I think we kinda get off the mark sometimes with our homemaking. I know I do. Then I get discouraged and think, "Well, I goofed again" and then I don't want to get back up. I think, "What's the use? I will never show a pattern of good works, as I keep falling."
Well, sometimes the Lord calls ya out of your homemaking for a time, and then ya just stay out there. Like duh? We don't go back in. Well, we must be normally into our homemaking ... day to day, I mean ... and if the Lord calls us out for a time, we shouldn't make a religion out of it. Just get back with the program.
I read a story once about this dear mother of many children and a dear husband. It was during the Depression era and most people were very poor and couldn't afford a doctor. Mother had a gift of doctoring, and she kept her family well with her gift. But then there was a flu epidemic. The neighbors began calling for her to come and help. Her famiy knew that she was gifted but hated to see her go out in the night and away from them. But she was faithful and wouldn't turn anyone down. But then, as soon as her job was done, she was back to her famiy, ministering to them again. She showed a pattern of good works as a stay at home Mother. Years later, her family needed things, as they were poor too. A package came in the mail for their family. It was clothes for her children and material to make things with. No one knew where the package came from ... no return address. But everyone knew it was a payment to the Mother for saving someone's life during the flu epidemic.
This mother was faithful -- she was a faithful mother and wife and neighbor. She was a keeper at home and her husband trusted in her. He knew that her heart was home, and he was at peace as she ministered to others. The children were at peace as they, too, had compassion for others. Mother had a servant's heart. She loved the Lord and couldn't stand aloof as His sheep suffered. She knew how to wash the saints' feet and yet, she was a keeper at home and her mainstay was husband and children.
It takes a wise and strong woman to burn both ends of the candle this way. It takes a wise and discerning mother to be trusted like this, to minister to the sick and maintain harmony at home at the same time.
The virtuous woman could do this. She could reach out her hands to the poor and yet look well to her household at the same time.
And mother Connie is learning how to do this and don't have it straight yet. I either go one way or the other and, often, Papa's blood pressure then goes one way and another, too. I am not spiritually strong enough yet to maintain my walk. I will get it, though, as the Lord leads me along. As I go from here to there, Papa chases me in his heart, wondering when supper will be ready, and duty calls me back to reality and my place as wife and mother and keeper of my home.
And I try to teach you all to be at home and be lovers of the family's soul. I don't seek to teach you to be selfish and just serve your own. But I long to teach you to be faithful, and we learn to be faithful first as we forgive our husbands seventy times seven. And we keep our hearts clean and in love with our babies. And then God gives ya extra to give it out to the saints still under the heading as keepers at home. You learned to be faithful at home and now you become powerful to reach out to those who are suffering.
But, ya know, a woman who is faithful is faithful in all things. If she is a faithful mother, she will be a faithful wife and neighbor. Yet, she has a discerning spirit and she gives first to her own children, and she stays under the authority of God as she stays under her husbands authority. This woman is a soldier, a servant of Christ. She is an obedient servant. She goes when He says, "Go" and stays home when He says, "Stay Home." She doesn't run out of the house for the almighty $ but with compassion and love.
