on being home

If anyone ever tells you that staying at home is easy, they clearly have no idea what they are talking about.  While the decision itself may come easily to some, actually going through with it is another matter entirely.

It will never cease to amaze me the amount of derogatory comments people manage to come up with that are directed toward the home and the women who keep them.  It is almost as if the world believes that these women are somehow addled in the brain and therefore incapable of pulling themselves away from their homes and into a more "intelligent" existence.

On multiple occasions, I have attempted to engage in somewhat difficult, intellectual conversations only to have the other participants laughingly tell me to go back to the kitchen and bake them some cookies.  While I do enjoy working in the kitchen and many other chores that staying at home requires of me, I resent the fact that this is looked upon as a sign that I have no intellect nor purpose in the "real world".  Home is where God has put me and I do not believe it was so that I could languish into household drudge (whatever that is).

In choosing to stay at home, there are a lot of things that we are forced to deal with on a daily basis.  For me, the hardest has been the opinion of others.  I have always been what my mother calls, "a people pleaser".  As a child, I aquired the ability to transform myself into the person that other people wanted me to be, and when I just couldn't seem to measure up to someone's expectations, I was crushed.  By God's grace, I have learned to overcome this as I have gotten older, but it is still hard.  It's hard being looked at as strange.  It's hard to stay confident when you are doing something that you feel that God has called you to do even though it seems that no one else is doing it.

There are days when I want to give up.  I get tired of swimming upstream in a sea of cultural norms.  Sometimes it takes very little to provoke these feelings.  Perhaps someone jokingly said something that really hurt me or maybe it was just that certain look of disapproval.  Over a period of time, these things begin to wear on your spirit. 

As a young woman approaching twenty-one who is not, by the world's standards, trying to get ahead in life, is still living with her family and has no desire to do otherwise, I, and others like me, make an easy target for ridicule.  This can be hard to take.  Especially difficult to deal with are the assumptions that people make when they are confronted by such a strange and somewhat controversial life-style.  Here are a few that seem to come up most often:

1.  Because I am not in school or out earning a living in a 9 to 5 job, I must be lying about the house, indulging myself in acute laziness and suffering from intense boredom.

Not to be rude, but I find this incredibly funny.  If you call helping cook and clean up after three meals a day, keeping a two-story house "company clean", trying to stay on top of the bread-making so that we don't run out, helping to build fences, maintain a large garden, keep the majority of our property mowed, reading through a ginormous list of books on worldview and theology, drafting sewing patterns, giving piano lessons, and everything else that I do being lazy, then yes, I have a problem.  Unfortunately, I am too busy to notice.  As for boredom, again, I simply haven't the time.

2.  Because I don't have a real job, I am simply taking advantage of my parent's generosity.

While my parents are extremely generous, this is not the case at all.  My piano lessons and sewing provide me with a small income and I am so very thankful that business seems to be improving lately.  Also, when fair season starts in May, I will be receiving an additional income as one of my dad's employees.   This enables me to buy my own gas, my own clothes, and anything else that I may need or want and therefore help the family economy.  Sometimes funds do get a little tight, but I have learned that if I can't afford something, odds are I don't need it.

Earning money this way gives me the opportunity to spend more time with my family, which is why I chose to stay at home in the first place.

3.  I have no ambition.

This depends on your definition of ambition.  If you mean that I have no desire to climb the ladder of "success" and attain a certain level of human honor and praise, then you would be right.  I define ambition in a different way.  My ambition is to be a godly woman, to give glory to my Creator and to revel in the little kingdom that He has given me.  As is stated so well in the answer to the first question of the Westminster Shorter Catechism, man's sole purpose is to glorify God (1 Cor. 10:31) and to enjoy Him forever (Ps. 73:25-26).  This stands in stark contrast to our culture which tells us that our purpose and identity comes from bettering ourselves and attaining power so that others will give us glory. 

4.  I find education unimportant and irrelevant.

By no means!  Education is very important, but so is the material you study and the method by which you receive it.  I spent two years in a university, and at the risk of sounding harsh and judgemental, I found the experience less than intellectually stimulating.  I learned more about how to party, live like the world and waste my parent's money than I learned how to think and aquire knowlege and understanding.  I have found that I have learned more in my two years at home through extensive reading, personal study, and discussions with others than I learned in my two years of being "educated".

Please understand that I am not condemning a college education.  I do not believe that it is a sin for a Christian to go to school to get a secular degree.  I know that for some people, a college degree is part of God's plan for their lives.  However, we must be very careful what kind of education we are getting.  We are instructed to guard our hearts and minds and this becomes extremely difficult when we are constantly exposed to a secular worldview.  It is also important to realize that just because an institution claims to be Christian, does not mean that you won't find secular and anti-Christian teaching in the classroom.  I understand that this is a difficult thing to come to terms with, but sadly, it is true.

5.  I have a problem with anyone who disagrees with my lifestyle.

This is the furthest thing from the truth.  This is like saying that I would dislike someone for preferring apple pie over cherry.  God has a plan for each of our lives that is unique.  He doesn't just take out a cookie cutter and allot to so many this way of living and to so many that way of living.  He has given each of us a unique calling and a unique life to correspond with that calling.  For some, it is impossible to remain at home.  Some require a college education in order to fulfill the calling God has given them.  There are those who are called to minister in the workplace and others who are called to minister in the public schools.  No calling is better, more important, or more godly than another. 


My calling is to be a homemaker.  It took me a long time to come to terms with this.  In fact, I initially came down this road kicking and screaming all the way.  I had my own ideas about what my calling should be and was already traveling down my preferred path, ignoring all of the signs that were telling me to turn around and go the other way. 

The only thing that I can say about taking your own path over God's is that it is absolutely miserable.  Those several years of fighting for my right to plan my own life were easily the worst ones that I can remember.  In addition to the fact that I was an emotional basket case, everything I did seemed to fall apart.  Nothing was working for me and I couldn't understand why.

I can't say that it all changed the moment I handed the reins over to God, because it didn't happen in a moment.  It was more like a year and a half.  Yeah, I'm a slow learner.  It took me that long to completely surrender to His plan for my life.  I had to learn that I couldn't live both.  I couldn't follow God's will for my life and still hang on to a few of my own ideas.  It just doesn't work that way.

Today, I can honestly say that I am content with where God has me.  Not that it's easy.  Like I said before, there are days when I just want to throw my hands in the air and cry, "Why me????", but I know that He knows what He's doing.  The Bible never said that God's way would be easy.  Christ never said, "Follow me and everyone will love you for it".  We are simply commanded to follow Him and trust Him with complete control our lives.