cook.

But she cannot be expected to endure anything like this universal duty if she is also to endure the direct cruelty of competitive or bureaucratic toil. Woman must be a cook, but not a competitive cook; a school mistress, but not a competitive schoolmistress; a house-decorator but not a competitive house-decorator; a dressmaker, but not a competitive dressmaker. She should have not one trade but twenty hobbies; she, unlike the man, may develop all her second bests.

This is what has been really aimed at from the first in what is called the seclusion, or even the oppression, of women. Women were not kept at home in order to keep them narrow; on the contrary, they were kept at home in order to keep them broad”

I made 3B soup last night – Buffalo, Beans, and Barley.  My husband and daughter raved about it.  I’m a very good cook, I make everything from scratch and I routinely make three meals every day.  But I’m no chef.  I’m a capable office manager – I have skills in organization, bookkeeping, communication.  But my desk is piled high because of too much time doing other things.  I am a skilled seamstress and can mend many things and create beautiful quilts.  But I struggle with sleeves and collars, and it takes me a year to make a single quilt because of the little time I have to devote to it.  I am an artist, but only an amateur as I spend little time perfecting my craft.

I am a gardener.  In fact I’m a certified Master Gardener.  I teach others how to be successful in their gardening ventures and I’m going to Oregon State University this week for classes to learn more about gardening, yet my melons are struggling and the slugs get to my strawberries before I do. 

There are many things that I am good at, but not many at which I am great.  I desire greatness and perhaps that is the source of my struggle.

So what is my significance?  My husband is convinced he’ll starve while I’m away for a week!  He loves me, depends on me, seeks my input and ideas, and my help.  My daughter has seen in me something worth emulating.  Her deep desire in life is to be a godly wife and mom, to educate her children, to make a peaceful and pleasant home.  To them, I matter.  I know they at least will remember me when I’m gone.

For this season at least, my reason for being is to love and serve my family.  That’s why I get out of bed each day.  There is no higher or greater calling.

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Below is a list of books that address this issue of the roles of godly womanhood.  For those of us who may need encouragement and inspiration…

“The High Calling of Wife and Mother in Biblical Perspective” by Dorothy Patterson is a chapter in Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood and a great place to begin for single and married women.

Edith Schaeffer’s classic The Hidden Art of Homemaking is both beautiful and inspiring.

Anything by Elisabeth Elliot is going to encourage a woman in the home, but her memoir, The Shaping of a Christian Family, will give you a vision for the fruit a godly home can produce by the grace of God.

In Becoming a Woman Who Pleases God Pat Ennis and Lisa Tatlock (a single woman and a married woman, by the way) cover both a biblical perspective and practical help for homemakers (it even includes a budget form and meal plans!).

Susan Hunt devotes a chapter of her book, The True Woman, to “Domesticity.”

Married women will learn right along with the single women in Carolyn McCulley’s Did I Kiss Marriage Goodbye? Part three of her book, “Finding a Guide For Daily Life in the Proverbs 31 Woman” shows how to make the home a place of mission and hospitality.

In Girl Talk: Mother-Daughter Conversations on Biblical Womanhood we devoted two chapters to a young woman’s training as a homemaker.

And finally, last, but certainly not least, my personal favorite is still chapter six of Feminine Appeal: “The Honor of Working at Home”