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Showing posts with label keeper of the home. Show all posts
Showing posts with label keeper of the home. Show all posts

Monday, April 29, 2013

The Home: A Place of Economics - Part 9

I really want to inspire women to come back home and make it their center for economic affairs.  It can be their source, not a sacrifice.  I wish to debunk the myths about why a woman needs to work outside the home to make it financially and bring in another paycheck.  Although I do not know every situation, impossible and by all means, God is in control of every one of our lives, I would take the topic biblically.  You take your situation to the Lord.  Hopefully, husband will also do all he can to have wife at home.pic

1. Every member of the family is a contributor

No free riders here.  So many teenagers have been so spoiled with their parents providing everything for them without asking anything in return.  The teen earns some money for his own pleasure.  The young adult starts work for his own interests as well.  Of course, each child can save for personal expenses, but the family has one bank account.  We are so used to seeing each other very individualistic that we have forgotten that we are part of a family unit.  We all work together toward the same goal.

It was well said of years past that the bigger the family the better well off they were financially because each member of the family contributed to the family economics.

It is important that children are trained to understand about bills and being resourceful.  They can contribute by being conservative in consuming utilities.  They should also have work assigned to them that they are responsible for.  I tell my kids everyday, “if you don’t work, you don’t eat.”  Even before breakfast, they have had to do some type of work I assign for each of them.  We don’t give allowance because we don’t believe in free money.  We earn it by working.  If the children want something, they find ways to make money.  Of course, we also give gifts.  We love giving gifts but the gifts are well thought out for a purpose.

Training the children to contribute

At our home, I hold tea parties on a weekly basis.  We call them entrepreneurial tea parties.  After preparing the yummy dainties together and learning manners and respectable behavior, I also tell them in advance to bring all their business ideas.  I write them on a board to brainstorm.  We are impregnated with ideas, tons of them.  We are always pretty busy working on something.  Our home is a booming place of industry.   I like instilling in the children an entrepreneurial spirit.  They get creative and really start going on what we can make to sale and services we can provide.  It is really fun.  It changes their thinking from expecting Dad to be the sole income provided to everyone being actively at it.  We are a six-income household.  That’s right even baby is included in businesses.  Our little Liberty makes great photography poses.

What Can Mom Do?

At this point of my life, I am consumed with the training of my little people.  So I inspire them in business endeavourers and help them make it a reality.  It is part of our home education.  We make things together and sell them.   I also help my husband in whatever I can.  I am overwhelmed by the potential we have at home to generate income.  All we need is creativity.  Other things we can do is to save, stretch the money that comes in.  Practicing frugality doesn’t mean living cheap; far from it.  Many times being frugal for us means living healthier.

Trusting in the Lord for our finances

I have experienced the hand of God on our lives as we have chosen to obey His Word about being a keeper at home, taking the responsibility of training our children, and being a helper to my husband, not some other man at work.  We have had no income for over three years now and we have lacked nothing.  In fact, God has provided over abundantly many times.  We don’t know where our food is going to come next month.  How are we going to pay our bills?  It is interesting that the Lord gave us all four of our children in the times of lack.  When my husband was laid off, our firstborn came.  Then his business close and the last two were born.  During these last three and a half years, we have story after story of God’s Providences over our lives.

I am not the only one to have this testimony.  I know others, and have heard of miracles God has done as mothers decide to stay home and raise their children.  Even single mothers have been able to do it in various creative ways.

If you work outside the home and have a longing to come back home to be with your children and really be a helpmeet to your husband, pray, pray, pray.  God will meet you according to your faith.  He is Faithful.

Do you have fears or concerns? 

If you have creative ideas to share I would love to create a community where we help each other generate sources of income to bless our family and others.

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Embracing the True Meaning of Home Part 1

Ever since I was a little girl entering first grade, I was often taunted with the question from teachers, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”  After my answers, “a teacher” or “a police woman”, I was given the lecture of empowerment of how I can be anything I wants to be and the, “yes, you can,” pep talk.  I grew up believing that she had to do something outside the home to be someone important.  Being a homemaker is out of the picture.  Who wants to be just that?  The idea was greatly devalued.  Now, when I am filling out some paper work and the dreaded question of “occupation” comes up, and I answer “homemaker”, most think of washing dishes, mopping floors and changing diapers.  Somehow people truly believe anybody can do that.  The truth of the matter is that women are able to be homemakers, but now a day, not every woman is capable of being a homemaker.  It takes training to prepare for such a profession.

It is hopeful to see that more and more women are realizing that real freedom lies in staying at home to raise their family.  Even if the family is grown, the woman’s home ministry continues as an older woman teaching the younger ones as stated in Titus 2.  Living next to me is a very nice lady who works sometimes up to 130 hours in two weeks.  She is away from home through the night at times.  Her husband is home sick and she doesn’t have the privilege to nurse him.  She doesn’t “like” it but, like most in her situation would say, “you gotta do what you gotta do.”  She is the one brining in the paycheck and her husband stays home.  What slavery!  She is not free to plan anything because she is always on call to go work even on her one day off.

In contrast, keeping home is the opposite and very rewarding.  You are building a home for God’s glory and future generations, not some man’s business idea.  What a difference in eternal meaning!  Staying home is not boring at all, or frustrating, not even just mundane.  Many woman in the workforce, now envy the homemakers.  “You get to stay home with your kids?”  The young lady cashier would ask me, “you’re lucky”.

But staying at home is not just taking care of your children.  The opportunities for achievement are really unlimited.  Our home is filled with new ideas almost everyday of how to further the Kingdom of God in business, in ministry, in media, education, government, food industry, missions, marketplace through creative and innovative ways.  I have known of doctors and lawyers who are now envying the profession of a homemaker!

The homemaker is not the romantic picture of perfection painted by Jane Austen.  Although, that time period had distinctive femininity and domesticity, it is not what I am attempting to bring alive here.  But rather, what does the Bible say about our homes and about the homemakers.  The home is also not the Martha Stewart type or the Home and Garden magazines kind and homemakers are not to be the perfectionist -I-have-it-all-under-control type of woman either.

The home was not always devalued. Pastor Steven Wedgeworth describes the home in this way:

“The home used to be a center of agriculture, economic affairs, and education. For the woman to be a “homemaker” was to be an executive over the central nervous system of society. It was to be a master of arts. It was to be a farmer. It was to be a maker. It was to be a temple, a sacrament, a superlative.”

Pastor Wedgeworth compares the home to the body’s nervous system.  If it is injured, or if the wife is not in her post, the body will start decaying, by developing diseases.  Damage to it could end up in paralysis, and even death.The body is made up of many other important parts or professions.  But we can’t argue that these other parts are more important than the Central Nervous System, for without it, they cannot function properly.  If it is broken down, church and society suffer.image

God desires for women to embrace this holy mission.  We will never be complete and satisfied unless we undertake the call to "build  our homes (Proverbs 14:1).  

We will very briefly look at what the Home and the Homemaker should be.  This subject is so extensive that I will only describe some of the main components that make a True Home.

So join me this month as I dedicate it to enticing many women to embrace the true meaning of their homes.   As we celebrate our homes and families in the perfect love of God, they will shine bright to the world.  I hope to turn hearts to our Creator by our example of love and joy.  The world is always watching and learning.  What an opportunity to teach by being godly women who love their husbands, children and keep our homes in wisdom and Christ-centered.

What about your home?  How does it look like right now?  What is it's culture?


The Home  - Part 2

Saturday, March 9, 2013

A Homemaker Is A Full Time Stay-At-Home Woman

Yes, it can be done!  I know this topic is very unpopular and most woman, including Christian woman, would argue that "you gotta do what you 8LI6100Zgotta do", meaning they have no choice but to go out and work.  I have been sorry for many of these women who do desire to stay home with their children but have bought into the lie that there is no way.  Weekly, I see a beautiful young lady at Trader Joe's grocery store who loves my children.  Every week she talks about her little one year-old girl.  She tells me, "You are lucky to get to stay at home with your children, I wish I could too."  And like her are countless of women.  I believe we are wired this way by our Creator.  We are women, nurturers and motherly by nature.  We long to love our husbands and children by providing a peaceful, beautiful, healthy, nourishing atmosphere at home.   This cannot be accomplish by being part-time at home.  Even if we try to "tough it out" in the work force, the longing to be a woman of our home is deep down in each of us.


I have good news!  It can be done!  I am a living proof.  I've also known other women and known of others who have believed God as well for their provision so they can stay at home.  For my husband and I, it was never a question whether I would go out to work.  I did do ministry full time before our first child was born.  After that, I have dedicated eight years  so far to our growing home and I have a vision and a prayer that not only in my life it will continue this way but in the lives of my future generations of daughters and daughters-in-law.  We have friends who asks us, "how do you do it?"  When they find out we have had no income for more than 3 years (more on this story later).  The answer is simply, "By the grace of God and our full trust that He is Faithful".  And no, we take nothing from Obama or any type or Government "assistance".  God has been giving us our daily bread and healing every sickness. We have determined to stand on God's Word and obey it wholeheartedly no matter what the circumstances around us are.  God commands us to teach our children diligently throughout the day (Deut. 6:4-8).   This is perhaps the most important Scripture passage to the Jews.  They would recite it everyday, at the Synagogue and it is very first passage their children would memorize.  It can only be obeyed by parents being with their children throughout the day.  The next command is in Titus 2:5, for women to be "keepers at home that the Word of God be not blasphemed."  God promises to bless us if we obey His commandments and seek His kingdom first.  For me, if I had to choose between either obey God's Word or go out to work to provide for my family, I really don't have a choice.  God's Word will always be authority over my life.  And He definitely has provided day by day in ways we would never had imagine.  We do have story after story of God's providence in providing all that we need in.

Secondly, the stay at home woman is not the picture you get of one cleaning all day, changing diapers, fixing meals on her pajama sweats and a ponyfrederick-morgan-happy-days tail quickly put together.  Far from it.  We get an excellent picture from the woman of Proverbs 31.  She is industrious, contributing to the financial welfare of the family and yet, tending to the many needs of her family and community.  There are many ways we, as wives, can help our husbands save money, be frugal and work from our homes utilizing the gifts and talents God has given us. In no way do I imply women are to never leave home.  That would be impossible; it's unbiblical and ridiculous. We can be professional business women right from our homes.  This season of lack of income for us has truly been a period of creativity, inspiration and even health in homemaking.  Many women who work outside the home have very poor health and the whole family would suffer because they have no time to prepare a wholesome meal.

O.K. women have also told me, "...but I love my job, I love what I do."  Others have told me after having a baby, "I can't wait to go back to work, I need to get out of my house."  These are Christian women who are teachers at their churches.  If you are one of these, I would urge you to please pray, pray, pray and study the Word of God  and meditate on His desires for us as wives and mothers.  Our home is the building block of society and when we neglect it, we all suffer.  Just look around you.  This broken society is a result of that mentality.  Many have bought the feminists lie that we have a choice about having a career or being at home.  When we belong to Christ, we don't have a choice.  He is our Lord and we obey His commands.  Men don't have a choice but to work.   Being a homemaker is a full time job.

A goal of Blessed Homestead is to encourage women to embrace their homes and nurture their families.  So for the next month, I will be sharing how important "The Home" and the "Homemaker" are to the family, church and society.  I will also share ideas and stories of other women in similar financial situations who are surviving and even thriving without neglecting their God-given duties.  If you are one of them and would like to share your creativity and resources here, I would love to know.