The First Step Toward Being Intentional at Home

-
If Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.

The grammar of this old Southern bit of wisdom makes me cringe, but the older I get the more I understand - and am convicted by - the truth it contains: my attitude, countenance, words, mood, and actions set the tone in our home.

As I begin this journey toward intentional living, I have found exhortation in Aimee's wise words in Chapter One,
We must certainly show forth our Lord God's beauty in this awesome task [being a helper to our husbands]. And for us to do this properly, it is imperative that we are functioning appropriately in our role. (p. 22)
I see these very words lived out in the life of Sarah Edwards.  As Noel Piper says, Sarah Edwards was a supporter, protector and homebuilder for her husband, a godly mother and example for her children, and a hostess, comforter and encourager to guests.
While she uniformly paid a becoming deference to her husband and treated him with entire respect, she spared no pains in conforming to his inclination and rendering everything in the family agreeable and pleasant; accounting it her greatest glory and there wherein she could best serve God and her generation, to be the means in this way of promoting his usefulness and happiness. (Samuel Hopkins on Sarah Edwards)
The margins of the books are already covered in penciled scrawls. I grab my Living Intentionally notebook to put it all together. There, among the rainbow of arrows, asterisks, and other marks that are meaningless to anyone but me, I see it. Biblical womanhood requires being intentional in my home.

Do I want to support, protect, and build a home for my husband? I consider the question long and hard. The simple - the right - answer is yes. But how? How do I support, protect - how do I help - him?

Do I want to set an example for my daughter? Again, yes! And again, how?

Finally, do I want to be a hostess, comforter and encourager to others in my life? The answer and the resulting question still linger.

These are the things I begin to work out. As I scratch notes in the margins, jot quotes and ideas on paper, I realize God is writing a story across the hardness of my heart. I don't know the ending, but I know this beginning - this first, infinitesimal step - is a good place to start.



Comments

Jill said…
Happy New Year! Just catching up on your blog. In this new year I am working my way toward less social media (for me FB and Instagram)...and I want to just give it up altogether (WHY can't I?) I, too, get so worked up about things I read....mostly my homeowners association and relatives that I don't "click" with in real life either. I do enjoy the social part of keeping up with people I might never have the chance to see or hear from (high school classmates, for example) but I am rolling around in my head the why's and motivation. Being single with a young child I do feel a certain amount of social isolation that I feel FB and blog reading fills somewhat. I have been leaning more toward reading and I love your 2014 list! Housewife Theologian will be a purchase for sure. Wishing you a wonderfully grace filled new year! Hugs!
January 9, 2014 at 9:29 AM
Unknown said…
Melissa, I love the way you scratch up your books, synoptically reading and gathering your thoughts into your own notebook (and blog posts!). That is certainly a good example of intentionality. Thanks for sharing.
January 9, 2014 at 11:55 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Not Feeding the Frenzy

-
Increasingly, we are living our lives in the public forum. Hand-written letters to friends were exchanged for emails, which were exchanged for text messages, which have now been exchanged for tweets and notes on a Facebook wall for all the world to see. Secrets among friends, it seems, no longer exist. Meaningful friendships themselves may soon be a thing of the past. Social media has allowed us to collect "followers" and "friends" like trinkets on a charm bracelet.  We are compelled to share intimate details of our lives with complete strangers, yet we are ashamed to ask those closest to us to pray as we wrestle against sin. We foster, as Carl Trueman writes , an "intimacy of strangers which is such a part of celebrity culture - for example, the faux-chumminess of all those tweeted exchanges and retweets, lives lived as soap operas mediated by the internet..." We brand ourselves with carefully crafted personas, afraid the true person cowering behind t
Read more

Meditations on Mid-Life

-
Two women stand behind us in line. I judge they are perhaps 10 years my senior, but it's hard to tell. I inwardly cringe as one bursts into a litany of complaints and coarse language. The other can hardly stop talking about who she's tweeting and snap chatting while we wait. One as salty as a sailor, the other as giddy as a schoolgirl. I see myself in these women. A complainer who makes those around her miserable. A foolish woman too mesmerized by social media to be a friend to someone standing right beside her. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Lisa's friend passes away. A woman I've never met, but will one day. Her example to Lisa became an example to me. While she is just beginning to understand what it means to worship God fully, her family and friends mourn a life ended too soon. I consider the woman I long to be. A woman who, in Lisa's words , "...believes the good news of the gospel to be true; she believes it, she needs it, she banks her life on it."
Read more

What I Learned During My Social Media Vacation

-
With the Holy Spirit's prompting - and the grace of God abounding - I gave up Facebook and Twitter during December so that I could focus on the Incarnation and prepare my heart for Christmas. I didn't think I devoted an inordinate amount of time to social media; however, when I announced my intention to my girl and her response was something akin to "Good. You need to given them up.", I knew I needed the break more than I cared to admit. I had already stopped posting anything in this little spot for the final months of 2013. Limited blogging at Out of the Ordinary, permanently paring down my feed reader to precious few, and saying no to Facebook and Twitter has taught me some valuable lessons. ~ Absence does not necessarily make the heart grow fonder. While there may have been a few who felt my absence, I imagine that I was, for the most part, forgotten. Not that I blame anyone; it's the nature of the social media beast. ~ Social media friends aren't alwa
Read more