Priceless

One hundred and seventeen thousand dollars per year. That's my worth preceded by a dollar sign, according to the life insurance ad that the kids pulled out of our mailbox. If my husband wanted to insure me, to hire my replacements, he should have at least $117,000 available annually. Cash value of a homemaker.

I've spent years of my life doubting my worth because I wanted to make a home for my husband and children. I suppose a paycheck is some sort of external validation that you are smart, accomplished, a valuable asset to society. So it is nice to know that Someone Out There places such a high cash value on what I do here each day. After all, it's a lot more than my husband makes in a year, and I have always maintained that he couldn't afford me.

But it's also silly. A person's worth and value aren't related to a dollar sign. A replacement? He couldn't hire one of those. There's no cash valuation of all a wife and mother does in a home. There's no dollar sign beside cuddles and kisses, read aloud books and Bible stories, laughter at the table, training for a chore, hugs in the kitchen, walks in the sunshine, crazy music while we work, family jokes, a cup of tea, a little discipline, a lot of love. Can Bryan afford me? Not a chance in the world. I'm priceless.

The Home of the Noble Woman

 This is a lengthy quote, but challenging to the laziness and apathy creeping into my days, so I beg you to bear with it.

 "The man`s power is active, progressive, defensive. He is eminently the doer, the creator, the discoverer, the defender. His intellect is for speculation and invention; his energy for adventure, for war, and for conquest, wherever war is just, wherever conquest necessary.

But the woman`s power is for rule, not for battle, - and her intellect is not for invention or creation, but for sweet ordering, arrangement, and decision. She sees the qualities of things, their claims, and their places. Her great function is Praise: she enters into no contest, but infallibly judges the crown of contest. By her office, and place, she is protected from all danger and temptation. The man, in his rough work in open world, must encounter all peril and trial: to him, therefore, must be the failure, the offense, the inevitable error: often he must be wounded, or subdued; often misled; and always hardened. But he guards the woman from all this; within his house, as ruled by her, unless she herself has sought it, need enter no danger, no temptation, no cause of error or offense.

 This is the true nature of home - it is the place of Peace; the shelter, not only from all injury, but from all terror, doubt, and division. In so far as it is not this, it is not home: so far as the anxieties of the outer life penetrate into it, and the inconsistently-minded, unknown, unloved, or hostile society of the outer world is allowed by either husband or wife to cross the threshold, it ceases to be home; it is then only a part of that outer world which you have roofed over, and lighted fire in....

And wherever a true wife comes, this home is always round her. The stars only may be over her head; the glowworm in the night cold grass may be the only fire at her foot: but home is yet wherever she is; and for a noble woman it stretches far round her, better than ceiled with cedar, or painted with vermilion, shedding its quiet light far, for those who else were homeless."

                                  - John Ruskin, Sesame and Lillies

 I am to rule my home, not allow my flesh to rule me, though time on the computer is so fun and the couch is so comfortable. I ask myself, am I applying my intellect to the sweet ordering of my home? That would actually require thought. My great function is praise. Who did I praise today? Oooh...must work on that one. Am I inviting danger and temptations to enter our home, would I set them in the path of my children or before my own feet? Is my home a place of peace and shelter?

Am I roofing over the world and lighting a fire and calling it home?

We light our lamps, in this house built by the Lord (Psalm 127:1), and its quiet light shines in the darkness for those who else were homeless. My own family would be homeless without my work, but my work, done well, makes room for more. This reminds me of Isaiah 54:2-3, "lengthen the cords, strengthen the pegs." I strive to be a noble woman who stretches home far around her.

Read Chapter 5 of Sesame and Lillies here.

From Seattle

I hug my babes and kiss my man. I board the plane to Seattle, to my brother and his wife and their little one.

I walk the trail my brother runs and watch the clouds. This place is new, all new to me, and yet this place feels like a homecoming to the soul.

A sense of place sends deep roots into the heart. I remember childhood and the breeze of the San Francisco Bay. I remember trails by the lake in the park; trees in mountain campgrounds. And here, today, I find the Puzzle Grass my fingers puzzled when I was seven. I feel at home, like I belong in places like these.

Then God's Spirit blows in my heart. Even here I don't belong. My soul has a true home.

If I feel forever out of place while I walk this life, it is only to remind me that I am...out of place.

The wind blows my pilgrim feet on, pressing on after the One my soul loves. I'm walking home.

A Winding Sheet Legacy

Mrs. Elizabeth Jocelin of Cheshire, England began a book of advice for the child in her womb. The book was found unfinished at her desk, titled The Mother's Legacie to her Unborn Infant, and published in 1624. In "The Approbation" of her book she was applauded as a "truly rich bequether taking care for providing an everlasting portion."

After six years of happy marriage, to the man she affectionately called her "good sweet heart," Elizabeth realized she was carrying the couple's first child.

"Accordingly when she first felt herself quick with child (as then traveling with death itself) she secretly took order for the buying a new winding sheet: thus preparing and consecrating herself to him, who rested in a new Sepulcher wherein was never man yet laid. And about that time undauntedly looking death in the face, privately in her Closet between God and her, she wrote these pious Meditations..."   - The Approbation

Elizabeth traveled with death, a normal course of pregnancy in the 17th century, until on October 12, 1622 she was made a mother. She saw her daughter baptized and gave thanks to God for her, then called for her winding sheet to be brought forth and laid upon her. After nine fevered days Elizabeth died, was wrapped in her winding sheet, buried in the dark earth.

These are her words, written by a young mother, a mother keeping a winding sheet in her room. A mother anticipating a lifetime with the little one stirring inside her, and yet with eyes focused on eternity giving godly advice to her child.

Having long, often and earnestly desired of God, that I might be a mother to one of his children, and the time now drawing on, which I hope he hath appointed to give thee unto me: It drew me into a consideration both wherefore I so earnestly desired thee, and (having found that the true cause was to make thee happy) how I might compasse this happiness for thee.

I knew it consisted not in honor, wealth, strength of body or friends (though all these are great blessings) therefore it had been a weak request to desire thee only for an heir to my fortune. No, I never aimed at so poor an inheritance for thee, as the whole world: Neither would I have begged of God so much pain as I know I must endure, to have only possessed thee with earthly riches, of which today thou may be a great man, tomorrow a poor beggar. Nor did an hope to dandle thy infancy move me to desire thee. For I know all the delight a Parent can take in a child is honey mingled with gall.

But the true reason that I have so often kneeled to God for thee, is, that thou mightiest be an inheritor of the Kingdom of Heaven.

You can read the entirety of Elizabeth Jocelin's Book for yourself over here. I took the liberty of modernizing the spelling in the section I have quoted.

A Little Green Envy Bug

     I was bitten by a little green envy bug today.  It's not unusual.  I was looking at a blog, that's when it usually happens; all of your lives out there appear so much more beautiful, peaceful and enticing than my own.  Lindsey at the Pleated Poppy posted her studio tour.  Such a nice "studio."  Colors I like, full of fun fabrics, organized, and situated right in the play/school room.  I bet they never have a dull day or a family squabble in a room like that. I bet her kids would just sit right down at work and play and she'd be stitching at her machine making little lovelies and contributing to the household income.  (My husband stood behind me while I made the link, saying, "You know she took as long as she wanted to clean that up and all the junk is right here (pointing) outside the picture."  Think he knows my heart?)  From that point it was all downhill.  I perused my short blog list.  Turns out everybody has a life so much nicer than my own.
     Do I know this isn't true?  Absolutely.  Still, my day was suddenly so drab.  Helping my children with their school work wasn't a privilege and an act of service, it was keeping me from creativity.  Folding loads of laundry wasn't attention to duty, it was drudgery.  Feeding hungry stomachs seemed a second class activity to feeding my "soul."  But not the "soul" that seeks God.  I didn't even think about Him.  I couldn't have uttered one thankful, grateful word for the home and the people in it that He's appointed for me.
     There have been times when I've had to take a "blog" fast.  When I sit at the computer crying out of sheer covetousness, then I know I need a break.  Am I the only one this pitiful?  I won't fast today.  I looked in my heart and prayed through some quiet moments in the kitchen.  I squashed that green envy bug right there on the kitchen floor.  I went right back to flipping math fact cards, reading books, playing games, painting walls, vacuuming floors, fixing dinner, washing dishes and reading Bible stories.  I didn't photograph it for you.  You won't find anything in my etsy shop (right, I don't have one, I only dream).  Proverbs 21:20 describes the dwelling I want,

"There is precious treasure and oil in the dwelling of the wise..."

     You might see some of my treasures, in photos or spelled out in words on this page.  I hope our home is filled with "treasure and oil" you'll never see, spilling over.  Take my word for it though, these are very ordinary treasures.  They're the kind you just might see if you look around your own home with a heart of wisdom, eyes of faith, and a will to work.

      

The Model Mower

     It's 7:24 am.  I'm standing at the bedroom window, watching the wakening world.  Jack drives past in his black truck.  Jack is our neighbor.  Our retired neighbor.  All winter he's up early, headed off to work in a factory, or sales, or mail order.  I'm not sure exactly what they do there.  All summer we see Jack mowing lawns.  We see him all over town, and the kids and I talk about how many he must cut each week.  We see him all over the neighborhood, mowers on the black truck.  Some days his grandkids mow along beside him, usually he's alone, behind a push mower.  I don't know if he works from necessity, or if he just can't sit still, or maybe some of both.
     It's 7:25 and I'm standing at the window feeling sorry for Jack.  I feel bad that a man would work so long, that life would be so hard.  Bryan comes in behind me, wraps his arms around me, asks me what I'm thinking there beside the window.  I tell him I feel sorry for Jack.
     Bryan?  He's wise and grounded.  He says there's nothing wrong with working hard. 
     "When we get old I hope we're just like him."

Bryan and Arden mowing our grass this spring.