My husband pointed out that there are no cultural cliches to reinforce the calling of the wife and mother at home. All the cultural cliches today are the savvy, sexy career woman, married or not. And it doesn’t much matter how many sermons  women hear if they don’t have any cultural reinforcement. They need to see the value and potency of the calling of wife and mother, and they are not going to find this in films, sit-coms, or magazines. Women have been successfully driven out of their homes in our culture, creating a vast vacuum in the soul of our country.

Whenever we address the importance of women  raising their children and building their homes, we have to qualify it left and right. If we don’t, we will soon be barraged by “are you saying that women can never work outside the home” questions, and then we have to assure everyone that we know there are exceptions. But the cultural norm should be women who delight in their calling in building homes and families. No one else can do it. God says.

Our young women must be encouraged to view the biblical calling of women as a high calling indeed. And because so many women have abandoned their posts, Christian women can feel like total weirdos, having to explain themselves to strangers at the coffee shop or the grocery store on a daily basis. “Yes, these are ALL my children. And I love it!”

If young women get themselves a lucrative career, and then they marry a man who also has a lucrative career, it takes a woman of faith to drop her career outside the home in order to pursue a career of domesticity and motherhood inside the home. Most people will think she’s nuts because of one reason: money. What is she thinking? She could be making money! Why would she give up the paycheck to stay home? What a waste!

God does everything the opposite way of what we think. At the end of the day, it’s not prestige and a paycheck that rise up to call you blessed. Those things burn up. The things that last, the eternal things, have fat faces and messy hands.

Christian women must be counter-cultural and think like women of faith who take the Bible seriously and don’t mind who knows it. The flesh is weak, but God gives more faith.  Cultural cliches come and go, but God’s Word remains our standard and authority for life.

This means that Christian women must accept the fact that God has designed them for a set purpose. Eve was created because Adam needed a helper. He was no good without her. A man needs a woman to accomplish all God is calling him to do. She is his glory. She is his crown. There’s no need to feel apologetic about being a crown and a glory. What an absurd idea!

So, young women, get yourself an education. Learn all you can because you’re going to need it. You want to be one efficient, brilliant helper so this guy you married can get it done. He needs a home and he needs a family and you are the means God has appointed to bring this amazing thing about. What a delight and privilege our calling is.

Are there exceptions? Always. But there is also a norm. Don’t be afraid of embracing the norm of God’s design. It is good.

Good evening,  Mr. Trotter, board of trustees, faculty, parents, grandparents, students of the Trinitas graduating class of 2010, ladies and gentlemen. I am delighted to be your commencement speaker tonight. It is an honor to address this graduating class of eleven young women. Thank you, Mr. Trotter, and thank you, senior class, for inviting me to be here. It has been a pleasure to get to know some of you, and Doug and I have enjoyed your gracious hospitality.

I’d like to speak to you young ladies tonight about your future (now that’s a novel idea for a commencement address, don’t you think?) but, more to the point, the kind of women you want to be in that future.

You live in a time when women of all ages are hungry for purpose and direction in their lives. And it’s not just the young women who are flailing about trying to find their bearings.  Even Christian women can be confused. The lies of the feminist story have had more than a whole generation in which to ripen and bear fruit, and it turns out, it is a bitter and barren fruit.

Middle-aged women who opted for the career instead of the home twenty years ago are now asking themselves what they have done with their lives; they feel dissatisfied and unfulfilled. Even those with lucrative careers are finding that they’ve  missed something that money can’t buy, and they are not even sure what it is. If you have any doubt about this, wander through a bookstore and take a look at the titles of the books about women, and you will see that women are searching.

The barrenness of the birth-control pill and guilt of abortion and the tenuous status of live-in girlfriend don’t add up to a recipe for long-term happiness and fulfillment. Many women are panicking, feeling that they have lost their opportunity for a home and missed their reproductive window for having children. They feel cheated, and they don’t know what they are looking for.  And the world, with their story about liberation and reproductive rights, cannot answer their questions.

Today everything is pretty much up for grabs. We really only have two cultural problems–but those are significant. First, we don’t know what  our men are supposed to be doing, and secondly we don’t know what to do with our women. Other than that, everything’s fine. And because the church has become more and more enfeebled and compromised with feminism over the past generation, in many cases, it is not in a position to answer these questions either. Someone needs to talk about the men, but that is not my task tonight.  I am going to speak to you about the women.

This is one of those moments in history, like many other moments in the past, when we need godly and dangerous women. And the hopeful surprise is that I believe many Christian schools like Trinitas are helping parents train up just this kind of woman.

Women are by nature dangerous. They will either be dangerous in a destructive way or dangerous in a constructive way. Our mother Eve was dangerous, but unfortunately, she was a threat to her husband instead of to the serpent. A harlot is a dangerous woman, but obviously, in the wrong direction. Christian women who just go along unknowingly are actually a liability and not an asset to the Christian cause. There really is no neutral ground. So I’m going to be talking to you tonight about the need for dangerous women in our day who see through the serpent’s cheap talk, who are not deceived by the lies the other team tells, and who are actively engaged in building a Christian culture. This is where your education comes in. You graduates have been given a healthy start to your education. Don’t let it stop here. Education is not an end but a means of equipping you to be and do all God is calling you to do. The being part must come before the doing. You want to be a godly and dangerous woman so that you can do the work of changing and rebuilding our culture. It is very important to keep these things in the right order. A good and godly education is a tool to be used wisely. Keep it sharp.

Graduates: Don’t let this be the end of your education, but continue to pursue wisdom. In a minute I will be talking about the role of women in the home, and I don’t want you to think for a minute that an education is unnecessary or superfluous for such things. Far from it. Your education is your preparation for life.

What is a dangerous woman? Is she a member of the NRA? Does she know karate? No. That is not the kind of woman I am talking about. Let me lay out a few of the characteristics of the godly dangerous woman.

1. First of all, she knows who she is. She is not having a life-long identity crisis. She knows who her people are, and she is loyal to her people. This, in itself, is a tremendous blessing. A woman who knows who she is can be free from herself to be herself. She can change the subject and think about others.  She is not cowering and fearful, trying to find herself, because Christ has found her. She knows where she belongs.

Today, many young people are rootless and unconnected. They never sit down to dinner with a family around an actual table. Many don’t really have a family at all; they are isolated and disconnected.Their lives are more connected to and they are more loyal to a mythical heart-throb vampire than they are to their own parents and grandparents.  This is a tragedy.

But the kind of woman I am talking about  is loyal to her people because she knows which side she is on, and she does not wear the enemy’s uniform. She identifies herself among God’s people. She stands with her family, her church community, and her school community. And because she knows who she is, you cannot take her where she doesn’t want to go.

This kind of loyalty is a powerful protection that keeps her from getting swept up into unwise friendships, foolish relationships, or led into stupid behavior. She knows that she is a character in a story, and she wants to be the good, wise character, not the foolish one. We live in a culture that has been demolished, and much reconstruction is required. That is the building project that Trinitas is part of. And women who understand the project and have  a view toward the final result are a tremendous asset to have on the construction crew. And the last thing we need right now are more people standing around in the wreckage, fishing out some keepsakes.

Graduates: Be loyal to your people. Never forget who you are and what side you are on.

2. Second, a godly dangerous woman knows what she is called to do. Women typically underestimate the scope and the significance of what they have been created to do on this earth. The truth is, God created woman to have a profound impact on the culture around them.

I have mentioned the construction project. God says in Proverbs that a wise woman builds her house and a foolish woman tears it down with her own hands. This building is what women are called to do. Woman is created to beautify and glorify and remake. She beautifies and glorifies all God gives her, and the results are amazing. Call it the woman’s touch.

You know what I mean. We’ve all seen the old stock  Western film where the old dirty bachelor cowboy gets a mail-order bride, and the new bride looks around at the wreck and ruin of his forlorn cabin, rolls up her sleeves, and changes everything. She remakes him and she remakes that cabin. (This may not be a popular stock scene anymore in this politically correct era, but the idea of the woman remaking the world is still as true today as it was in the beginning.)

Consider, for example, a house. It is just four walls until a woman moves in and transfigures it, beautifies it, glorifies it, and makes it into something new: a home. What is a kitchen but just a room full of shiny surfaces until a woman  glorifies it with pies and mashed potatoes and loads of dirty dishes and singing.  A woman receives her husband’s love, and God mysteriously glorifies it within her, and a baby is born. Woman is the glory of the man. She is his crown.

This is God’s creation design for women: they do this mysterious thing of remaking people and homes and cultures. Men want to be made new; homes are begging to be humanized; our culture is crying out for help. A woman’s touch is a powerful thing, and this is what homemaking is all about. This gift of remaking does not originate in the woman herself: God puts it there, and she reflects, manifests, and returns the glory to Him.

A godly dangerous woman understands that God has given her the tools to do this. She knows who she is and she understands what God has designed her to do. She is not distracted away from this truth. It is what enables her to be a productive asset to the community. She is indispensable. Women have this gift, married or not. They exert a tremendous influence on their community, whether that community is a home, a church,  or a school. They are either constructing or tearing down.

Graduates: Be builders. Each of you, be the kind of woman who never forgets what she is called to do. Take the things God has given you and glorify them. Get your hands busy beautifying the world. You can begin now. You don’t have to wait.

3. Third, a godly dangerous woman understands that she is the root of this tree called humanity. God has created the human race this way. The woman is not the tree, but she nourishes it, and she grounds it because that is what God has equipped  her to do. And the more she does this, the more dangerous she becomes. She has this strange power to extend herself, bestowing and adorning the world with a fruitful radiance.

Feminism has successfully drummed its story for women into our culture’s psyche. It is a bad story about women, a story in which the women play their assigned parts, detached, independent, unconnected, and autonomous. And millions of women have bought the story and tell it over and over again to themselves and their daughters. But the story makes no sense, and the devastating effects of it are easy to see.

If the root obviously cannot be disconnected from the tree, and do its own thing. Not only is the whole tree affected, but the root crumbles.  The feminist story has gotten old. Many of the old guard are even starting to defect. The story that women should be disconnected and autonomous has taken its toll. You might as well put the root in the driveway or in the sky. What good is it there? Even a child can see the nonsense of such a thing.

Our military has even adopted this foolish feminist fairy tale. So now the root is in the submarine. What a silly story this is. Would someone please interrupt this story and talk sense to these people? Put the root in the ground! That is where it belongs. That is where it will grow. That is where it is dangerous! When it isn’t in the ground, it is weak, foolish, helpless and worthless. Nature itself teaches us these things. The feminist story is destructive, not constructive. It keeps telling women to keep the roots OUT of the ground.

The soil for the root is the Christian home. This is the domain and the dominion of the godly dangerous woman. G.K. Chesterton described the home as “a sphere of vast importance and supreme spiritual significance; and to talk of being confined to it is like talking of being chained to a throne.” The home is the kingdom where the woman has inestimable influence and power; this is where she can be dangerous to the serpent, where she bruises the serpent’s head by self-sacrifice and obedient love.

The home is where the root grows, where it does its work of nourishing, establishing, and glorifying the world. Women not only nourish and sustain the tree, they provide stability in unstable times, they anchor a culture to the ground. And if ever a culture was in need of stability and nourishment, our American culture is now. Quoting Chesterton again: “Despite efforts to find one, there is no alternative to the family.”

The home is where the action is. The home is the center of operations for the woman from which she extends herself, where she finds her fulfillment and purpose. This is the vantage point from which she can see future generations of faithfulness rising up. This is the Christian story about dangerous women.

Graduates: Let your roots grow deep. Love the true story and hate the bad. And be able to tell them apart.

4. Fourth, a godly dangerous woman believes and loves God’s covenant promises which He has made to His people. She is thinking long-term. Even when she is just about to graduate from high school, she has an eye toward when she will be a great-grandma to a hundred or more great-grandchildren.  And she is loyal to them already. Think about this! This is why your parents want to stay in the neighborhood and not settle down on the other side of the world (though they may be hesitant to say so).

My children attended Logos School from kindergarten through twelfth grade. This is the school their father helped start for them. Now I have nine grandchildren there. Now I can see with my eyes what I could only imagine back when my children were little, and I had no idea wonderful it would be. It is hard to see ahead like this, but it is very important to think this way.

This is why a godly dangerous woman can stand up for what she knows is true. This is why she won’t be swayed by a stupid guy who tries to get her to do stupid things. Her calling is too important to squander on a man who doesn’t get it. What would her descendents think? She wants to raise up sons who will be leaders and daughters who will be pillars, equipped to raise up the next generation. This is why she is not interested in weak men. She is looking for strength and courage, not a man with wobbly knees.

If you doubt the tremendous impact that women have on our culture, here’s a thought experiment for you. What would happen to our culture if women all across our country had God’s promises in view and said something like this to their boyfriends: “Are you kidding? You must be crazy if you think I will move in with you without a wedding first.” Can you imagine the upheaval and dislocation? Suddenly marriage would be much on men’s minds, and not just on the women’s minds, and there would no doubt be a diamond shortage. Because women have believed the serpent’s lies, marriage is in a sore state, and this has an obvious affect on the heart of our culture.

God’s blessings flow downstream, and a godly dangerous woman understands that her behavior now will have consequences in generations to come, and this is a very big deal. My husband has taught this for years. When fathers are living with “secret sins,” they are in essence giving their sons covenantal permission to sin in the same way. When women are living sinfully, whether by being anxious and worrisome or in some other sinful way, they are giving their daughters and granddaughters covenantal permission to live the same way. A godly dangerous woman is not simply thinking of the present; she is thinking of the next fifty years, and she wants to live in a way that will bless her descendents and not scramble them. This kind of woman is rare. Her price is far above rubies.

She sees the long-term blessings that result from seemingly mundane decisions and tasks. She doesn’t mind; she can afford to be patient. God works over generations, and He takes His time. She can interpret the times in light of God’s unfailing love and providence. She sees His hand in all that comes to pass. Like the godly women of old, she sees that she is standing in a long line of God’s covenant faithfulness. He always blesses obedience, and He never forsakes His people.

Graduates: Love God’s promises. They are for you and your descendents. Live in light of them! Be this kind of woman.

5. Finally, a godly dangerous woman is not threatened by the unbelief in the culture around her. She is at war with it! She does not give way to fear. She knows who wins. She does not keep her head down when she enters into a secular job or a secular university. She knows who she is and what she is about, and she is not afraid of everyone else finding out. In fact, she is eager for everyone to find out, and this takes backbone. And this, it turns out, is actually threatening to everyone else! A dangerous woman assumes the center. This requires courage and faith. A virtuous woman is a courageous woman.

She laughs at the days to come. She sees through the lies in the serpent’s story clear as can be; she is not deceived. She is uncooperative with his agenda. He lied to our first mother, and she stumbled and her husband with her. But God has promised that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent. And that is what the promised Messiah did.

So there is no need for a woman to go wobbly because she might lose friends or lose her job or fail the class. God’s purposes and plans are much too big to be squandered on such petty threats. She has too much to do, and time is short.  She understands the final outcome: we win, they lose. A dangerous, godly woman is a threat to the other team because she is building, and refuses to tear down. A godly home is a dangerous weapon and a strong defense. It is both an offensive and defensive weapon.

Women of the graduating class, I urge you to be dangerous women. You have the tools to get to work on the next thing. After all, you have received a good and godly education. The world is in great need, and women like you need to roll up their sleeves and get to work, preparing to raise the next generation to play their part, transforming the culture one home at a time. You know who you are, who your people are, and what needs to be done. So get to work.

As you begin your life after high school, keep these things in your mind. The future is coming. What kind of woman are you going to be in it?

In closing, thank you again Mr. Trotter and the board. And congratulations, graduates!

“Nothing wilts faster than laurels that have been rested upon.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley

This is quite likely the one and only wise thing that man ever said. And nowhere is the principle more clearly evidenced than in my laundry pile.

The surest and speediest way for me to get radically behind on the laundry is for me to say smugly to myself, “There now. All caught up on the laundry. How lovely.” The instant I do that is the instant the trouble sets in. It only takes about 36 minutes of laurel-resting for my dirty clothes hamper to look like this. You’d think that one of these days I’d learn that the point of doing the laundry is not in order to “be done.” You’d think that one of these days I’d stop sitting on the stupid laurels.

I’d love to really delve into this question and analyze themes from Ecclesiastes and thresh out the possible incipient Platonic assumptions in my approach to life . . . but I obviously have some laundry to do.

And yet we imitate Him in this in very small ways. Think of parents moving the new baby into his room. Does the newborn appreciate the new crib with the matching quilt and bumper pads? Or the freshly painted walls in the nursery? Is the baby impressed with the handmade blanket from Aunt Susie or the quilt that has been lovingly passed down for generations? Of course not. But the giver is blessed. This is one of the ways Mom expresses her love for her new baby, though baby knows nothing of it. This is a concrete way of giving, loving, bestowing, welcoming. We obviously get this impulse from our wise Creator who made heaven and earth and then lavished loving kindness into every nook and cranny, ladling it out and sloshing it all over the place.

We ought to rouse ourselves from our stupor from time to time and take in some of the glories we find ourselves knee-deep in. Then with thankfulness, we can turn to our own homes and bestow some of this reflected glory in expected and unexpected places. Tiny ladles to be sure, but sloshing over nonetheless.

You really must read the whole essay “The Emancipation of Domesticity” which originally appeared in What’s Wrong With the World and is included in the book Brave New Family.

Plants are what she called “cheap decorating” and it’s true. Put a plant in a corner and it can fill an otherwise bare room, or add interest to those empty spaces on a counter or table. When the college students start pouring into our community, the local grocery stores have bargains on house plants. And if you don’t destroy them, they can make a home beautiful for years.

My mother-in-law insists that flowers should be part of the weekly food budget since they add so much to the table. And it doesn’t take much to get a big impact. She prefers the Japanese arrangements, so that means one, three, or five stems. Americans tend to think more is better and sometimes shove way too much into a bouquet. Either way you like it, flowers can be cheap decorating as well. If you can’t manage fresh ones each week, a blooming plant can perform for quite a while.

A friend gave me a long, narrow, white dish with relief sea shells on each end for my birthday. I bought a couple of bags of seashells and filled it up, and it is blessing me each time I see it on my coffee table, reminding me of the Oregon beach. And another friend gave me a darling striped jug which is sitting on my blue buffet quite cheerfully. It needs nothing.

So share a few of your cheap decorating tips with us. We are all ears.

Apparently God wants us to be needy people, because He delights in giving us more grace. He is a bountiful Father, bestowing on and enabling His people to do what He calls them to do. Remembering this helps us keep our perspective when we start to feel overwhelmed and understaffed.

For example, a young mother with several children can feel like she needs another set of hands (to put it mildly). But for some reason, God has only equipped her with two. So, she should not refuse to use the two she has because she needs four. But she ought to see that God must not intend for her to do more than she is physically able to do. She has limits! This ought to be a comfort.

This is rather like the parable of the talents. If we use the two we have wisely, we will reap a bountiful harvest. In other words, we work like the dickens and ask God to bless it, knowing that there is still lots to do and many things we have left undone.

But, like I said, it is good to be needy. It reminds us that we are human. It gives us compassion toward others who are needy. And God uses the community to minister to one another. Sometimes the need may be met by a friend who wants to help. It may be a mother, a grandma, a neighbor, a teenager. Or, it may be there really is no one to help. This is an opportunity to trust the Lord.

So we need to learn how to adjust to what our capacity really is and thank God that we are finite. His grace really is sufficient, but if we never had cause to need it, we would lose the benefit of experiencing it. Sometimes this grace teaches us to sort out the important from the unimportant. Could be that you have to throw away your to-do list because something urgent has interfered. You may realize your daughter needs to talk, though you had some other things you “needed” to do right then. Wisdom instructs us to make choices all day long, and we want to choose well.

Sometimes I have seen women hit the wall. They feel frustrated by all they have to do, and they feel like giving up. I suggest an alternative. Dump the backpack out on the table and take a look at the burden you have been carrying. Ask your husband to help you, or if you are unmarried, ask a friend or a parent to help you sort things out. What is really essential? What can be removed? And how can you get help to do the things that are still necessary?

Consider what help is available and what you can afford. Do you need a babysitter, a mother’s helper, a house cleaner, a tutor? Can someone else be paid to help with the business? It is much better to recognize our limits and get some help before we collapse under the weight. And sometimes pride keeps us from admitting that we need help.

Many of our duties are legitimate, obviously. And it can require much labor to do the bare minimum. But some duties may be imaginary. Who told you that you had to have your Christmas cards addressed and stamped by Thanksgiving? Or that you had to make quilts for all the relatives? Who is insisting that you volunteer for every cause?

I remember deciding that I just could not babysit for friends anymore. Life was just too full. And there was the time I put the sewing machine away for a few months when my kids were little, because it distracted me away from my more important duties. And when the kids were small, I decided not to read fiction for a while because it was too hard to put it down when I needed to start fixing dinner, so I saved the fiction for times set aside for relaxation. (Non fiction did not present the same temptation!)

God wants us to do our duties cheerfully, working hard to His glory and for our good. Being tired is not a sin. We don’t want to be workaholics who never sit down to flip through a magazine; nor do we want to be couch potatoes, letting the whirl around us take its own course, unguided and without oversight.

But I see more women who are doing too much than I see women doing too little. I think we need to be realistic about our responsibilities and abilities, and then do what God has given us to do, counting on Him to enable us to do it. Once we have sorted things out this way, we still have great need for His strength day to day to exercise a godly stewardship over the good things He has given us to do.

So let’s all be grateful that He only gave us two hands. We are limited by only having two. What a blessing that is! And we have tremendous opportunity to use them well. It really is amazing what two hands can do.

What is it that makes the difference? The presence or absence of wisdom in the person given the responsibility of managing the home, and that is the woman. So where do we get this indispensable wisdom and what is it exactly? We know that the prerequisite for wisdom is the fear of the Lord. A God-fearing woman is teachable and receptive to godly instruction.

Little girls have their eyes on their role models. They are closely watching the examples set before them by their mothers, grandmothers, big sisters, or other women in their lives. If they are paying attention to their instruction, this will, by the grace of God, develop into a good understanding. And that, in turn, ripens into a godly judgment and prudence which we can call wisdom.

Wise women see the potential consequences of their behavior, so they make good choices, even (or especially) when those choices run against the fleshly grain. They have the good sense to see how things they do and say affect others. They weigh their actions against the biblical standard and seek to please God, not themselves.

And wisdom is eager to put things right when others have been wronged. No woman on earth, wise or not, is going to make it through a day without sinning. Wisdom loves to repent and is eager to extend forgiveness to others. A little godly wisdom goes a long way toward building a house, and a little foolishness slows the construction process down. Wisdom has an eye on the big picture and keeps oversight on the progress.

Now I do not begrudge her. My hat’s off to her for all she has done to restore the honor due to the fine arts of domesticity. She obviously has a gift of organization, I really appreciate her creativity, and I read her magazine. But I’m just saying that my closets are not photogenic, and I don’t think I need to feel too crummy about it. Do you? Now, I do regularly try to rearrange them and tidy them up by making a run to Goodwill. But I feel pretty fantastic if all the sheets are washed and back on the beds. Ribbons? Hardly.

Christian women tend to be pretty hard on themselves in these areas of organization. I sometimes slip back into thinking that if only I could be more organized, then I would truly be holy (or rather, I would feel pretty holy). I remember telling my husband something like this years ago, and he replied with profundity: “What makes you think I would want to be married to you if you were more organized?” Now this made me think.

Typically, those women with an over-zealous organizational streak can make life pretty miserable for everyone else. Maybe that is what he was hinting at. Either way, it did make me feel a little more comfortable with my “disorganization.” And I don’t want to be a fusser. A fusser is always fussing around about stuff and fussing at everyone else about the stuff. Nipping at their heels. (Lewis somewhere mentions the woman who lives for others, and you can tell who they are by that hunted expression.) So if we can be organized and not be fussers, then that is good. But if by being organized we become tyrannical, then it would be better to send all our tidy little bins to the bad place.

Now I am not advocating bedlam in our homes. Certainly not. But I think we tend to be either too easy on ourselves or too hard on ourselves. The women with closets that won’t shut unless they run at them with their shoulder down are probably too easy on themselves. But maybe not. It depends on what else they are doing. The women who have things pretty well together, but not perfectly together, are probably too hard on themselves. We all know over-achievers who make the rest of us look like slouches. Well that’s okay. Let them! It is their gift. Some women are better homemakers than others. Some are way ahead on the learning scale; some are playing catchup. But the goal is never perfection (remember the ribbons). The goal is joy overflowing, even into our closets and out our drawers and cupboards.

So the item of first importance is doing the duties God has given us with a cheerful, hardworking spirit that does not look sideways and feel disheartened, is neither lazy nor driven, but strikes a joyful balance.

When the kids were little, I baked bread weekly and loved every minute of it. When I began teaching part-time, the bread baking fell behind. If you are a homeschooling mom, you can’t do everything. If you are a non-homeschooling mom, you can’t do everything. If you are not a mom, you can’t do everything. Important announcement: You are not omnipotent. Rejoice in that!

So, we do what is set before us cheerfully unto the Lord. That pleases Him. And if the closets get discombobulated from time to time, so much the better for our souls. We don’t want to become fussers. If the snapshots are not yet organized into albums, don’t beat yourself up about it. There may come a day (probably a rainy one) when you delight in organizing them all, and then you won’t be the proud owner of guilt-motivated scrapbooks.

A house that has every cubby organized and every square inch gleaming probably has no one living in it. “Where no oxen are, the crib is clean; but much increase is by the strength of the ox” (Prov. 14:4). I think God prefers a happy, productive untidiness to a joyless organization. Though I love getting my house cleaned up, that is no great achievement. When I really attain to godliness, I will take joy in seeing it get messed up. When I get there, I will be sure to whoop loudly!