Upon a phone conversation that took place yesterday with a sweet friend, the topic of a “stay-at-home wife” came up. I’ve thought of this before but never in deep detail have I shared my heart or thoughts on this topic. I realized It was time to get my thoughts written down on “paper”.
So this is for my sweet unspoken friend with L♥VE .
This post is not here to lay a guilt trip on wives who work or must work. However, If this post has triggered your heart in any way – would please just pray and ask the Lord to show you His best for you, perhaps He has something better planned for you?
You don’t ever hear much about the decision to stay at home before having children or after having children. Our culture today has the distorted view that paid work is the only path of usefulness for women.
Feminism is mixed up with a muddled idea that women are free when they serve their employers but slaves when they help their husbands. — G.K. Chesterton
Have you as a wife ever considered becoming a stay-at-home wife? If so I would like to encourage you to consider it! It takes a lot of time to set up and prepare your home. It’s much easier to set things up in advance before a little one arrives on the scene or a grandchild for that matter. 😉 Everyone wants to have a home established and running smoothly – use your time wisely and get it to that point while you have the time and ability to do so. Transitioning into motherhood takes a lot of work and energy, and if you are having to adjust to being a stay-at-home wife and mother at the same time, it will just add that much more work and energy to juggle – often setting us up for failure. And when you are a grandma, wouldn’t you want to spoil your grandchildren or be able to teach them things you’ve learned instead of working all the time?!
I’ve so often than not suspected that a lot of post-partum depression that plagues new mom’s {even though it is partly hormonal} may possibly stem from the fact that new moms are more often than not transitioning into motherhood, while taken on the new job of homemaking. It’s
too much to take in all at once!
Have you ever thought that if homemaking was only for the sake of children, then we must be stiffing our husbands!? Our husbands don’t need a mother to tie their shoes, or make sure they eat their vegetables, but they certainly could use our assistance in packing their lunches, or be a prepared and ready friend when he arrives home. Managing the house in a more detailed way than a working wife has time to do. Learning to love, serve and respect and honor, our husbands while preparing a haven for future children or grandchildren, is truly a beautiful thing. {Nothing a career can justify.}
When a woman chooses to be the keeper of her home, there will be no lack of useful work to do. A homemaker goes far and beyond doing the laundry and sweeping the floors. Becoming a homemaker
{with or without children} gives one the ability to be more hospitable, to be able to volunteer on a whim, to be more involved in the community or a church ministry, have more time to work on sharpening useful life skills that can profit her family today and later in the future.
{Just think how blessed and profitable you’ll be if you’ve had the opportunity to do these things while you have more time to do them – and how much easier it will be for you to be able to juggle all the hats that come with being a homemaker, with children or grandchildren.} Just a handful of useful skills to learn, sharpen or broaden…
Gardening
{providing healthy home grown foods for the family, or to sell or share. Helping save money!}
Sewing
{to be able to mend and provide homey things for much less for the family or for others. Even to sell for extra income!}
Cooking from Scratch
{so you are able to bring healthy home cooked food to your families table every night. Or perhaps those in need of a meal?!}
Meal Planning
{so you can whip up a grocery list and menu in no time, and be able to have time for more important things.}
Take a few classes
{or study up on a few things that would enable you to provide better for the health and benefit of your family: First Aid & CPR certification, Organic Gardening, Herbal & Home Remedies, how to properly preserve foods etc…
Start a Home Business
{And earn extra income for the home like – teaching music lessons, tutor, buy & sell, home bakery, hand-made clothing or upholstery, hand-made jewelry, natural health care products, sell your fresh garden produce or products at your local farmers or flee market, sell products for other businesses from your home etc…}
Volunteer in your community or church
{volunteer at your local crisis pregnancy center, help care or clean for elderly, be a coordinator for church events, teach sunday school or a {homemaker in training class}, make meals for new-mothers or the sick etc…
Just use your talents and broaden them…in doing so you will be blessed and so will others around you.
I am not a homemaker because I had too little ambition or education to make anything else of myself. No—I am a homemaker because God has given me the infinite honor of being a wife, and I delight in employing every ability that He has equipped me with in this glad career. I love being home. I love being intimately familiar with each creaking floorboard and each pattern that the sun makes upon the walls as it travels across the backyard. I love making bread and tending my garden and caring for a small menagerie of cats and chickens and a dog who thinks he’s human. But most of all, I love the happy look that I see on my husband’s tired face when he comes in at the end of the day. And I cherish the fulfillment that the Lord gives me in all of these things. Indeed, “my borders enclose a pleasant land. – Lanier Ivester
Stay tuned for a list of essential skills I want my little homemaker in training to pursue and learn. I’ll be sharing it next week!
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