Nancy Wilson's Blog, page 47

Advent Calendar Giveaway!

So if you need an awesome advent calendar, make sure to pop over to the Amoretti blog to enter for a giveaway!

Cultural Cliches

I was recently telling my husband how surprised I have been to realize how many young Christian college women are feeling at sea when it comes to understanding what it is they are doing. What is an education for? We used to view an education as preparation for life. Now it is viewed as preparation for a career.

My husband pointed out that there are no cultural cliches to reinforce the calling of the wife and mother at home. All the cultural cliches today are the savvy, sexy career woman, married or not. And it doesn't much matter how many sermons  women hear if they don't have any cultural reinforcement. They need to see the value and potency of the calling of wife and mother, and they are not going to find this in films, sit-coms, or magazines. Women have been successfully driven out of their homes in our culture, creating a vast vacuum in the soul of our country.

Whenever we address the importance of women  raising their children and building their homes, we have to qualify it left and right. If we don't, we will soon be barraged by "are you saying that women can never work outside the home" questions, and then we have to assure everyone that we know there are exceptions. But the cultural norm should be women who delight in their calling in building homes and families. No one else can do it. God says.

Our young women must be encouraged to view the biblical calling of women as a high calling indeed. And because so many women have abandoned their posts, Christian women can feel like total weirdos, having to explain themselves to strangers at the coffee shop or the grocery store on a daily basis. "Yes, these are ALL my children. And I love it!"

If young women get themselves a lucrative career, and then they marry a man who also has a lucrative career, it takes a woman of faith to drop her career outside the home in order to pursue a career of domesticity and motherhood inside the home. Most people will think she's nuts because of one reason: money. What is she thinking? She could be making money! Why would she give up the paycheck to stay home? What a waste!

God does everything the opposite way of what we think. At the end of the day, it's not prestige and a paycheck that rise up to call you blessed. Those things burn up. The things that last, the eternal things, have fat faces and messy hands.

Christian women must be counter-cultural and think like women of faith who take the Bible seriously and don't mind who knows it. The flesh is weak, but God gives more faith.  Cultural cliches come and go, but God's Word remains our standard and authority for life.

This means that Christian women must accept the fact that God has designed them for a set purpose. Eve was created because Adam needed a helper. He was no good without her. A man needs a woman to accomplish all God is calling him to do. She is his glory. She is his crown. There's no need to feel apologetic about being a crown and a glory. What an absurd idea!

So, young women, get yourself an education. Learn all you can because you're going to need it. You want to be one efficient, brilliant helper so this guy you married can get it done. He needs a home and he needs a family and you are the means God has appointed to bring this amazing thing about. What a delight and privilege our calling is.

Are there exceptions? Always. But there is also a norm. Don't be afraid of embracing the norm of God's design. It is good.

Worrying the Kids Away

We mothers are tempted in many ways, but one of those ways is to be worriers. What do we worry about? Oh, we are very imaginative! If we don't have any real situations on our hands, we can come up with all kinds of potential stuff to worry about.

Now, worry is bad for us. And it's bad for our kids. It's an uglifying sin (like all the rest of them). Worry is antithetical to biblical femininity. It is never pretty. It sucks the joy out of our lives, disturbs our peace, and  disrupts a gentle and quiet spirit.

How do you know if you are worrying? A worry always begins with "What if…?" And you cannot answer that kind of question. So don't ask it, don't listen to it, and don't get in a discussion over it. Ignore it and let it go find somewhere else to roost.

Worry is "loving concern" gone amok. It is unproductive, unhelpful, self-centered, and is one of the ways women can tear down their houses (see Proverbs 14:1). Worry may look like it is thinking of others, but that is a deception. Worry is really all about me. I want to be in charge of this situation, and I don't want to trust God to oversee it.  I want to talk about it all the time to everyone: Let me get out all my pet worries to play with.

Mothers can chase their kids away with worry. Who wants to be worried and fretted over? Kids don't. Adult kids don't. Worry makes them feel crowded. They will look for more space somewhere far away.

The way to help your kids is to quit worrying. Pray for them. Help them. Show them how. But don't worry over them.

If they are sick, take care of them. If they are hungry, feed them. If they are late, wait up for them. But don't worry. Jesus says that we may not. It doesn't help a bit. It only makes the waiting uncomfortable.

Some women worry over real issues: health issues or spiritual issues or money issues or marriage issues or wisdom issues. But other women worry over what might be an issue in ten years. This is called borrowing trouble. It's not pretty and it's not cute.

Trust is lovely. Peace is beautiful. Cast your cares on Him for He cares for you, and He cares for your kids. Don't worry over them. Pray over them. This will cause them to draw near. Worry sets them up to pull away.

When the Milkshake Runs Low.

When your day starts out with zebra footie pajamas paired tastefully with goggles, you know it is shaping up to be a good one. Poor picture quality is simply a result of the passion with which this moment was lived. We don't slow down for photos. We keep the zebra blood pumping around here.

Have you ever noticed that when there is more than one straw in a milkshake, everyone sucks faster?  Everyone knows they are competing, and every sip from someone else means less for you. People start breathing through their noses to minimize lost time.

I have felt for a long time that when you have little children, they have a straw that taps directly into your energy. The milkshake cup is me, and the milkshake is my energy, and every child is armed with a straw. Infants who are either in the womb or nursing have a competitive edge on this, and get to take as much as they want before it even hits the glass.

The thing is, when the glass is full, things are pretty pleasant. No matter how much milkshake the kids are drinking, there is still some left. It feels pretty good. I am happy to feed them all. But when you hit the last inch of milkshake, all the straws start making that horrible noise as they swab around in the bottom of the glass looking for anything they could snag. They all feel the panic of limited supply. They all start getting intense and sucking much, much harder. They are panicked. I am getting panicked. I want everyone to stop so I could have a chance to whip up a new batch.  No one stops, because  they are trying to get the last of the film off the glass, leaving nothing behind and all that.

The demands for your attention and energy get suddenly loud and obnoxious when you feel like there isn't anything left to give. The truth is, your children aren't demanding anything different than what they were made to need. Usually, when they use this straw, they get fed. Right now, when they use this straw, mom gets eggy.

Of course the ideal would be to never run out of milkshake. To come up with strategies for sensing when it is going to run low. To start noticing what time of day this seems to be happening and taking preventative measures. In a perfect world, we wouldn't even need to think about it, the milkshake would just replenish itself at intervals.

But this is the real world. The real, fallen, messy, difficult world. Every mother deals with having an empty glass and a bunch of straws. Almost every day. And while practice and training, and preventative measures might make things smoother, that doesn't mean it will make it easier. It is simply going to be hard work.

If you trained as a runner, you would get better and better at running the same race over time. You would speed up. Your form would be better. You would probably enjoy yourself more. But it wouldn't be easy. Professional athletes make what they do look easy. But if they are still pushing themselves, it is still hard.

I think it is common to have this mental ideal of what your days as a mother are supposed to be like. We think that if we were doing it right, then it wouldn't  be this hard. Of course there are a lot of ways to improve what we do, that make things easier. But it is like improving the form of a runner. They still have to run in order to use it. It still won't be easy. You can continue training to the point that you are no longer puking in the bushes and all red in the face by the end of the first block, but you aren't ever going to take the running out of the running.

I was recently talking to my husband about this whole problem. Why is there almost always a time in the day when I feel like my head may explode, or fall off, or something equally dramatic? He pointed out that the apostle Paul addressed this very issue when he said " therefore, since the race is so easy, and we aren't having any trouble as we try to finish it…."  Totally cracked me up. And it is true.

When we are at home with our children, this is our sanctification. This is the testing of our faith. And it is Christ's faithfulness that enables ours. It is our job to cast off sins, to be faithful. It is Christ's job to renew us. We need to be faithful, because He is faithful to us. We can trust him to fill our milkshakes, because His never runs low.

And just to set the record straight: "Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God."

The Crock-Pot Situation

I am pretty sure that you ladies have the solution to my trouble. My trouble is that I want to like cooking with a crock pot, but I don't. It seems so handy. But so far in my crock pot career, I find it uninspiring. Sometimes I throw in a roast that I plan to shred in order to make something else. Sometimes I put in some chicken and beans and taco seasoning to make burritos. But usually, I don't use it.

I have a couple of cookbooks that are slow cooker related, but if you have to sear the meat, caramelize the onions, and make a broth all before it hits the slow cooker, I think it has defeated the purpose. If I am going to do things like that, I use a dutch oven.

So, what do you make in the crock pot? Tell us about it! We need ideas!

Hot Tips

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So. Guess  what I just ordered for the home front. Vomit absorbing granules. Yes. Turns out that they make this stuff that neutralizes odor (!!!), and absorbs all fluids, enabling the vomit to be swept. I know what you are thinking. Swept? Disgusting! Of course it is, but not so bad as paper towels. Not so bad as rags that have to go in the laundry. Not so bad as vomit. Anyways, work with that info as you will. I just thought we should all know about this. You know, to be armed when the time comes.

Middle-Age Temptations

I love the analogy of seasons to describe our lives. The glories of Autumn are filling my windows with a breath-taking view right now, but in a few weeks the leaves will be gone. Middle-age is often compared to Autumn, and it has peculiar temptations like every other season of life. So I hope this little post, though targeting women who are in lower-middle, middle-middle, upper-middle or over-the-middle age, will get us thinking about some of the common bumps in the road, so we can steer clear. (Of course, women of all ages can be tempted in many of these same ways.)

These are common temptations, nothing new or tricky.

1. Over-sharing can be a sin. It's tempting to share more than we should. We may be looking for sympathy, but we have an obligation to love our children and our husbands, and we ought to maintain a nice hedge around our family and be loyal. Is it true? Is it kind? Is it necessary?

2. Forgetting is a sin. We should not forget what we are called to do! This is a high-impact time of our lives, and we are to continue to affect our family culture and church culture by being focused and faithful women. We should be a powerful force for good.

3. We can become self-absorbed. Because our children are grown, we may have more time and more money to spend on ourselves. This is not a bad thing in itself if we manage it properly. But we must be good stewards of our time and resources. Working out in the gym is fine. A pedicure is great. But we must not get too absorbed in ourselves, our weight, our looks. God has important business for us to be about.

4. Worry is a still a sin whether we are new mothers or grandmothers. We should not pick up new things to worry over, like our health or our retirement or our finances.

5. Complacency in our spiritual duties is a sin. We can't coast. We can't let worldliness seep in via movies, gossip, magazines, and talk shows. We cannot let the world press us into its mold. It never lets up, no matter how old we are.

6. Distraction and discouragement. We should not listen to ourselves and get down on ourselves. That is not the Holy Spirit, but the flesh. Knock it off! Change the subject!

7. Envy is always deadly. Now more than ever we must not become envious of our friends, their successes, their travels, their husbands, their children or grandchildren, or their possessions.

8. Here's a biggie: We cannot become fussers, wanting everything "just so" and becoming inflexible. We must open our hearts and our homes and surrender it all.

9. Discontent destroys our joy. The little things can add up. Our own hearts can lead us astray. Be content.

10. It is a sin to leave your post. To desert our homes to try and "find ourselves" is a fantasy. Stay on task. Don't give up. Admire godliness more than worldly approval. Determine not to have any "mid-life" lurches.

Here are a few counter-measures.

1. Respect your husband more than ever. He needs  it! He needs you! Obey him. In everything.

2. Continue to cultivate gratitude and loyalty.

3. Work hard. Don't slack off.

4. Don't be discouraged by these temptations. These are tests to prove our faith.

5. Don't give sin any inroads.

6. Let us number our days that we might apply our hearts to wisdom (Ps. 90:12).

8. Learn something new. Volunteer to help someone.

9. Find out if your husband needs your help in a new way. He might. Be willing.

10. Feed your people. It's simple. It takes loads of time. God likes it.

Fall Shopping at Canon Press

Now's the time to shop at Canon Press at their Fall Sale. I've never seen prices this low on some of my own stuff….I think I'll stock up! Some of the audio sets are priced at $1.50!   Loving the Little Years audio is, I kid you not, $1.87.  My book for unmarried women and Doug's dad's book on Bitterness are each going for three bucks! You can also pre-order  the CD set from the Femina Conference. And lots of other cool stuff. Go shop around!

Spiritual Fruit

Four years ago (or so?) I led a study for women I called Women, Marriage, and the Fruit of the Spirit. We spent a week on each fruit and looked for applications in marriage. (That gave us plenty of material to work with!) I am going through this study again with a new group of ladies, and after receiving a request for the notes, I realized that I posted each study up here on Femina back in 2007. You can find them all here, or if you would prefer, you can go over to the category bar yourself and click on Fruit of the Spirit. Just bear in mind that you'll have to go to the oldest posts to start at the beginning….and for some reason (and this is a real puzzle!) one of them has a name I do not know listed as the author of the post. (There's no accounting for it that I know of.  And I don't know how to fix it either!)

Christmas is coming….and how 'bout a new garbage can?

Just in case you haven't noticed Bekah's blog lately, she has some adorable Christmas labels for you to print out. Not to mention a silly story about her new stylin' garbage can and a commentary on British road cones.