I have been asked why I have posted so little on Mom’s Point of View during 2008.    This is not because I don’t have many articles on biblical womanhood in my files.  In fact, I have written more than thirty articles this year that are down to the final edit.  So why not post?

There are several issues that swirl around in my head every time I am about to hit the “publish” button.  The first is that in the home education blogging world, several flaws seem to stand out to me.  One is that much of what I read is a regurgitation of what prominent home school leaders have written elsewhere.   And I find some of the regurgitation is without critical thinking or is without a sifting of what has been written.   A prominent, fresh example of this is the election trail of the past two months.   I concluded that no one had reached bedrock because the repetitive silt layer was easier to navigate.   It gave a sense of belonging to those who formed camps.  I came to the conclusion that no one was completely consistent within his own position and there was no admission of loose ends.  My husband and I actually came to a voting conclusion that I don’t recall reading anywhere and we readily admit that our position was not air-tight either.   So, on our blogs here in our home we don’t want to repetively repeat things we are reading elsewhere.  Instead we want to be fresh with what God is doing in our lives, what we are learning, and we don’t want to follow anyone other than Jesus Christ, with devotion to His Words to the best that we understand them and apply them.  Having said that, we do not consider ourselves to be autonomous in understanding the scriptures.  We are under the authority of a local church, have Christian friends that we dialogue with, and frequently go back to older references such as the saints of the past who have left their writings and commentaries for us to consider.  

Another issue that appears to be a flaw to me is that blogs come across as being self-righteous.   In many ways when I hit that “publish” button, I am in control of my own image.  If I do admit to a weakness or a failure, I am at full liberty to tell about it within the boundaries of what I want known or do not want known.  For anyone who knows me, you know that putting up an inflated image for others to admire just bugs me.  While I do agree that we should aspire to excellence and demonstrating the fruit of the Spirit, I disagree with painting an image of myself or my family that gives the impression that we have the answers or that we have it all packaged up and ready for display.  If I read my Bible correctly, and if I am willing to look at my heart honestly, I know that the invasion of sin there is a constant battle.  And our family is not one to be put up on a pedestal.  We have lots of problems and challenges, and we don’t have all the answers.  We are sinners saved by grace.  Period.   End of story.  This is not to say that God has not done great things in us and through us that we can share with others.  It’s a parallel reality like the train tracks.  Good and bad run concurrently.   I hope that my blog would send the focus to Christ and not to ourselves.   To glorify ourselves would be shameful.  This year it has become more painful for me to hit the “publish” button just because I am concerned about the hyper-inflation in the home education blogging world.    

I would also like to mention that I have only seen two instances in the blogging world when someone came out and said they were wrong on an issue or they mistreated another person on their blog or that a movement or para-church organization had been wrong.   I most often see a post or article deleted instead of addressed when something goes haywire.  Hmmmm.   Sometimes I think it would be wise to look at the groups we travel in and raise the level of honesty.  Do our groups foster an accurate portrayal or do they support a kind of corporate falseness?  It takes a great deal of humility, and reliance on God’s sovereignty to move and shake this world for Christ to live honestly and effectively.  This means we should not depend on technology networking to accomplish His purposes, but rather cautiously use it as a tool.  And it means we should not hyper-inflate ourselves to promote our cause.

I also fear that we have some James 2 attitudes floating around.  I have read posts that evaluate biblical girlhood and womanhood by 1)  quality of clothing thereby dividing the frumpies from the fashionable,  2)  by educational achievement thereby creating an intellectual hierarchy that makes one woman more valuable over another based on how academically articulate she is , and  3)  by economic standing.  I have even read that a young single woman will not be interesting to a single man unless she has intellectual prowess and the ability to stimulate him.  This crushes the worth of young ladies who are not intellectually astute, have learning disabilities and differences, and yet may be some of the best followers of Jesus Christ and would make terrific wives and mothers.  We might as well devalue young ladies who are faithfully being educated by parents with little means economically and academically but are faithful none the less.   Add to this the girl that has not had the opportunity and means to travel outside of her home town to the list of unworthies, even though the Providence of God has made this so.  This devalues the perseverance many young ladies acquire as they faithfully serve in homes that are under heavy medical trials, it devalues those who are helping their mothers who are still bearing children in their late 40s, and it does not take into account good works done in secret which many girls and women are performing daily for our Lord.   There are women out there who are not intellectually stimulating, nor of ample financial status, but who are living the “one another” commands of the New Testament with a large degree of excellence.  Some of these James 2 posts are discouraging and written by those with a high level of education and ample financial resources.  These blessings from the Lord to these writers can subtly become a haughty platform or a pillar for prosperity gospel.  I’ll leave my comments at that and mention that I hope that the wonderful blessings God has bestowed on me and my family will reflect my wonderful Lord and His unique working in our lives and not become ways for me to categorize others and judge their degree of success.  I want to be effective in sharing those blessings with others without creating an aura of superiority.

Since I am a woman who believes in the biblical design for women specifically in a literal and applied way, another issue that has tripped me up in publishing is how to be intellectually sharp, biblically grounded, courageous, and obedient … but at the same time be feminine, womanly, motherly, nurturing, and have the “ornament of a quiet and gentle spirit” as written in I Peter 3:4.   In the home school conservative blogging world of women I sense a manly and militant spirit in many of the writings that come from women and their daughters who claim to be against feminism.  This has been going on for some time, but it was particularly evident during the election hype with posts discussing a female vice president with sarcasm and ugliness and name calling.  I wondered if any of these female writers could read their posts in a respectful manner to the female candidate in person, and remember that she has a title that goes with her last name.    The candidate was verbally rough housed as if we women were in a gymnasium fighting with boxing gloves.  Pretty feminine, huh?  So I am in somewhat of a quandry of how to write effectively and yet remain totally a girl.  I love being a girl and I don’t want to be a boy.  I don’t want to sound like a boy and I don’t want to write like one.  There have been many influences in my life to the contrary and I want to abandon those and become more girly every day.  I fear that the Christian women who are striving to live biblically have forgotten Proverbs 31:26 … and in her mouth is the law of kindness.  My Hebrew dictionary describes the “kindness” used in this verse as full of piety, merciful, beautiful, and kindly.   So I want to be an example of kindness in my writing and yet be able to hit the nail on the head if need be.   

My last issue is a personal one.  I have had people meet me who knew me first through our family blog.  Some have read one or two of my articles, some read them all.  Their thinking lined up with mine.  Or they learned something new.  Or they admired the fact that I posted something that goes contrary to our culture and they gained courage themselves to stand against the cultural landslide we are suffering.  But then to their shock they meet me face to face and find out that I have flaws and struggles and that physically I suffer several ailments.   It’s like a deflated balloon.  I am much better on paper than in real life.  So after the balloon deflates, those who have read me change in their view of me.  I have interpreted their subsequent conversations and mannerisms toward me to be that I have failed them or that I just don’t measure up.   And you know, I really don’t.  I admit it.  I don’t live biblical womanhood at a pedestal level.  Most things I barely have off the ground.  There are things that I am not even aware of that I should be working on.

So what is the basic problem?  It’s cyberspace relationships.   

Cyberspace ….from the Greek kybernts: steersman, governor, pilot, or rudder — is the global domain of electro-magnetics accessed through electronic technology and exploited through the modulation of electromagnetic energy to achieve a wide range of communication and control system capabilities.

We are now a people of Internet Culture.  Let’s get more specific.  We are now Christian women of Internet Culture.  Read the above Greek root again.  The Internet is steering us, governing us, piloting us, and it has become our rudder.

I think this is wrong. 

There was a time when women had no relationships in outer space.  I am old enough to remember that time.  There was once a time when women did not have to go to a women’s seminar and read the latest book to be sufficiently bolstered to live their Christian life.  I am old enough to remember that time too.  There was a time when women did not have to get out away from their families for refreshment, nor did they need girlfriend weekends or mid-week girlfriend dates.  And there was a time when women did not have to have so many material things and activities to be content and they did not even vote in elections (!) and so forth.  Do you know that their influence was incredible, putting the modern day woman to shame?  My daughters and I studied this and found out what women used to really do in their homes and communities.  Let me say it again.  They were incredible.  They were influential.  They were about the business of women.  Interestingly, once women’s suffrage was achieved, women transferred their responsibilities to the civil government both in their daily actions and their voting, creating “mother government” which we all know is swallowing us up.  Today as Christian women we are a rather sickly, ineffectual lot of women that are whining and complaining and wallowing in selfishness.  Historically we can trace these factors: the breakdown of the famly household, the rise of secular feminism, the feminization of the church, and the watering down of the sufficiency of scripture … all reasons why so many of us in 2008 desire and depend upon crutches that have nothing to do with the true disciplines of the Christian life. 

My personal belief is that the computer has done more to make relationships shallow than to build them.  I’ve already referred to the fact that anyone can represent themselves in however they want to on the internet.   So it is a rather plastic image.  Blogs are rather like brochures.  To add to that, the computer keeps us from truly being a keeper “at home” because it takes us instantly out into the world  to shop anywhere we want, read just about anything we want, connect with people everywhere outside of our home, and be part of the world.  I wonder if some of Biblical Womanhood Cyberspace is contrary to combating feminism.  The scripture does not say “keeper of the world” yet the Internet in many ways is actually the world.  We have women who are spending large chunks of time out in the world while writing that they are committed to being keepers of their homes.  The minute any of us is on the computer and says to our child, “Just a sec,” well, that’s when we need to hit the off button.    I have a funny feeling that too many of us say “just a sec” multiple times each day to our children, to our husbands, and to our churches.

The Internet is spawning peer dependency.  Much of Biblical Womanhood is peer to peer and not as much older woman to younger woman.  Some of the younger women have complained on their blogs about the older women, and yet at the same time they will box an older woman in by saying that if the older woman writes anything, well here are the specifications of how and what they can write.  It is no wonder that older women have declined to share with the younger women.   

I am also concerned about the virtual youth group out there.  My husband and I were looking at this the other day and he just shook his head and said that this is not beneficial.  This is happening in family integrated circles and it is not good.  This is like throwing out all the bad but not replacing it with what is right.  We then end up exactly where we began. 

What is NOT lacking in this world is cyberspace women talking.  What is needed in this world is Christian women effectually working at the local level in their homes first and then in their churches and finally in their communities.  In the midst of feminism and a cultural landslide against God’s design for living, we have short changed ourselves and our churches and our communities by turning our Christianity into something in outer space that is not breathing right here and right now in our own backyard.   We are on the Jetson Plan.  Here of late I have wondered if the local church was God’s plan or is para-church cyberspace God’s plan?  To me, the transfer from the local church to the global electronic church is a bit like local government being swallowed up by the federal government.  Someone “out there” is controlling my own backyard yet has never even seen it.

If there is one change that I would love to see in my lifetime, it is the establishment of several local churches in my area where the following occurs:

That there be women laboring in their homes in following their husbands with a beautiful and tender spirit, gladly nurturing their children in the admonition of the Lord, applying their intellect and giftings in amazing ways,

That these same women draw together in community with their sisters in Christ in their local church, applying much grace and service to one another with great zeal and unfailing commitment against dissension, practicing hospitality and love in great measure,

And that these women be effectual in their communities in reaching out to those who do not know Christ and in caring for the homeless, widowed and orphaned as this is true religion.

I have not seen this in my lifetime.  And I humbly submit that I don’t really even know how to do these things myself but that I am willing to pioneer that road.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

So what do we do with the computer?  Use it with caution and only when it aids us with our life purpose.  Here are some ideas to get you started.

1.   Do not read the computer if you have not read your Bible in the last 24 hours.  

2.   Do not do not read the computer if you have not labored in prayer in the last 24 hours.

3.   Do not read the computer if you are out of relationship with your husband or if there is something you can do today to aid him in family worship .  If your husband has any need that is not attended to, fill that need first. 

4.   Do not read the computer if it causes you to ignore your children’s needs today.  Also, make a plan with your husband concerning your children’s time spent on the computer.

5.   Do not read the computer if you have not practiced hospitality to the families in your church or if you are not building relationships in your church.  Hospitality will build your church like nothing else can.  If you don’t have a hospitality plan, make one.  Also helpful are short emails or notes to your sisters in Christ along with praying for these sisters as they come to your mind.

6.   Do not read the computer if you know of needs within your local church that you can fill through prayer or service.

7.   Do not read the computer if you have abandoned the Great Commision in telling someone about Christ and it is on your conscience.   Prepare to take care of that.

8.   Do not read the computer if you have not exercised today.  You need health and energy to nurture your children.  The computer is no different than the television: it turns us into couch potatoes.  Go take a brisk walk every day with your children.  We call it family integrated physical education.

9.   Do have someone put a lock on your computer between 10 pm and 6 am.  My husband actually programmed ours to shut off between 9 pm and 6 am, giving our family a full nine hour break with no temptation.  You need rest and sleep.  Don’t let the computer draw you in just like those who watch late night television.  Nothing on the computer is worth it.  Don’t let the computer be your late night companion.  The computer is keeping Christian women from physical intimacy in their marriages.  Women have alluded this to me several times.  This is a grievous thing to trade marital love for a machine.   

10.  Do be strategic in computer reading.  

       Determine ahead of time what the Christian standard for reading is.  Consider a commitment to not enter into anything that is defiling or draws you into sin or areas that you are tend to fail.  After that, what I do is that I have several key places I can visit once a month that give me the general idea of what is going on in Christian circles.  These can be skimmed in little time. I clocked this and the last time it took me about 40 minutes to do that.  And this is just once a month.    Then I have several women that I enjoy reading who are older than I am and farther down the path that are mature Christians and have children older than I do.  These I read weekly, skimming their articles and posts and only lingering in those things that catch my eye.  Then I browse a few younger women’s blogs because I truly care about the young home schooling mothers and want to keep abreast of what they are thinking.   At that time I may catch a glimpse into a young lady who is not yet married.  I do not spend my time on websites that take me into the battles that my husband is fighting unless he needs me to for some reason.  And recently I made a commitment not to go to places that cause me to abandon a quiet and gentle spirit since I am working hard on being more amiable.   I added up the total weekly reading time and I have it down to twenty minutes every other day.

       Another smart idea is to have a “link policy” because those links on the sidebar can be a real time waster.  Determine ahead of time if and when and how many links you will accept into your life. 

11.  Don’t compare your family to others that are blogging.  Remember that blogs are brochures.  Each family has their own path and their own giftings.  Enjoy the variety in the body of Christ.

12.  Don’t read women who have a problem with authority or have a rebellious spirit.   They will become contentious companions.  

13.  Do be willing to wait on the growth of your children to fill your adult social desires.  Your children will grow to be your friends and they will bless you like no cyberspace relationship can.  I have a 22 year old daughter who I truly call my adult friend, but it took 20 years to have the relationship bloom into that. 

14.  Don’t depend on the computer for your main diet of reading.  Do keep three books on your nightstand.  One of them could be a deep book, perhaps a theological work or a Puritan writer that is digging up the ground of your mind and making it more fertile and serious towards things of God.  The second book could be of value to your calling as a woman, such as a homeschooling method book or women’s issues or a book on the Christian life or a literary classic.  The third book could be light reading such as a cookbook or maybe a book about how to quilt or how to celebrate holidays.  Having these three levels of reading on your nightstand means you always have something available to read according to how much brain power you have at the moment.   I also keep a copy of Baxter’s Christian Directory on hand because I am always looking up something in there. 

15.   If you yourself are blogging, set the perimeters of what that means.  And evaluate the season of life that you are in and whether or not this is the right time to be blogging.  What does your husband think about your blogging time?

An additional computer tip:  Make your shopping list first.  And I mean first.  Then if computer shopping can fill that need, go directly to the places that will fill it.  Window shopping on the computer is a waste of time and it breeds discontentment.  Don’t shop for things you can’t afford and don’t get pulled into email advertising.  Even browsing the “free” ads can be a waste of time.  I caught myself doing that months ago and wondered if that was really redeeming the time for the Lord. 

If you have found yourself addicted to the computer, consider a fast.  I have done this several times when I’ve gone over the edge with this black box.  The first few days are difficult, but once the chains of bondage are broken, what a relief!

Having said this, why am I blogging? 

I am blogging as a written journal to my children who are preschoolers, middlers, teens, and adults.  It is a written testimony to them.   It also has addressed issues that have come up in our lives and I have taken a stand on what I believe in these things in a written way.   If anyone else finds the time or enjoys it or it is a help, then I am glad that it would be used in that way.   I hope a woman will not read my blog if her family and church are suffering.  I would much rather she build up her family and local church.  Some day it may be one of my adult children who live in her community and will need a strong local body of believers that committed Christians built because the local church was valued over other things.

Since I am not really a writer, I hope that no one ever mentions this blog to Mr. Pudewa.  My children are writing better than I am.  I can’t recall a time that I have ever had the time to add the dress-ups and the triple extensions.  It’s pretty plain-Jane text with me.  Now my mother’s name was Jane.  Maybe that’s not such a bad thing – being plain Jane.  

So, that’s my blog about blogs. 

This post is for the benefit of my daughters who have asked me what the first year of marriage is like and what it is like to be a new bride.  To be sure, every woman would answer this from her own perspective so this is definitely my own personal experience and thoughts on the first year.  One thing I’d like to mention up-front is that I have repeatedly heard women remark that the first year of marriage was hard or miserable or a terrible time of adjusting.  Daughters, be encouraged – this does not have to be true at all.  I enjoyed our honeymoon, our first year of marriage, and our first anniversary.  I even remember our first disagreement and that does not taint that first year at all.  So, here are some thoughts, girls, on the first year, and a few pictures since your father loves photography and there is a large album full of pictures from that first year. 

Dad has written about our honeymoon on his blog and how he chose a quaint Vermont inn with lots of history but only one road going through the town.  Our friends had chosen Caribbean islands and that sort of thing for their honeymoons but Dad knew that we would enjoy a non-commercial, cuisine-excellent, New England countryside vacation.  I also suspect that the Vermont trout streams were heavily calling to him and he could not resist.  I had no idea of where we were going but I had a clue when he said don’t pack a swimsuit.  It was not south that we were going.  I was hopeful that we would end up in New England or even Canada, but also hopeful that if it were Canada it would not be Niagara Falls since I had been there so many times it was worn out.    Dad’s choice was a great one and as all of you know I would pack my bags at a moment’s notice to go back to Grafton, Vermont. 

Upon returning home we unpacked and finished moving our wedding gifts and my belongings into our home.  Now, for a Spangler, everything evolves around a piano, even unpacking.  This piano has a story.  This was the piano that I took lessons on when I was five years old.  My teacher, Anna Marie DeVerter, was an elderly woman who lived in downtown Harrisburg, very close to the capitol building.  She had come through a line of pianists from the very old European masters and she was quite eccentric.  After she moved into a nursing home, my father purchased her piano and gave it to our pastor.   When my pastor moved into nursing care, my father acquired the piano once more and gave it to me.  This was one of the worst pianos by this time as the action was so sluggish and stiff that my fingers had to hammer it and it was impossible to produce any dynamics.   I was able to teach some beginning piano students on it.   We sold this piano for…. well I’ll tell you later.   Notice that the brand new pots and pans are placed in low priority on the floor underneath the piano.  

It’s important during the first year of marriage to study your husband and get to know his likes and dislikes even more than during your engagement when you are busy with wedding arrangements and so forth and are only gaining glimpses of who he is.  It’s important to support your husband in his hobbies and those things that refresh him.  These things are crucial to his health and his well-being so you will want to support, encourage, and learn these things.  With your father, I learned right off the bat that he loves history, music, nature and photography.  So one of the things I immediately got used to was musical rehearsals all over the New York City area, museums, long hikes and being “clicked” at frequently.  I had never been photographed so much in all my life and I had to be ready at all times with a smile.  You will note that I never had a knack with a camera, so there is little pictoral record of your father, but evidently he found me an interesting subject and so the albums are full of your mother.  I had never wanted to be a model and certainly don’t have the looks so I find this whole thing quite funny.  Here we were hiking in the Bear Mountain area in New York.  Columbus Day is the height of the leaf color so I think this was taken in September.  No, we did not find any bears.

At the American Museum of Natural History I turned around and “click.”  This museum is incredible.  The historical musical instrument room is phenomenal.   Ooo let’s go!

At the Bronx Zoo.  Were my thoughts “Put that thing away!” or was it that the monkey behavior rubbed off on me?  Hmmm… I can’t remember.  Either way, it is an amazing thing that so many neat animals live right in the heart of New York City.

 

One of the things I learned right off the bat is that your father likes to invite people over.  I think this came from his parents, who are incredibly hospitable.  I came from a home that never practiced hospitality that I can remember.  So I was at quite a loss over this whole thing.  In fact, before we were married I wallowed in self-pity that I would never meet my mother-in-law’s abilities to cook and entertain – and I never have.   Hospitality does not come naturally to me, but I learned from the first year of marriage that this was going to have to be something that I could do enough to please your dad. 

Here is one of those times in pictorial representation.  Taken in our home shortly after we were married, these were your dad’s friends and their wives.  Dad was the last to get married.  I was the first of my friends to marry.   Both Dad’s friends and my friends have spent their lives in the pastorate or as missionaries.  I am thankful that so many of our friends centered their lives on the Gospel and responded to their life calling to further the Church and missions around the world.  This is one of many benefits that Dad and I acquired from having been a part of a Bible College and Seminary.  It is still a joy to read about the many friends who are in every region of the world serving Christ and counting worldly possessions and fame as nothing.  Some have gone to cannibal tribes and others to regions of war and conflict like the Middle East.  Dad and I enjoyed rubbing shoulders with these kinds of people throughout our Nyack College days, and having grand theological or musical discussions in the cafeteria at many meals.   Nyack was truly a mount of blessing for us.  And a beautiful setting as well!

The first year of marriage carried into it leftover business from my single life.  When your father asked my father to marry me, one of the requirements was that your father had to promise that I graduated from college.  My dad and I had worked on this dream since I was in fourth grade: to be certified to teach music at all grade levels along with basically a Bible major (minus original languages) and a heavy dose of church music.   I did not understand the need for a heavy load of Bible classes but am thankful now that your father and my father considered this of much value to my life.  This was a five year program and I was at the 4 year mark when we married.  The unfinished business brought into our marriage was giving a senior recital and student teaching in grades K through 12.  Your father made sure that the recital happened, even though I did not desire to do it at all.  I have never been much into piano performance, prefering accompanying and choral directing, but I had pressure from the authorities in my life so I fulfilled the requirement.  My father was thrilled.   Girls, it is important to stay under authority the first year you are married.  Sometimes it is hard, but you will be blessed if you do.  It will also establish a pattern in your new married life.

The student teaching was much more palatable.  I loved the kids.  Just loved the kids.  This was an elementary school concert.  The master teacher was conducting a seasonal piece.   I enjoyed the faculty in this school and made quick friends with teachers from all grade levels.  I was invited into many classrooms and talked educational theory with a lot of people.  That is when I figured out that something was wrong with educational theory but I was not exactly sure just what.   Then I came home and talked it over with your dad and we started down the road of acquiring a biblical world view of education.  One of the blessings of student teaching was that I was given the opportunity to work with several mentally handicapped students and received an unmatchable reward of witnessing a non-verbal 9 year old girl learn to sing and thereafter talk.  Music works wonders. 

Here is my father playing with Sassy, the Spangler’s cockapoo, on recital weekend.  I can not ever thank the Spanglers enough for the hospitality and kindness they showed to my parents multiple times… especially the week that my parents were coming for a visit and a skunk had taken up residence under the Spangler’s house.  My father, the practical joker, found a clothespin and put it on his nose.  He also somehow managed to get into their home when they were not there, fully clad in his huge clown suit with round ball nose, gigantic shoes, and neon wig.  Scared my mother-in-law to death when she walked in.  Yes, my father the practical joker.  But he also liked dogs.  Do you know someone else who likes them?

The first year was a time to become more acquainted with family and one of the blessings was spending time with Gene, Dad’s younger brother.  Here is Gene and Sassy in the snow, and one of my favorite memories from The First Year.  Your uncle is quite talented in many areas, and one is that he has been in sales during his adult life, and currently sells emergency vehicles which is such a neat application of his talents.  It has been said that he can sell snow in a snowstorm, so maybe that is why I like this photo so much.

The Spangler home covered in snow.  This was such a wonderful place for your Dad to grow up.  A small distance beyond the house the terrain goes down to a creek full of fish and critters and then you can see the rising mountain beyond.  When the Spanglers sold this home, we were heart sick.  A secret hope was that we would move back and purchase it ourselves.  But it was not to be.  One of the things I very much enjoyed as a newlywed was being invited over for one of Mom’s delicious dinners.  There were many times that family friends were also invited and I was much surprised to be literally kissed and slobbered over by the Italian ones.   So my advice to you when you are in The First Year is “just go with the flow.”  Having moved to Texas where there is all of this hugging stuff going on in greetings which is not considered proper where I come from unless you have not seen someone for years, I am still trying to just go with the flow!  I will say though that the Texas hugging is nothing like the Italian one.  The Italian stuff takes the cake.  Or maybe I should say it takes the tiramisu!  I LOVE tiramisu!  By the way, the Italian people totally won my heart – they are a wonderful family who have been faithful friends to your grandparents.

During The First Year, your father was working on elevators in New York City.  When not working, he was involved musically in many things.  One of the ways I served him was that I accompanied the youth choir at church and learned how to Spanglerize the vocal parts he wrote for the teens.  This took some effort as I would much rather read and play rather than create and play.  I can’t remember a time I did not accompany James to some rehearsal somewhere, but my favorite rehearsal was when he was invited to play for a black group down in the City.  Being in an urban black church was like nothing else I had ever seen and heard.  A requirement of my sacred music classes in college was to visit synagogues, Catholic masses, Eastern churches, various evangelical churches, and all kinds of religious services, but there was never a requirement to attend a black service.  I admire their joy and their sense of heaven being just ahead, as depicted in so many spirituals.  And I admire your father’s ability on keyboards to reproduce so many different kinds of music. 

One of the things that became evident to me in The First Year is that the commitment your father had made to God to put the Church first and work in the Church …. it was a reality in his life, something that he put into action.  This follows in the footsteps of his father and my father, both very godly men who were more concerned about souls than worldly things.  Your father has not faltered in his commitment to the Church and this is one area that I have followed him – sometimes joyfully and sometimes hesitatingly (well, OK, sometimes being dragged), but still following.   I’ll tell you more about this following stuff later.

The first full year of holidays will be something in The First Year that will be a time when your new family unit will be establishing your family traditions.  We had a headstart on this since we spent our engagement enjoying New York City during the Christmas season.   This is the street near the BIG tree with the horse carriages and many decorations.   There is nothing in this world like New York City.   How thankful I am to have had a romantic engagement in NYC.  Such happy and spectacular memories.

You may find something particularly difficult for you to do in the first year of marriage and into subsequent years of marriage.  For me, one of those things is heights.  I married someone who worked on elevators in elevator shafts in very tall buildingings, I would guess 50 stories plus high with multiple elevator cars in one shaft zooming up and down.  I married someone who does not fear scaling cliffs.  I married someone who has never felt woozy on a scenic drive.  (Ever notice that the definition of a scenic drive is that your vehicle is going to go towards heaven and then teeter-totter you on a cliff and this is defined as scenic.  To me this is the definition of a sick stomach or passing out, whichever comes first.)   So, naturally a Christmas tradition is NOT to enjoy the tree shaped lights on Macy’s from the street which makes perfect sense to me, but to view them from the top of the Empire State Building.  So here is looking DOWN on the lights on Macy’s.  It’s a huge display – many stories high.

Years later when we were at the Grand Canyon and the sun had not yet risen, I finally gave your father to God as he hung over the Canyon, camera in hand to get the perfect shot of the first ray of sun on the walls.   It was so dark that he did not really even know what he was hanging on to with his toes.  As the first rays of sun broke forth over the Canyon, a lady next to me, whose husband was also out on a ledge hanging by his toes, took a look at me and said, “Honey, I gave my husband to God when he hung over Hoover Dam.  Better to do it early in your marriage.”

So, someday you might find that your husband is very different than you in something.  And that’s OK.   Give it to God.

In the spring, Dad made sure I walked the aisle, completing his promise to my father. 

Your father has fulfilled everything that my dad asked.  My father had a sincere desire that I not only be provided for physically, but that spiritually I would be cared for and that my spiritual commitment would persevere.   I will never forget as we were leaving our wedding reception that my father grasped my new groom’s hand, gave him a penetrating look and said with a tone of voice I had never heard …. “Take care of her.”  Boy, he had never talked in that tone of voice even when I was a kid and had gotten into trouble.

It was not too many years later that I had the joy of reversing this situation and watching your father graduate from college.  In order to get to that point, our days in the Northeast were numbered.  James had chosen a college in Texas for electrical engineering so we were about to make a big move.  This was planned as a four year temporary move as we would be moving back to the Northeast when he graduated.  We took a few days and returned to Vermont for a second honeymoon.  The Inn was just as lovely as the year before. 

And the resident German shepherd was still there.

Girls, don’t be afraid to dream.  On our first anniversary we found the perfect house and said we would come back and retire there some day.  Today I know that this is not going to happen, but I treasure this dream just as much as the day we dreamed it.  This place says “come home” to both your father and me.  New England has such a classic spirit to it.  What I wouldn’t do for a triple level Cape Cod house like this one!  I have seen only one true Cape Cod in Texas in the 25 years we have been here.   I had wanted to build one when we did our house, but we ended up with Texas Country instead of New England Country.  And there is a difference.  So I guess we’ve been “Texanized.”

Here is what we sold the piano for … a truck and a trip to Texas.  

 Our first year of marriage was concluded with crossing the Mason Dixon line, traveling through Atlanta and then down to Interstate 20 through the southern states.   I had never seen these southern states that were flatter than a pancake and had dwarf trees, had never seen the muddy Mississippi, and really had little idea of what we were getting ourselves into.  But that’s another story for another time.  Here is perhaps a “sign” of what was to come.  This was taken somewhere in Virginia or North Carolina on the long trip to Texas.  God’s Hand of Providence was clearly being played out in our lives.  And yes, I was on the wrong side of the guard rail close to the treacherous wet rocks.

To some up my thoughts on the first year, and some helpful hints for you to store away, here is a brief summary.

1.  Establish housekeeping and do it well… with or without a piano.

2.  Get to know your husband and support those things he enjoys… even if it is a camera.

3.  Make his spiritual commitments #1 in your heart so that you can serve him well in his life purpose … even if you have to learn things that don’t come naturally to you.

4.  Stay under authority…. even when you really don’t want to do what is requested of you – you’ll be blessed if you do.

5.  Get to know his family and friends… especially if they are Italian.

6.  Start setting family traditions… even when the perspectives are different.

7.  Accept ways that your husband is very different from you… expecting it to take you to new heights.

8.  Don’t be afraid to dream… even if it seems like it will never come true.

9.  Follow him wherever he goes… even if it is south.

It is obvious that I have chosen to write about the good and right things that we did The First Year.  To be realistic and honest, I do need to report that there were many times that I failed The First Year because I sinned or I was selfish.  Selfishness is one of the hardest things to root out of any relationship, and one thing that I have noted over the years is that when people are selfish in their marriages, they miss the mark in other relationships and situations that they come against.  Perhaps I am aware of this because of my own repeated selfishness.  I have sometimes wondered if this issue isn’t the real key to having a healthy Church …. for husbands and wives to be in a right relationship with each other where their “selves” are diminishing and they truly serve each other sacrificially.  I won’t philosophize on that, but it is something to thing about.

My parting thought is that there is quite a bit of verbage swirling around in various home schooling circles and on websites/blogs that seem to deduce a young woman or a young bride into a certain set of requirements in order for her to be successful.  Although many of these ideas are good, remember that God created you with a specific set of talents and leanings which will suit you for your mate and it won’t look like anyone else’s.  There is danger of having a feeling of falling short or not being good enough or fretting over things that you don’t have a passion for.  Don’t waste your time on these kinds of thoughts.  Continue to love Jesus, stay under authority, and develop the abilities that God has given you and let the rest for someone else to fret about.  Please the Lord and you will find yourself well suited to the first year of marriage.   I hope to write soon about things you can do to nourish yourself in your Christian walk and ways to stay refreshed throughout your adult life because as you are serving your husband you can not serve if you yourself are empty and dried out.   But this we will save for another conversation.  I love you, girls!

April 9, 2007

Birthday Thoughts on Womanhood

Today is my 48th birthday.  It’s a funny thing.  On one hand, I feel like a little girl inside, as if I could step out of the candy shop, lollipop in hand, and plunk down on the sidewalk curb with my shiny patent leather shoes and bobby socks, and have a good time enjoying each lick,  pulling my frilly pink gingham dress around my knees.  On the other hand, I have a soon-to-be 21 year old daughter that brings me back to reality that the years are passing by.  A few white hairs have been found on the top of my head in the last month and I can look in the mirror, do a manual face lift at the corners of my eyes and think, “That’s what I use to look like.”

It is a bitter-sweet moment to watch my seven children enjoying today’s birthday celebrations and at the same time realize that the days of a newborn baby will not be mine to partake of again in my life.  It is a loss that is irreversible.  A true loss.  Did I ever think I would age? 

As I go into these later middle years of my life I have an all-encompassing desire for my life.  That desire is to fulfill the full biblical counsel on what a woman is to be and how she is to serve her God.  Not one or two verses scattered here or there, used in a way to support current cultural trends of an ungodly society, but to really sink my teeth into what it is that God requires of me.  Requires of me?  Yes, requires of me.  Not popular words today.  Too often we think of what we require of God.  Think about that for a while and it becomes evident that the “rights” of Christian women turn the tables on who requires what of whom.  We serve a holy God, who in His perfect love for us requires that we search His instructions in the scriptures, put them into our hearts, and then practice on the outside what is on the inside.

Why do we fear this so much?  Perhaps it is the age-old war of dying to self.   Perhaps it is leaving behind the familiarity of a culture immersed in feminism and becoming different from it, even looking different which takes a dose of courage.  Perhaps it is because our husbands are not perfect and we have to sometimes wait patiently for them to learn ahead of us.   Perhaps it’s that we would like to lead instead of follow.  Discipleship is not all about me, it’s all about Him.  Following Him.

Where does this get me at this middle age of 48?  Seems that there has been such a lack in the generation that has gone before me in living the full counsel of God, that I find myself awkwardly placed more to the front of the group without even a half century of years behind me yet.  So, even though I’m still getting my feet wet in a lot of things, I’m under the microscope to show forth a picture of godly womanhood.  It will only be with God’s grace that I’ll be a witness for Him.

A Christian woman today has the greatest opportunity of anyone for evangelism in our world today.   The greatest?  Yes!  The greatest!   If she truly loves the scriptures, studies them, meditates on them, and then puts them into practice, she will be so radically different from our post-modern culture that she can’t help but be marked for her belief.   Evangelism then is lived before a world lost without Christ, and evangelism is not a little pamphlet that is memorized to take folks mechanically through steps to Christ.  The Christian life is lived before a world that knows not God, nor His ways.    Life is then shared with others, not prepackaged in steps.  The real sharing experiences I have engaged in with non-believers have come not because of knowing the “right” questions to ask with formula-driven answers, but having the “right” questions asked of me when I am living right.  Evangelism is living as a disciple.

Like New Year’s resolutions, here are my birthday resolutions.

1.        To look at the precepts, principles, and patterns of scripture concerning godly womanhood and study them in the context of all of the Old and New Testaments.  This means taking Proverbs 31, Titus 2, I Timothy 5, and I Peter 3 to heart, allowing all of scripture to flavor them to what they should be.  At the same time I want to discard the flavorings of my culture that taint the true meanings of these scriptures.  I want to live as if the scriptures were all I ever needed.

2.       To look to my husband for counsel and teaching and not to books-seminars-conversations- websites for spiritual leadership.   To love him, serve him, and put him ahead of myself.

3.       To love my children and pour into their lives those things that count for eternity.

4.       To encourage other women to do the same.

That doesn’t sound too special.  But then, I’m not too special.  Just an ordinary girl desiring to live for Him.  That’s the bottom line.