Strength Email Archives: “Christian Womanhood” 9/2000 July 14, 2008

 

 

[ In these earlier emails I usually did not give any words of intro...but I will here. dch]  Some women get their feathers ruffled when some task in the home is referred to as “woman’s work”.  I believe the ruffling stems from their attitude toward the role God intended for them.  Even career women are still to be “keepers at home” (Titus 2:5).  The term “keeper” actually means “worker”.  Even the Proverbs 31 lady, who was a shrewd business woman from the context, kept her home in good order.  You may say, “Yes, but she had ‘maidens’ to help her!” (see v.15).  You have “maidens” of a sort too, you know!  What about that dishwasher?  Clothes washer?  Dryer? Mini van?  Fridge?  Kitchen sink?  We have become so used to convenience that we forget there used to be none! 

 

At any rate, please don’t anyone get all “women’s lib” about the flavor of a couple of these quotes.  All they are suggesting is the great role great women play in the lives of great men by doing what seems un-great…the mundane.  As my husband pointed out in his message last night, sometimes it takes greater character and determination to get through the daily grind of regular tasks than it does to accomplish something “big” out in the arena of life.  If we “do all to the glory of God”, then when God asks “What is that in thine hand?” as He did to Moses [about the ordinary rod with which he performed miraculous feats], we’ll realize the power we can wield for Him while holding a storybook, a mixer, a baby bottle or a garden trowel.  It’s all in perspective.  Anything God asks us to do is a great thing.] Here are the quotes:

 

Love this one:  Milly Amos used to say that if a woman was to see all the dishes that she had to wash before she died, piled up before her in one pile, she’d lie down and die right there. “Aunt Jane of Kentucky” by Eliza Calvert Hall

 

Womanhood means patience, longsuffering and deepening of gentlenesses.

Lord, I belong to you not to myself,

I give up my right to myself

I will take up the cross and I will follow you.

–Florence Allshorn, missionary to Uganda

 

One of the elements of being a real woman is being available to do what God asks.   There is a sign on my bathroom mirror that says, “Nothing is too little if God asks it.”  It’s having a servant’s heart.  As I’ve often said, a women’s work is the sort of thing that nobody’s ever going to notice as long as it’s done.  Everybody will notice if it is not done.  Elisabeth Elliot

 

Help me, O Lord, to make a true use of all disappointments and calamities in this life, in such a way that they may unite my heart more closely with you.  Cause them to separate my affections from worldly things and inspire my soul with more vigor in pursuit of true happiness.   Susanna Wesley

 

The unpretentious things belong particularly to women.  ‘The reason that the men of the world have been the great generals, the great statesmen, the great artists and the great musicians is because men don’t have anything else to do. –Tom Howard

 

Lord, I give up all my own plans and purposes, all my own desires and hopes,

And accept Thy will for my life.

I give myself, my life, my all utterly to Thee to be Thine forever.

Fill me and seal me with the Holy Spirit.

Use me as Thou wilt, send me where Thou wilt, work out Thy whole will in my life at any cost, now and forever.  Betty Scott Stam

 

Lord, whose way is perfect, help us, we pray, always to trust Your goodness, that walking with You and following You in all simplicity, we may possess quiet and contented minds and may cast all our care on You who cares for us.  Grant this, O Lord, for your dear Son’s sake, Jesus Christ.  Christina Rossetti