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| "Bring me the sunshine in a up - Emily Dickenson" |
Each year about this time I start to look back, a review of sorts. Where I grew, what I accomplished, what virtues or shortcomings I need to work on and grow more in, and of course what things around our home I wanted to complete but haven't (yet).
Along with the new year, my birthday is this week. And I have a tradition that I set aside time on my birthday or the day before, to review. I have a shoe box in the top of my closet with treasures in it. Things I only get out once a year during this week. Things like a crown - to remind me I am a daughter of the King, pictures from a magazine of a lovely woman walking through her garden - this reminds me to do what I love, what fills me with joy, something I've made by hand that makes me smile, and a few other little personal things along with a notebook.
The notebook has some of the similar questions listed above, but I write them out and reflect. I make a cup of tea, have a wonderful treat and sit in the quiet to remember, and look forward. It's about answering the question: Am I growing? Am I doing what makes my insides excited? Am I fulfilling my role as a wife and homemaker? Have I put to good use my skills as an artist? What do I want to work on, specifically, this year?
There are so many vintage books, lessons and blogs of traditional homemaking that give me encouragement, but I found this just a couple days ago and wanted to share:
From On Living Simply - The Golden Voice of John Chrysostom
"Commerce in itself is not bad, indeed it is an intrinsic part of God's order. What matters is how we conduct our commerce. The reason why commerce is necessary is that God created human beings with different ambitions and skills. One person is a good carpenter, another a good preacher, another can make crops grow in the poorest soil. Thus each person specializes in the work for which God has ordained him; and by selling his skills or goods he produces, he can obtain from others the goods which he needs."
When I read this, it moved me. I could see God's plan for our exchange of goods and talents. That each of us has a gift that is necessary for God's plan. To be able to get our "needs fulfilled". Our needs, not our wants. That is my goal this year is to discern each of my purchases as a need vs a want. To see if I am using our resources wisely, as in Proverbs, or foolishly. We are captivated online and drawn into purchasing things we really didn't intend. That topic is for another article.
John Chrysostom goes on in the next post to write about something near and dear to my husband and I. One of the main reasons I am still a homemaker with an empty nest, so to speak.
"In a family the husband needs the wife to prepare his food; to make, mend, and wash his clothes; to fetch water; and to keep the rooms and furniture in the house clean. The wife needs the husband to till the soil, to build and repair the house, and to earn money to buy the goods they need. God has put into a man's heart the capacity to love his wife, and into a woman's heart the capacity to love her husband. But their mutual dependence makes them love each other out of necessity also. At times love within the heart may not be sufficient to maintain the bond of marriage. But love which comes from material necessity will give that bond the strength it needs to endure times of difficulty. The same is true for society as a whole. God has put into every person's heart the capacity to love his neighbors. but that love is immeasurably strengthened by their dependence on one another's skills."
Written somewhere around 390 AD.
This tells me my role as a wife is necessary as a part of the whole. And that depending on each other's skills, out of love, is part of God's plan for us. Thankfully I don't have to "fetch water", and I don't make his clothes - of which he is very grateful. But I do look to "the ways of the house".
Even if your husband is gone, the house and family still need you. We need to tend the washing, dusting, cleaning, food, and using our creativity in some way for enjoyment and for the good of others.
I hope you have found this interesting as I did. To see this written so very long ago and how true it is even today, really could use some reflecting. This is what I will be doing this week. Reflecting on how I can be the woman God created me to be, not the woman society or friends say I should be. That leads to confusion and a heart that is not aligned with the Peace offered to us by the One who loves us most.
Peace be with you,
Mrs. Peterson
