Anti-Senioritis Prescription

Observe the average highschool graduating female. Her life is not a simple one. Twelve months ago, she was a carefree junior. Now with graduation looming on her horizon, she's trying to finish her studies and highschool commitments with the same amount of enthusiasm as when she started. Geometry, Government and Geography.... she tries to grin and bear it. On top of her studies, she's fighting to stay immune from senioritis.

Senioritis is one of those rampant diseases ignored by the World Health Organization. Victims' symptoms include apathy, lack of ambition or vision, and an acute desire for entertainment rather than hard work. The average highschool graduating female is prime for contracting this disease.

Then calculate the holiday season into the picture. The aftermath of Thanksgiving includes more than excessive tryptophan. Graduating females also must grapple with post-holiday stress caused by well-meaning questioners about her future: "Do you have any plans for college?" "Have you decided on a major?" "Are you going to get a job?" "Are you going to live at home?" "When are you going to start dating?" "Do you have a special someone?" This seventeen, eighteen or nineteen year old female is now expected to come up with answers to these life-altering questions.

What's a girl to do?

While we don't know exactly what questions you may be facing, here's some wisdom we've gleaned that we hope will help you out:



Decision-Making

Carole Mayhall, in her book, Come Walk With Me, is writing specifically to women who are pondering whether to work outside the home. However, her advice on decision-making can be applied to a plethora of situations:

"May I (gently) suggest that when a wife and mother--one who is serious about obeying God--asks, 'Should I work outside the home?' she is asking the wrong question. The first question a woman should ask is not, 'Do we need the money?' Neither is it, 'Can I pursue a career at the same time as being a homemaker?' nor, 'Will it be fulfilling and something I want to do?' Often if the answer is yes to these questions, she plunges ahead. Instead, she should ask, 'Is this God's will for my life?'
You may be thinking, but doesn't God lead through circumstances? Sometimes, but not always or primarily. God leads mainly through His Word (Psalm 119:105), through peace of heart (Philippians 4:6-7), and through the counsel of other people (Proverbs 15:22). If circumstances line up with the direction you get from these three primary channels, then they're an added bonus and may help you be assured of what God's will really is."

And what about our feelings? How much should we depend on our emotions to guide our choices? Nancy Leigh DeMoss wrote in Lies Women Believe,

"The Truth is that, due to our fallen condition, our feelings often have very little to do with reality. In many instances, feelings are simply not a reliable gauge of what is actually true. When we allow them to be tied to our circumstances--which are constantly changing--rather than the unchangeable realities of God and His Truth, our emotions are prone to fluctuate wildly... If we want to walk in freedom, we must realize that our emotions are not necessarily trustworthy and be willing to reject any feelings that are not consistent with the Truth."

What About My Dreams?

Everybody has dreams for the future. The world tells us to "dream big" and chase after what we want until it becomes ours. However, the danger with dreams is that they're often "me-centered;" they tend to revolve around me wanting to "become great" and not God's glory. Pride grows in dreams like mold on old cheese.
In response to dreams, think about C.J. Mahaney's thoughts on pride from is book, Humility:

"[Jesus said,] 'But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all.' (vv.43-44).
We always want to pay careful attention when that word must appears in Scripture. 'Must' points us to something that's required, something that's indispensable. 'You want to be great?' Jesus is saying. 'Well, here's what has to happen. What's required is that you become a servant to others; it means nothing less than becoming the slave of everyone.' .... A profound and historic reversal is taking place here--one that has to occur in each of our lives if we're to have any possibility of becoming truly great in God's eyes.... [We become truly great by] serving others for the glory of God."

God-honoring dreams for the future stem from a heart solely focused on serving others and spreading God's fame.

Have you received wisdom from godly counselors about decision-making, or have you found any Scripture passages to be particularly helpful in this area? Please share it with us!

Motherhood by Degrees

I recently came across an archived article by Tim Bayly: Marriage, student debt, and motherhood. He recounts the story of his personal friend, Mrs. Cuffey, who gave up a prestigious graduate degree from Harvard to stay home to support her husband and raise her children. Mr. Bayly asks,

Was this a waste of good intellectual talent? Would those children have been better off—even intellectually—had Mrs. Cuffey completed her graduate work and been awarded the terminal degree?

If we teach our daughters the high calling of motherhood and they take that calling on as their own, it will often lead them to make decisions similar to the one Mrs. Cuffey made. In such cases, certainly their own parents, but also the people of God, must be prepared to provide them fulsome support for any steps they take to decrease, that their husbands and children may increase, especially when those decisions close doors behind which lie prestigious honors and large financial rewards.

Mr. Bayly also shares a quote from Dorothy Patterson's book, Where's mom: The High Calling of Wife and Mother in Biblical Perspective:

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…. Homemaking—being a full-time wife and mother—is not oppressive restraint of intellectual prowess for the community, but a release of wise instruction to your own household; it is …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 entrusted to her care.

This is quite a long article that not only covers this topic, but many other related to the choice between college and motherhood. Take peek and come back here to let us know what you think.

(Hat tip: Icky at The Homeschooling Revolution)

Update: Here's an encouraging article on the historical importance of homeschooling mothers from John Glenn Reynolds.

Homeward Bound

There has been much discussion over at my personal blog (Spunky Jr) about the "Let's Talk" post here at Beauty from the Heart. One commentor, Wild Child, has posted an interesting article titled "Can Femininity Become An Idol?" which I would like to examine.

The title of Wild Child's post is really what caught my eye. He/she says (emphasis added),

"What happens when these young women, who are so obviously brainwashed by each other, (check some of their blogs, they uphold each others right to ignorance and the use of mops...(fearlessly feminine, spunkyjunior, feminine beauty, and unconformed) really do grow up and become adults? In Christian churches where the single male ratio is 1 man to 5 single women, what in the world are they going to do with themselves if they never marry? They take a stand saying that they will stay at home and serve their fathers. What if their fathers die? What if they have no
means to support themselves?...

Of course I think it's normal and healthy for young women to dream about husbands and families and that includes taking care of a home, but there is also each person's calling that the Lord gives us and my experience is that to live an abundant life we need to be submitted to Christ and find out where He is calling us to serve in the body of Christ. I don't think that adolescent fear of the future should be a cover for young women who are called as Christ's disciples to grow like Him, make more disciples and tell the world who Christ is and what He did for them! I also am afraid they are focusing on being feminine to the point that they are making it an idol in their lives. I truly believe if young Christian women today want to make an impact for Christ in the world tomorrow, they need to be submitted to Christ, educated, focused, disciplined, and ready to serve Christ and heed whatever calling He gives them . Motherhood is not an end to a girl's character. It is just one aspect of a woman's personality. I pray that these young women will wake up and become real adult voices for Christian women around the world."

First of all, Wild Child is correct that femininity can become an idol, as can anything else. Exodus 20:4 says,

"You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below."

This applies to everything in our lives that takes our attention away from Him. However, I do not see a woman's femininity as something contrary to Scripture; I see it as an affirmation of her focus on God by wanting to be the person God has made her to be.

Secondly, I agree that if women today want to make an impact for Christ they need to be "submitted to Christ" and must be "ready to serve Him in whatever calling He gives them"; but there are two sides to this coin. Godly women must be ready to serve God wherever He calls them, and that includes inside as well as outside of the home. If He wills that I become a mother and burp babies and clean the house then by all means, then I should obey. Raising children for God is an honor, and I am more than willing to do it. Many people have brought up the argument that I'm just "wasting my life" and "I don't really want that life" or that "I'm just throwing away my life for children." These arguments are self-centered and untrue. Again, raising children for God is an honor.

I would also like to make it clear that I am not against women receiving a higher education. Yes, I believe that the Bible directly points to women to serve their families at home, yet this does not mean that there is a Biblical mandate women must remain at home all the time or that we cannot serve outside the home. In Proverbs 31 "ideal wife" keeps the home and is also industrious outside of it.

Proverbs 31:13-19,27 says:

"She selects wool and flax and works with eager hands. She is like the merchant ships, bringing her food from afar. She gets up while it is still dark; she provides food for her family and portions for her servant girls. She considers a field and buys it; out of her earnings she plants a vineyard. She sets about her work vigorously; her arms are strong for her tasks. She sees that her trading is profitable, and her lamp does not go out at night. In her hand she holds the distaff and grasps the spindle with her fingers. She makes linen garments and sells them, and supplies the merchants with sashes. She watches over the affairs of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness."

For this reason, I believe that it is fine for a woman to attend college, and I am planning on attending college myself. However, I do not believe it is always necessary for a woman to attend college in order to fulfill God's calling for her life....

Any thoughts?


by Hannah and Kristin

Let's Talk (About Trust and Other Things)

In the previous "Let's Talk" post, "Anonymous" made an interesting comment regarding preparing to be a worker at home:

"I guess it would be smart to do that but who knows if I'll ever get married? What if God doesn't bring the right [sic] person for me, would planning for being a homemaker be a waste of my time? "

It is possible that any and everyone who hopes to get married someday has doubted at one time or another if Mr. or Ms. Right is really out there. I've wondered that. Probably you have, too. We fear our hopes being disappointed. What could be worse than planning on marriage and never finding "the one"? Sometimes we may just want to say, "God, show me this person, please, so that I can really know he is there and that this waiting for him will be worthwhile."

But if God shows us beforehand how He will plan our days, then where would be the growth? He does not give us His plans for the future because He wants us to learn to trust in Him; whatever happens, He wants us to lean on Him. I can't preach on this (or anything for that matter.) I can't speak on this as someone who has her hope completely, unshakably in Christ all the time. But I can say as someone who has struggled and still struggles with giving everything to God, that once we do surrender our fears to Him, something beautiful grows in the place of our fears:

"Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight."

(1 Peter 2:3-4) In Girl Talk by Nicole Whitacre and Carolyn Mahaney, some good insight is offered concerning this verse. It is pointed out that a 'gentle and quiet spirit' is referring to trust in God. If the spirit is trusting God and resting upon His faithfulness, then it is beautiful in God's eyes. That is the beauty that God wants us to nurture, so that whatever happens in life, we will still be depending on Him. He may choose not to provide us with a spouse. He may call us to a single life of being devoted to Him. Yet whatever it is, we can know that what He chooses is best, and that He will not leave us to face our struggles alone.

Now, "Anonymous" does pose another interesting question: Is it worthwhile to pursue learning to be a homemaker when you believe that it is possible that you will remain single for a long time, or perhaps for the rest of your life? Carolyn McCulley is a single Christian woman whose insight I respect because she seems to base her views on the Bible. In a recent post on her blog she wrote,

"I'm a big proponent of single women cultivating a love for the home. Not only does this help balance the over-emphasis on the public sphere of life (a job is not everything that defines us), having a heart for the home means we will invest in the private sphere in terms of skills, time, and money--and thus be prepared to offer hospitality to both bless God's people and to reach out to others. "

Ms. McCulley's point was reiterated by Lydia T.'s comment, which states:

"Learning how to be a homemaker is more than preparing for the future. It is a way to minister to your family. Cultivating relationships is not only done through spending time with someone, it is also done by serving--your family and your friends through hospitality. By sharing some of the responsibility in your household, you are opening up more opportunities through which your whole family can minister. By working together, more can be accomplished as a whole than if each person is only looking out for himself.

Keeping home is education in and of itself! Not that learning physics and Latin is wrong, but neither requires the exclusion of the other. This would be where time management comes into play."