A few months ago I was having a conversation with a total stranger. When she discovered what Michael did for a living, she said “oh gosh, isn’t it awful being a pastor’s wife?”. She said one of her relatives was a pastor, and she felt it was one of the worst jobs possible.
As we’ve read and heard so much about abortion lately, something that continues to be emphasized is the selfishness of the pro-choice advocates. The arguments are compelling; to end another life for our own convenience is selfish, I agree.
But what if our pro-choice friends aren’t the only selfish ones?
I know it’s difficult to recognize selfishness in ourselves. We’d rather recognize it in someone else!
But just think…if we really, truly cared that much about all of those babies, wouldn’t more of us be adopting?
I’ve been going through drawers and boxes this week, trying to make more space in this little house. The things I’ve come across have brought up many memories. It’s hard to believe how fast life goes by.
While going through a drawer this morning, I realized something. One of my favorite things about Michael is the fact that he never gives up on me.
Sometimes just thinking of what we should teach our children about God can seem overwhelming. Our duty feels so daunting, we may want to look the other way. We might not realize the opportunity we have, and how quickly it slips away.
“Take a small child on your knee. Respect him. Do not see him as something to prune, form or mold. This is an individual who thinks, acts, and feels. He is a separate human being, whose strength lies in who he is, not in who he will become…look well at the child on your knee. In whatever condition you find him, look with reverence. We can only love and serve him and be his friend. We cannot own him. He is not ours.”
– Susan Schaeffer Macaulay, For the Children’s Sake
This is one of my all time favorite quotes. “We cannot own him. He is not ours…”
Since I’ve read the whole book (quoted above), I know that she doesn’t expect us to check our duty as parents at the door, and let the child do as he pleases.
Contrary to popular parenting strategies, letting children do whatever they please is not the way to treat children as people.
There is a tension here!
“The only hope that a man will ever change is for you to not try to change him.”
-Andelin
The number one question I am asked by frustrated wives is:
How can I change my husband?
That’s what we’re all dying to know, right?
Was there ever a question that has caused more damage?
I realize that many of us have difficult circumstances, and that it truly is hard to fulfill some of our responsibilities. We get tired and should take a break so we are refreshed to get back up to care for those God has called us to serve. But sometimes that sneaky little thought creeps into our mind and throws everything off balance…
“What about me? Who will care for me and serve me?”
I’m not sure there is a faster way to give ourselves a bad day than to ask that question.
Wasn’t that a form of the question Satan asked when he rebelled against God?
Beware of any belief that makes you self-indulgent; it came from the pit, no matter how beautiful it sounds.
– Oswald Chambers
It’s an insidious question that sinks into our hearts and souls. Like Peter in the Bible, we quit looking at Christ and begin to sink into the waves. In this case, our waves are self-pity.
Sometimes we refuse to do the things that give us peace and relief from our burdens. Even simple things like reading our Bibles, getting to bed at a reasonable time, accepting that break our husband offers us, or making time to get outside for a walk. We refuse to do these things and then we begin to blame our exhaustion on the people who love us most.
Does this make sense? (No.)
We ask ourselves (and maybe whine to our friends) why no one cares about us, why our kids won’t leave us alone for just “one minute”, why we can’t have “me time”, or why our husband would dare to have any needs at all. I think the common phrase is “he’s a big boy, he can take care of himself…doesn’t he know how tired I am?”. How demeaning. That is of course what we would want him to say about us and our needs…right?
No one enjoys spending time with a martyr. Even those of us who behave like one would rather not spend time with one…
Husbands are not really attracted to martyrs. They don’t think it’s cute.
Children are uncomfortable in the presence of martyr mothers.
Once I remember venting my frustration to my mother-in-law about the a small amount of time I had to myself each day. She asked how much time I could usually count on. When I told her it was only about 45 minutes, she tactfully said “oh, that’s probably enough”. I can still remember thinking to myself that there was no way that was enough time to myself! NO WAY! But I kept thinking about what she said. And I have come to realize that yes, I can do a lot of regrouping in 45 minutes!
Conventional wisdom says that we should look out for ourselves, take care of ourselves, that we deserve “me time”. (I do think we should plan times into our day to refresh ourselves for our responsibilities, but not to the detriment of our families, and we certainly shouldn’t put it on them to make us take care of ourselves.)
The Bible tells us that the wisdom of God is foolishness to the world. His ways are not our ways, and certainly not what comes naturally. We have to battle with sin and selfishness. We must serve others continuously if we want to be great in God’s kingdom.
Self pity is one of the most reprehensible sins of the human heart. ”
– A. W. Tozer
I asked myself the “What about me” question last week. I was going along, enjoying my kids, having a good day, when something caught my attention. I was tired, and not thinking about “taking every thought captive”. I crashed into the dark “what about me”, and suddenly life wasn’t so great anymore. Everyone in my home suffered for my sin, because I am not the wife and mother I should be when I am living in self-pity.
God is so patient with us. He continues to give us grace. Thankfully, His mercies are new every morning.
[A way to guard] ourselves from this evil possession (self-pity) is to think about others. Be quick to discern their pains and sufferings, and be ready to bring help. We cannot be absorbed in thinking of two things at the same time, and if our minds are occupied with others, far and near, at home and abroad, we shall have neither time nor inclination to be sorry for ourselves.
– Charlotte Mason, Ourselves
Before we leave the topic of working hard for our families, I have to give you the trick to keeping things going.
It’s all good to talk about work, but actually doing some every day…can be painful.
I know you’re all hoping my trick makes work easy. In a way, it does. But only because it takes out the drama/trauma of decision making.
…the effort of decision is the most exhausting effort of life.
-Charlotte Mason
Such an absolute statement! But it’s so true in my life. Decision is half the battle in most of the things I do.
Later she says it’s not all of those things we have to do that exhaust us so much, it’s the “making up of one’s mind as to which thing to do first” (or if we are going to do it at all…).
Each of us has in [our] possession an exceedingly good servant or a very bad master, known as Habit.
-Charlotte Mason, Ourselves
Habits. They’re your ace in the hole. When put to good use (as your servant), they can save the day!
It is pleasant to know that even in mature life, it is possible by a little persistent effort to acquire a desirable habit. [A habit] falls in with our natural love of an easy life.
-Charlotte Mason, Home Education
She says that we are willing to work hard at first when we are promised that a habit will get easier as time goes on.
The beauty of a habit is that after a certain amount of time, we just naturally “do the next thing” if we are giving our attention to what needs to be done.
But where is the joy? Well, I think the joy is in the triumph of making yourself do the thing you know you ought to do. And doing it well.
This power of making oneself work is a fine thing. Every effort makes the next easier.
-Charlotte Mason, Ourselves
Charlotte reminds us to form a habit of distinguishing what must be done at once from what may be done. Then, once we form the habit of singling out the important things and doing them first, we have saved ourselves and others a lot of annoyance and have gained what she calls “integrity in our work”.
Integrity (in our work) makes for [joyfulness], because the person who is honest about his work has time to play, and is not secretly vexed by the remembrance of things left undone or ill done.
-Charlotte Mason, Ourselves
Sometimes we need a little inspiration to think how this might look in “real” life. So of course it makes sense that I would quote some fiction…
Polly was tough as a pit pony, and a wonderful worker. But she did not find drudgery monotonous, and she was possibly the happiest person in the city…
…her face was flushed and beaming and instantly the atmosphere of the cold stuffy room was subtly changed because she was happy. Polly’s chief joy in life was feeding people.
-Elizabeth Goudge, The Dean’s Watch
And there you have it… “she didn’t find drudgery monotonous, and she was possibly the happiest person in the city”.
The title to this post may have been a little misleading…I decided to tell you what I read last year, but then shortened it to the best of what I read last year. This list of course didn’t include my regular reading, The Bible, and many other books for schooling. There is only so much time to list my favorite books!
In my opinion, these books are so good, they each deserve a blog post.
This is not really in order, although if you only read one of these, read this one:
The Practice of the Presence of God
God knows best what we need. All that He does is for our good. If we knew how much He loves us, we would always be ready to receive both the bitter and the sweet from His hand. It would make no difference. All that came from Him would be pleasing.
-Brother Lawrence
Out of My Heart by Agnes Sligh Turnbull. How can you not love a book that has chapters titled “The Triumph of Acceptance”, or “The Duty of Happiness”…I loved it. But, disclaimer, I didn’t agree with every single thing she said, and you might not either.
Next up, Hannah Fowler. This was an incredible book. I heard about it here.
The Dean’s Watch was worth getting through a bit of a slow start. This author is the reason I started underlining fiction. It was that good!
We listened to The Great Divorce on our drive this Christmas. Thought provoking, great conversations with the kids. On the way home we listened to A Horse and His Boy. C.S. Lewis sets a pretty high standard for audio books in our opinion. Another plus is that we all got home thinking in an English accent.
The Wife Desired. If you are a wife, you will want to read this book. It’s written by a Catholic Priest who served on the Chicago divorce courts for years. This is a very unimpressive book on amazon, and I only heard about it from another blog. But it is so good, that it’s one of my revolving marriage books. So when I get to the end of it, I just start over at the beginning. Because I’ve likely forgotten what he said I was suppose to be doing by then anyway. And yes, I was just flipping through it, and I have indeed already forgotten what he said I should be doing…
Every now and then I tell you what we’re reading in school. I usually mix it up a little in December, and we all enjoy the change. We still do most of our normal studies, but adding some different reading at Christmas is fun. Because I say it’s fun.
This year we learned Christina Rossetti’s poem “In the Bleak Midwinter”. The last verse seems to be the most recognized, but this verse was my personal favorite:
Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him
Nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away
When He comes to reign:
In the bleak mid-winter
A stable-place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty,
Jesus Christ.
This poem was also made into a Christmas carol. It’s pretty slow, but we’ll just call that peaceful. We can all use a little of that right about now.
This year we read I Saw Three Ships by Elizabeth Goudge. Incidentally, this is also a Christmas carol. Look out, it’s the sort of song that gets stuck in your head. For days.
Since I’ve really been enjoying Elizabeth Goudge lately, I thought her little Christmas book would be a good pick. Unfortunately, no. It wasn’t awful, just not what I have come to expect from that author.
The very best part of the book was the incessant use of the name “Dorcas”, which apparently my boys had never heard, so it reminded them of “Dork”. Most of the time reading the book produced massive giggling fits, so it wasn’t a total fail…
My apologies to anyone named Dorcas who might be reading this. And yes, they have been educated on this name and the fact that it appears in the Bible. Doesn’t help. Still hilarious.
And next, The Christmas Carol. I have never read this book, so it has been quite a surprise to me to find such thought-provoking things in here. Like this quote where Scrooge is talking about his old boss, Fezziwig.
He has the power to render us happy or unhappy; to make our service light or burdensome; a pleasure or a toil. Say that his power lies in words and looks; in things so slight and insignificant that it is impossible to add and count ’em up: what then? The happiness he gives, is quite as great as if it cost a fortune.
-Dickens, A Christmas Carol
Naturally, I think of that from the view point of a mother. I think it applies nicely to our relationship with our families.
And this one I liked, just because it’s so true:
It is always the person not in the predicament who knows what ought to have been done in it, and would unquestionably have done it too…
-Dickens
Next up, we are finishing a really sweet book (actually sweet, not like “Cool” sweet), The Tanglewoods Secret by Patricia St. John. This is our second book by this incredible author. Treasures of the Snow is much more well known than this one. Both have stunned me with the simplicity and truth of the gospel, and how well she communicates it to children.
Another way St. John impresses me is how she is able to show the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of a child. If any of you are looking for books that walk your child through the gospel, and the life-changing work of the Spirit, these are your books.
And lastly…I know, just when you thought I’d talk forever.
We are studying the work of Jean Francois Millet. I heard about him this fall and did quite a bit of study myself before introducing his art to the kids. Turns out, that’s a much better way to do art study. When I actually know the back story on the artist and his work, things go along a little more smoothly. I am hardly ever disappointed with what my kids get out of studying an artist’s work, but I have to say, this artist exceeded my expectations. I have spent some very happy hours learning about this man and his art.
Here is one of my favorites.
Farmyard in Winter
The Dutch Rush 