Okay so this isn't the kind of post I usually write, but this was too funny not to share. It took us a minute to see what they were doing but we spend a good 15 minutes laughing at the crazy pictures and captions. I don't think I have laughed that hard in years! So if you need to laugh, check out this website, it's quite a riot! (There are several pages of them so you'll have to keep going to see them all. Oh, and thanks to Generation Cedar for passing this along!)
Catalog Living
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Friday, July 23, 2010
Words of Inspiration
As I mentioned before, I am reading through The Shaping of the Christian Family by Elisabeth Elliot and today I came across this inspiring quote we go about our work, which can seem so worthless sometimes;
"In this little time does it matter,
As we work, and we watch, and we wait,
If we're filling the place He assigns us,
Be it labor small or great?"
After searching for it online, I found the text of the rest of the hymn. You can read it in full here.
Blessings to you all!
"In this little time does it matter,
As we work, and we watch, and we wait,
If we're filling the place He assigns us,
Be it labor small or great?"
After searching for it online, I found the text of the rest of the hymn. You can read it in full here.
Blessings to you all!
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
The Limitations of Womanhood
Today I have been reading Feminine by Design by Scott Brown. He breaks down Biblical femininity into 12 pillars. Pillar #6 is being a helpmeet. He makes the comment that being a woman has limitations. There are things as a Godly woman that we can't do, if we are committed to following God's ways. He also mentions that "by limiting the scope of [our] work, [we] are freed up to have a powerful focus." (pg. 46)
As I pondered this, I think it is true in two ways.First we are able, by narrowing our realm of operation, to really focus on the things we should be doing as women; meaning that we can take the time to become "experts" on specific areas within our homes that we are not able to do if we make our focus too broad. If we are spending our time trying to "have it all" we cannot take the time to become proficient in the areas of our homes where we need to be excelling. We can fudge it so that things keep running but we will never achieve the level of success that God has planned for us. And we will be greatly frustrated by our lack of proficiency.
The second way this is true is that we are not supposed to be "expert" in ALL areas of the home. Our giftings are given by God to complete our own husbands. And as different as we as women are, so are the men God has made us to serve. God knows the man He has created you to complete and He has uniquely gifted you to be strong where your husband will need it most. For example, in my home, my husband is very gifted with handling money and I am not. There we are a perfect match. But I can serve him within that realm by taking our food budget and making the most of it, something that he has no idea how to do. So the training that my budget-minded mom gave me was a blessing to my husband from the Lord. God knew that he wouldn't not do well planning meals or grocery shopping without my help. Some husbands may do fine here but that is my point. Each husband has areas where he is weaker and needs his wife's help to accomplish the family goals. That is why God creates each woman with one man in mind. He knows the weaknesses of each and makes them to complement each other. No man can do it all alone. Adam was not good all by himself and that is why God gave him Eve. My husband was not complete all by himself and that's why God gave him me. I would not complete another man. I complement and complete my husband.
Now, there may be areas where your husband is incomplete and you feel insufficient to complete him. This could be an area where God is looking to grow your husband, where He can mold him into the man He wants him to be. For example, we know from scripture that the man is to be the leader of his home, so if he is struggling with leading, you can know that that is an area where God is growing him. But there are areas where we need to do the growing ourselves. If you are unsure about what area you are facing, ask Him to show you. Read His word. "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him." James 1:5
Let us strive to complete the husbands that God has given us and bless not just them, but the body of Christ and the world as well. Let us be those cities on a hill that God wants us to be!
As I pondered this, I think it is true in two ways.First we are able, by narrowing our realm of operation, to really focus on the things we should be doing as women; meaning that we can take the time to become "experts" on specific areas within our homes that we are not able to do if we make our focus too broad. If we are spending our time trying to "have it all" we cannot take the time to become proficient in the areas of our homes where we need to be excelling. We can fudge it so that things keep running but we will never achieve the level of success that God has planned for us. And we will be greatly frustrated by our lack of proficiency.
The second way this is true is that we are not supposed to be "expert" in ALL areas of the home. Our giftings are given by God to complete our own husbands. And as different as we as women are, so are the men God has made us to serve. God knows the man He has created you to complete and He has uniquely gifted you to be strong where your husband will need it most. For example, in my home, my husband is very gifted with handling money and I am not. There we are a perfect match. But I can serve him within that realm by taking our food budget and making the most of it, something that he has no idea how to do. So the training that my budget-minded mom gave me was a blessing to my husband from the Lord. God knew that he wouldn't not do well planning meals or grocery shopping without my help. Some husbands may do fine here but that is my point. Each husband has areas where he is weaker and needs his wife's help to accomplish the family goals. That is why God creates each woman with one man in mind. He knows the weaknesses of each and makes them to complement each other. No man can do it all alone. Adam was not good all by himself and that is why God gave him Eve. My husband was not complete all by himself and that's why God gave him me. I would not complete another man. I complement and complete my husband.
Now, there may be areas where your husband is incomplete and you feel insufficient to complete him. This could be an area where God is looking to grow your husband, where He can mold him into the man He wants him to be. For example, we know from scripture that the man is to be the leader of his home, so if he is struggling with leading, you can know that that is an area where God is growing him. But there are areas where we need to do the growing ourselves. If you are unsure about what area you are facing, ask Him to show you. Read His word. "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him." James 1:5
Let us strive to complete the husbands that God has given us and bless not just them, but the body of Christ and the world as well. Let us be those cities on a hill that God wants us to be!
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Another Giveaway!
I have been on a mission to get my grocery budget under control while not sacrificing the quality of the food we eat. I want to eat and feed my family the healthiest food we can buy without breaking the bank. That's why I was so excited to read about the giveaway going on at Natural on a Budget. Lorrie is taking entries to win a copy of Stephanie at Keeper of the Home's new ebook, Real Food On a Real Budget How to Eat Healthy For Less. Pop on over to Lorrie's blog and enter for a chance to win the book yourself! :D
Friday, July 2, 2010
Contentment for the Homemaker
I had something of a personal victory this week. I finally finished reading Passionate Housewives Desperate for God. I bought the book not long after my husband and I got married, and while it is not a hard book to read, I just haven't been able to get through it. Tonight I finally finished and I wanted to share a quote that I found in it along with some thoughts.
The quote is from a letter written by Elizabeth Cady Stanton to Susan B. Anthony regarding her feelings about her life as a housewife.
"I pace up and down these two chambers of mine like a caged lion, longing to bring to a close childrearing and housekeeping cares. I have other work at hand...Oh how I long for a few hours of leisure each day. How rebellious it makes me feel when I see Henry going about where and how he pleases. He can walk at will through the whole wide world or shut himself up alone, if he pleases, within four walls. As I contrast his freedom with my bondage, and feel that because of the false position of women I have been compelled to hold all my noblest aspirations in abeyance in order to be a wife, a mother, a nurse, a cook, a household drudge, I am fired anew and long to pour fourth from my own experience the whole long story of women's wrongs." (Passionate Housewives, pg. 132)
I was thinking just how often we as women look at what our husbands do when they come home from work and we begin to envy them their "freedom". It is easy to think that because our work is of such a nature where we do burst of work through out the day, going from task to task usually with a few moments here and there to stop and read or to catch up on Facebook or email, that our husband should have to follow the same kind of schedule. But while our work may take longer, on an hourly account basis, theirs is the more intensive, packed into a small time sort of work. They do not, for the most part get to take little breaks during the day and certainly they do not get to enjoy the peace of being at home, so they need that time at the end of the day to rest. What we don't see when we are comparing our work to theirs, which is something so detrimental to our contentment at home, is the stress of being in a foreign environment for hours at a time; often berated and belittle for all kinds of things, no comforting hugs or kind words to cheer their day, no sweet moments between children to encourage them to keep going. We have so many things to keep us going emotionally, and while men may not need the same kind of emotional encouragement we do, we need to realize that we may not need the same kind of mental rest that they do. It is a scary thing to begin to compare our roles and situations with others who have very different callings to fulfill. God has given us all a job to do and we should be focusing on the task given to us and learn to do it with a cheer spirit and joyful heart, instead of becoming discouraged and disillusioned with the task God appointed for us.
Resist the very human urge to compare your work with others and focus on serving where ever God has placed you. You will be blessed to find yourself relieved of the stress of wanting what is not yours.
The quote is from a letter written by Elizabeth Cady Stanton to Susan B. Anthony regarding her feelings about her life as a housewife.
"I pace up and down these two chambers of mine like a caged lion, longing to bring to a close childrearing and housekeeping cares. I have other work at hand...Oh how I long for a few hours of leisure each day. How rebellious it makes me feel when I see Henry going about where and how he pleases. He can walk at will through the whole wide world or shut himself up alone, if he pleases, within four walls. As I contrast his freedom with my bondage, and feel that because of the false position of women I have been compelled to hold all my noblest aspirations in abeyance in order to be a wife, a mother, a nurse, a cook, a household drudge, I am fired anew and long to pour fourth from my own experience the whole long story of women's wrongs." (Passionate Housewives, pg. 132)
I was thinking just how often we as women look at what our husbands do when they come home from work and we begin to envy them their "freedom". It is easy to think that because our work is of such a nature where we do burst of work through out the day, going from task to task usually with a few moments here and there to stop and read or to catch up on Facebook or email, that our husband should have to follow the same kind of schedule. But while our work may take longer, on an hourly account basis, theirs is the more intensive, packed into a small time sort of work. They do not, for the most part get to take little breaks during the day and certainly they do not get to enjoy the peace of being at home, so they need that time at the end of the day to rest. What we don't see when we are comparing our work to theirs, which is something so detrimental to our contentment at home, is the stress of being in a foreign environment for hours at a time; often berated and belittle for all kinds of things, no comforting hugs or kind words to cheer their day, no sweet moments between children to encourage them to keep going. We have so many things to keep us going emotionally, and while men may not need the same kind of emotional encouragement we do, we need to realize that we may not need the same kind of mental rest that they do. It is a scary thing to begin to compare our roles and situations with others who have very different callings to fulfill. God has given us all a job to do and we should be focusing on the task given to us and learn to do it with a cheer spirit and joyful heart, instead of becoming discouraged and disillusioned with the task God appointed for us.
Resist the very human urge to compare your work with others and focus on serving where ever God has placed you. You will be blessed to find yourself relieved of the stress of wanting what is not yours.
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