No Matter Your Age ~ Embrace the Season

The grandchildren have left after an 8-day visit and all is quiet again. Much activity, love, and talking while they were here. They seem to grow older by leaps and bounds between visits. I grow older to them as well, at least that's what little Anna (5) seems to think. "Nana, I know why your hair is gray. Because you're old, old." Don't kids say the cutest things? (not)

I grayed early several years ago and so did my grandmother. I always remember her as gray, but I never thought of her as old, old. Maybe that's because she died a few years younger than I am now. Maybe it's because we weren't as bombarded back then with ads about staying and looking young. Whatever the reason, we currently live in a youth obsessed culture.

Why is that? I think several things are in that stew. For one, it sells products. If we were allowed to be satisfied with how we look, there would be no profit in that mentality for the cosmetic industry, the folks that do the nip and tuck, the chiseling, firming, implants, reductions, color enhancers (spray on, wash on), whitening, darkening, spot removers, wrinkle removers, pedicures, manicures, fake lashes, waxers, or the new fill-in scalp powders for thinning hair. It even comes in white. Hmmm....maybe I should seriously consider the scalp powder.

No matter how much we fix up or cover up, we inevitably age. That's just how life is. The more we shadow box, the more we lose out on growing old gracefully. No, the hair isn't the same, the skin isn't the same, and I cannot make it across the ring bridge at the playground now (tried it last week with the kiddos and was rather surprised that I couldn't).

But one thing I've learned as I've aged is that there's so much more to life than how young or old I look or feel, or whether I can still do the things I used to do. There's so much in life still to enjoy that we simply change the things we do and enjoy the things we now do. Real, live conversations are richer, quiet music is more pleasant, a slower walk through the neighborhood or the park can let the fragrance of the flowers drift by, a late-night or early-evening bedtime is at my bidding. And there is extended time to sit, meditate, and contemplate as I read God's Word. There may come a time in my later years that I cannot do even what I do now, but I know that God's grace is abundant. I've known many older saints who exude much joy even in their limited capacities. It has more to do with the spirit than the body.

I don't think we were meant to age when Creation began, but the Fall of Man brought it to us all. However, God in His great mercy redeems what Satan intends to take from us--the joy of our years. Our hope cannot be in clinging to youthfulness, for that is inevitably hopeless. Our hope and joy is found in the One who gives abundant life, in the here and now and ages to come. So I embrace the here and now. The winter season has its own beauty and peacefulness.

Even to your old age I will be the same, And even to your graying years I will bear you! 

I have done it, and I will carry you; And I will bear you and I will deliver you. 

~Isaiah 46:4-5

Image ~ from Freepik by RyanMcQuire

Being A Different Kind of Woman

The fact that I am a woman does not make me a different kind of Christian, 

but the fact that I am a Christian makes me a different kind of woman.  

~ Elizabeth Elliot

Coming Alongside

Thinking today of the affirming relationship between Jesus' mother Mary and her cousin Elizabeth, how each encouraged the other in their miraculous calling as mothers. Mothers who would nurture two boys, who themselves would one day change the world. Each woman needed the other, each understood the other. Although Mary and Elizabeth were experiencing something others of us could hardly imagine, we all need affirming relationships with other women who can empathize and encourage.

Scripture speaks of being a Titus 2 woman, one who nurtures younger women in their journey through life. Life can be a struggle. I remember thinking how complicated it was as I tried to figure out this thing of being a wife and mother. In His wisdom, God gives older women instruction to teach the younger women the ways of womanhood. Too often we get our instruction from current culture, from the media, from the celebrities. More often than not, it's hollow and empty. 

I've had women through the years who have filled this need in my own life. Like Mary, some have been family. Others have been dear friends. Some have simply taken me under their wings for a season and nurtured me through it. For all, I am forever grateful.

I hope I'm that kind of woman to other women. I know I've had many opportunities and am thankful for the privilege to come alongside. With our move last year, most of my spiritual daughters were left behind. That saddens me, but I sense that God is opening doors once again. I'm eager to walk along a few new paths to empathize and encourage in the coming year.

Painting ~ The Day's Catch, Daniel Ridgeway Knight 1839-1924

Domesticity ~ Muddled Ideas

By Helen Louise Johnson 1906 

[Feminism] is mixed up with a muddled idea that women are free when they serve their employers but slaves when they help their husbands.

~ G.K. Chesterton

An excellent wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels. 

The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain. 

She does him good, and not harm, all the days of her life.  

Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: 

"Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all."  

Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, 

but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.  

Give her of the fruit of her hands, and let her works praise her in the gates.

Proverbs 31:11-12, 28-31

Image ~ The Enterprising Housekeeper via Recipe Curio.com

200 Tested Recipes By Helen Louise Johnson 1906  

  Illustrated With Kitchen Helps
Price 25¢ 1906 

The Modesty and Domestic Virtues of Women

Abigail Adams, Gilbert Sullivan

I thought about taking up the American flag out by the mailbox yesterday evening as I came in from church that I'd stuck in the ground especially for Independence Day. Decided to leave it just a few more days and began to reflect again on that hot, muggy day (as these past few days have been) in July, 235 years ago, when fifty-six men pledged to each other their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor as they signed and supported the Declaration of Independence from foreign rule. In doing so, they appealed “to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions.” Those who signed their names were to be persecuted as outlaws by their military enemies. If the struggle for independence was unsuccessful, they knew there would be certain death as traitors to the Crown of England.

Many of these men lost everything—their homes, their property, their families, their health. A bounty price was set for the capture of John Hancock and Samuel Adams. Some of the signers had their homes burned and property destroyed; one man’s wife was imprisoned and eventually died from the hardships; others were harassed and left impoverished; another had to be constantly on the run, and his wife died of exposure and the unceasing strain.

It cost these men a great deal to be a signer of that great document. But let us not forget that it cost their wives a great deal as well, as we read in Wives of the Signers, published by Wallbuilders Press:

"... yet rarely a complaint do we find in their correspondence. On the other hand, the letters and other recorded utterances of the wives of the signers breathe the utmost devotion not only to their husbands but to the great cause for which their husbands had thrown life and fortune in the balance."

On June 20, 1776, Abigail Adams wrote to reassure her husband, John, in Philadelphia:

I feel no anxiety at the large armament designed against us. The remarkable interpositions of heaven in our favor cannot be too gratefully acknowledged. He who fed the Israelites in the wilderness, who clothes the lilies of the field and who feeds the young ravens when they cry, will not forsake a people engaged in so right a cause, if we remember His loving kindness.  

~ America's God and Country by William J.Federer

June 2, 1778—From the Autobiography of John Adams.

From all that I had read of History and Government, of human Life and manners, I had drawn this Conclusion, that the manners of Women were the most infallible Barometer, to ascertain the degree of Morality and Virtue in a Nation. All that I have since read and all the observations I have made in different Nations, have confirmed me in this opinion. The Manners of Women, are the surest Criterion by which to determine whether a Republican Government is practicable, in a Nation or not. The Jews, the Greeks, the Romans, the Swiss, the Dutch, all lost their public Spirit, their Republican Principles and habits, and their Republican Forms of Government, when they lost the Modesty and Domestic Virtues of their Women.

If the manners of women is, in reality, the ‘infallible barometer’ of the practicality of a republican form of government, what could be said of the modesty and domestic virtues of the women of our era for the cause of America’s form of government?

The manners of the women of 1776 helped change the course of history, and to those women and to their husbands America is indebted...and to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of their intentions.

An excellent wife, who can find? For her worth is far above jewels. 

The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain. 

She does him good and not evil all the days of her life.   

Proverbs 31: 10-12

Painting ~ Abigail Adams 1810, Gilbert Sullivan 1755-1828

Wikimedia Commons public domain

The Beauty of a Modest Heart

Warm weather is here. It was nice to sit out on the back porch for a while last evening and do a little reading. But with the coming on of warm weather is also the coming off of clothes for many of the young (and not so young) gals. I was reminded that summer is pretty nigh here as I was out running errands. Sometimes it's just plain difficult to try to pay at the check-out counter when you don't want to look below their chin level. We have very little modesty left in our current culture, very little embarrassment of what is showing, very little awareness that just maybe other people don't really want to see what's being displayed.

The sad thing is that it's not just in the marketplace, it's in the church pew as well. Sometimes I pick where I sit based on the exposure in my field of vision. It ought not to be this way. Church, especially, ought to be a place where our Christian brothers don't have to face these temptations.

Modest dress is the outward expression of a modest heart, as we're told in I Timothy 2:9-10:

"... likewise also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness--with good works."

Heart attitudes are revealed in what we wear because behind what we wear is the why of what we wear. What we are wearing or not wearing, displaying or not displaying, emphasizing or not emphasizing, is an expression of our heart.

Some would say, "I'll wear whatever I please." That's the point--it's all about me. Have they considered the people who have to look at them? Probably not with that attitude. Some would say, "I just think this outfit is cute." Naivety wrecks many a gal. Some would say, "I like to make the guys look." In fact, lust is posh and pushed by the culture. People are topsy-turvy confused, and immorality is rampant as result.

But for a follower of Christ, it's different--if the heart is in tune with His word. We're told that modesty "is proper for women who profess godliness." We make the gospel believable when how we dress reflects inward godliness. This is a profession of our faith. This is how people are convinced that what we say we believe is reality. This is the beauty of a modest heart.

A woman's greatest loveliness comes through a modest heart, and a modest heart expresses itself in modest behavior, modest dress, modest reactions, and modest attitudes. ~ Nancy Leigh DeMoss

Nancy spent a few days on this subject on Revive Our Hearts. If you'd like to listen in, just click the image below. She'd love to have you drop in.

The Good and the Bad of the Day

My hurting friend came to visit this evening. I hope the time spent together was an encouragement to her. We shared tea and recent sewing projects and talked a little of how things are going. Don't you sometimes wish you could just make things all better for someone?

I spent some time in a waiting room today, having my blood pressure raised by an inane talk show. I stayed outside until the last minute so I wouldn't have to listen any longer than necessary. What irritates me the most is how these shows shape women's thinking. Some celebrity mother of four talking about how women can do it all--have children, a partner??, a career, and on and on.  And how she just looooves her job, and how she told the kids that she's important, too, and she needs to do things that she likes. Most of these celebrities turn their children over to nannies, and they call that being a mother? Do they think we think they do their own cooking and grocery shopping, too? Which is what I did on the way home. As I was waiting in the check-out lane, a headline on a magazine caught my eye--(Some celebrity) uses (another celebrity's) nanny.  Who's really caring for the children? The children probably don't even know themselves. Except for the unusually high blood pressure reading, I got a good report. The inane talk show didn''t.

Painting: Five O'Clock Tea ~ Mary Cassatt