I have an excerpt from a book entitled, "RECOVERING BIBLICAL MANHOOD AND WOMANHOOD A Response to Evangelical Feminism" Edited by John Piper and Wayne Grudem
HOLD ON you are in for a bumpy ride!
Too many women rush headlong into a career outside the home, determined to waste no time or effort on housework or baby-sitting but rather seeking to achieve position and means by directing all talents and energies toward non-home professional pursuits. It is true that many “perfect jobs” may come and go during the childrearing years, but only one will absolutely never come along again—the job of rearing your own children and allowing them the increasingly rare opportunity to grow up at home.
Golda Meir, by her own testimony, devoted her adult life to the birth and rearing of Israel at the cost of her marriage. She separated from her reticent husband in pursuit of public life. To quote Mrs. Meir, “what I was made it impossible for him to have the sort of wife he wanted and needed. . . . I had to decide which came first: my duty to my husband, my home and my child or the kind of life I myself really wanted. Not for the first time—and certainly not for the last—I realized that in a conflict between my duty and my innermost desires, it was my duty that had the prior claim.”30
How sad it is for a woman to try to build her life on the notion that she is going to pursue whatever momentarily happens to gratify her needs socially, emotionally, physically, or professionally. Though the duty of wifehood and motherhood may lay claim, the desires of personal ambition and success in public service can take hold, of which the Lord warned, but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire [epithumia,Greek], he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin [hamartia, Greek, literally “missing the mark”]; and sin, when it is full grown, gives birth to death. (James 1:14-15)
When a wife goes to work outside the home, often her husband and children go through culture shock. Suddenly the husband has added to his vocational work increased family assignments. He is frustrated over the increase in his own assignments and guilty over his wife’s increased fatigue and extended hours to keep up at home. God did give the husband the responsibility of providing for the family (Genesis 2:15). To sabotage his meeting that responsibility is often a debilitating blow to the man personally and to the marriage. A woman’s career can easily serve as a surrogate husband, as during employment hours she is ruled by her employer’s preferences. Because the wife loses much of her flexibility with the receipt of a paycheck, a husband must bend and adapt his schedule for emergencies with the children, visits to the home by repairmen, etc. This leaves two employers without totally committed employees and children without a primary caretaker utterly devoted to their personal needs and nurturing. Note the prophet’s warning, “Youths oppress my people, women rule over them. O my people, your guides lead you astray; they turn you from the path” (Isaiah 3:12).
Many women still see the paycheck as an inadequate trade for the sights and sounds and tastes of home. Though some see their paychecks as representing independence and achievement, to be bound to paychecks requires in exchange the time formerly allotted to work for the family in private, personal ways. This is not to say that there are never times when a woman should seek employment outside her home. Nevertheless, are we coming to a day when a woman’s employment outside the home is the rule rather than the exception, leaving no one to give primary attention to the home and to producing the next generation.
WOW! I told you that it was going to be bumpy! So what do we do, women? We are taught to go out and do, do, do....but the Bible teaches us something very different. Well, when I worked, we had more money coming in, but we additionally added more bills, because more is better! right? NO IT IS NOT. What God calls you to do is better. We do not have as much money coming in today, but we have what we need...we have never lost our home or went hungry, and I have always had the peace of God deep down inside through all of these storms. My husband is the provider for our family not me...I am glad. My responsibility and my JOY is at home raising our children. I can even homeschool them, thanks to our freedom in America...Women, we are free to do as we please. Right? I don't have to answer that one! Only you can!
In the above excerpt, I put in bold this statement: but only one will absolutely never come along again—the job of rearing your own children and allowing them the increasingly rare opportunity to grow up at home. The perfect job of rearing your own children and allowing them to grow up at home will never come along again when they are grown. Thank you God, for allowing me this extreme priviledge...Thank you so much God!
Now we need an ending, right? Here it is:
Homemaking, if pursued with energy, imagination, and skills, has as much challenge and opportunity, success and failure, growth and expansion, perks and incentives as any corporation, plus something no other position offers—working for people you love most and want to please the most!
In the words of Scripture, I have found a worthy challenge:
Teach them [God’s words] to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. . . so that your days and the days of your children may be many in the land that the Lord swore to give your forefathers, as many as the days that the heavens are above the
earth. (Deuteronomy 11:19, 21)
Homemaking—being a full-time wife and mother—is not a destructive drought of
usefulness but an overflowing oasis of opportunity; it is not a dreary cell to contain one’s talents and skills but a brilliant catalyst to channel creativity and energies into meaningful work; it is not a rope for binding one’s productivity in the marketplace, but reins for guiding one’s posterity in the home; it is not oppressive restraint of intellectual prowess for the community, but a release of wise instruction to your own household; it is not the bitter assignment of inferiority to your person, but the bright assurance of the ingenuity of
God’s plan for complementarity of the sexes, especially as worked out in God’s plan for marriage; it is neither limitation of gifts available nor stinginess in distributing the benefits of those gifts, but rather the multiplication of a mother’s legacy to the generations to come and the generous bestowal of all God meant a mother to give to those He entrusted to her care.
What do we want to leave behind for our children? I know what I am leaving behind for my children. I am talking with them, praying with them and learning from them...There is so much here..that it truly is an Oasis. It is like the Spirit in us that never runs dry and overflows.
I pray this little note helps you. I know it has helped me. Love you all, Leah
