Homemaking a Limiting Occupation?

Rachel says no way, but decide for yourself.   This lovely article may help you think it through further.

http://www.feminagirls.com/2011/11/29/how-do-we-love-thee-let-me-count-some-ways/

Morning Prayer from II Samuel 5.

Father, Creator of all,
Grant that each of my children would feed on your word
and be satisfied and full of worship,
and say with David,
"The Lord has burst through my enemies before me like a bursting flood."

What I said at our son David's wedding.

Abbie, welcome to our family.

I think we need to give you a little history on David.  I have kept a book of conversations and statements heard around the house and so I am a primary source on this history.
So here are a few nuggets from the world through the eyes of a little boy named David Edward Paulson.

Early on we had a burden to give our children a Christian worldview.   So we were excited when we saw it catching on.

One spring my daffodils had come up and it began to snow.   I was worried that my flowers might freeze and never bloom.  David was four years old and hearing my concern and said,
"Mommy, you don't need to worry too much about flowers.  They're not real persons."

How is this for a theology of hair?  One day when I was getting David ready for nap he stated, "Mommy, even when you have a French braid, God knows how many hairs you have."
David, at four you believed that God knows all things.   May you always have that big of a God -- who knows all things and can do all of his holy will.

One day we were doing a science experiment with celery -- putting it in colored water to see how the celery drinks the water.   I told the children that the celery drinks like we do from a straw but very quietly.   At night as daddy was tucking David in he said, "I'm going to be as quiet as celery drinking water."

As I reviewed my record of conversations with my children I realized that David's interest in bikes goes back a long ways:
Of course we started with a tricycle, but soon David was ready to graduate.  As he anticipated, he said,
"Mommy, I'm so excited about getting a two-wheeler.  Aren't you excited?"
"yes, I am."
(pause)  " I think I'm more excited than you are."

One day David asked me why I didn't wear a bib when I was eating.
I told him that bibs were for people who were still learning to eat.
He thought and then said  "So bibs are kind of like training wheels."

After he had been riding for a while he said one day, "I'm sure glad they made bicycles the way they did -- with a seat so you can rest a bit and with handles for your hands."

David was a significant part of my sanctification.   I started motherhood indecisive and eager to avoid conflict.  But of course the two options with a healthy two-year old are either to grow up and take charge or else be ruled by the child.   This latter option became less and less attractive as time went on and I prayed for God to help me exercise the authority he had given me.  Thank you, David for playing that part in my sancfication.

I am deeply grateful that God has called you to himself.  
As Moses set out to shepherd God's people through the wilderness he said that He did not want to go if God did not go with them.  I know, David, that that is your heart also.  As you bear the burden of providing and protecting and vision casting, remember that you always have Your tender Father in heaven who is your provider and protector and who has not  called you to labor in your own strength.  Lean hard on him.  He will comfort, honor, and satisfy.

Abbie, if God should be pleased to grant you children, I pray that you will have both a love and respect for your calling at home.  Nancy Wilson on her blog Femina says that very few in our day do so.  I confess with sadness that I have not loved and respected my calling at home as I should have. A respect for our calling at home is realizing that the position of mother is a position of considerable influence.  Because this is true, Satan has worked very hard to belittle the position. Secular media lately accused the mother at home of swapping her mind for a mop.  Fight falling prey to this lie.   To love our calling at home is  to find joy in it, to provide a place for rest and happiness.  May God give abundant grace for you to both love and respect your calling at home.

My prayer for you is taken from I Kings 8, Solomon's prayer for the dedication of the temple:
May the Lord, who is like none other, showing steadfast love to his servants, have his eyes open to you day and night and his ears open to your prayers.   When you come into want or sickness because you have sinned -- for there is no one who does not sin -- if you repent with all your mind and heart, and plead with God, then I pray God will hear you and forgive.  And out of the grace that God  extends to you, may you extend grace to each other.   We could not wish you better.

Where to Get Vision ...without which the people die.

If you are in survival mode, bored, unexcited about the future, weary in well-doing, you may need to order some Christian books from Vision Forum.   Just as a butterfly should intrigue us, so we should look at marriage, work, children, education, and economics, and marvel at it and at the opportunity we have to steward it all for the glory of God.
Go to www.visionforum.com .   If you have never seen their website, go and browse. The product write-ups alone may kick start your vision!

Fun setting the table...

True confession.
I have not in the past enjoyed setting the table, and because my heart has not been in it, I have mostly done it carelessly.   I say this with sadness.   I have not loved my calling at home as I should.
Nancy Wilson recently inspired me to set the table for Thanksgiving more carefully than I ever have. Look here for her article:  http://www.feminagirls.com/2011/11/22/thanksgiving-prep/
It was too late to get tulips (my favorite flowers) but I dug out a pretty tablecloth and placed a fall themed runner with candles.  I put a blooming African Violet in the middle, and it was really quite lovely.  (Sorry, I forgot to take a picture.)  I have become so practical that I gave away a lovely pink tablecloth with napkins that we got for our wedding.
I am actually excited about taking better care of my home.  I want to make it a place where my husband and children love to be.  And I have a plaque about an unseen guest.....

Our oldest son, David, got married and here is evidence.....

Our daughter Ruthiey took pictures and just posted yesterday.   Enjoy.
http://colormylifewithlove.blogspot.com/2011/11/let-not-man-separate.html

David and Goliath in "Collision"

Wouldn't you know it?  David and Goliath are alive and well -- though their weapons this time are not swords or spears, but words.

Christopher Hitchens is an anti-theist and Douglas Wilson is a Christian pastor. Hitchens is an intimating giant.  He is articulate and has an astonishing vocabulary.  Ironically, he got the vocabulary in Christian England.  Doug Wilson says, "Someone with a large vocabulary is never without a rock to throw, so long as he has a mind to throw it."  Christopher throws rocks at God and his people. And Doug Wilson has stood up and says "Who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God?" 

These men spent three days together at various venues debating publicly whether Christianity is good for the world.  You can watch the record of that in the movie "Collision."

Hitchens thinks that we have to "reject outmoded concepts.  We have to get rid of the idea that there is a God in Heaven, telling us the difference between right and wrong."  In the past, before we knew about germs, we needed God to explain sickness.   Now we know better.  And we don't need an idea of a God in order to keep people good because people all have a innate sense of right and wrong.  In fact, says Hitchens, it is more noble to do something because we wanted to than because we were told to.

In reply, Wilson slings a well-aimed stone:  Without God, who defines right and wrong?

Hitchens has many opinions of what is right and wrong.   And he is right about many of them, thanks to his nurture in Christian England.  In fact, Wilson says Hitchens would make a good Puritan.  But if there is no God, if above us there is only sky, and we are a series of chemical reactions, there is finally no basis for right or wrong.  And what today is called wrong, will tomorrow be called right.  Hitchens is borrowing from the Christian worldview when he asserts there is right and wrong.  He is not being consistent with his evolutionary worldview.

Hitchens calls Saddam Hussein, Kim Jong Il and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad "simply evil."  In answer, Wilson says "If there is no God, then Hussein, Kim Jong Il and Mahmoud Ahmininejad have no God.  But if they have no God, then it follows that Hitchens is not their god either.  And if Hitchens is not their god, why should they care what he calls them?  There is no god, and Hitchens is not his prophet."

Further, Wilson says of Hitchens, "his indignation is a floating indignation because it is not anchored to anything outside man.  And like all such things that float on the surface of turbulent ocean currents, in a couple of generations that indignation is likely to be a long way away from here"

Hitchens is himself inconsistent -- repulsed by the idea of a pregnant woman being kicked while lying on the ground but defending the killing of that same baby while the woman lies on a table at the local abortion clinic.  Wilson calls him on this in the movie.

Peter Hitchens is the only brother of Christopher Hitchens.  Peter was also an atheist, but is now a Christian.  In his book The Rage Against God Peter tells us that consciously or unconsciously, the atheist is one because he wants to do what he wants to  do when and how he wants to do it.   Psalm 10:4 says "In the pride of his face the wicked does not seek him; all his thoughts are, 'There is no God.'

Peter also explains that influential atheists like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens live in the afterglow of the Christian west.   Their morality is still largely informed by it.   But the morality of future generations will not be, and the darkness that they are calling forth is beyond what they could imagine.  The London riots -- five days of random, wanton violence and destruction -- give a little window into what may be coming.   When asked why they participated, two girls answered, "It is the government's fault.   We did it to show them that we could."

Christopher Hitchens is presently dying from esophageal cancer.  He is using a  treatment  designed by evangelical scientist Francis Collins, but prospects are not good.  Pray for his salvation.