"Though I am luckier than most working women because I work more from home and can spend more time with my son and take care of my family, I still want to be home full time. But the issue is that my husband does not think its necessary and sees my job as a blessing because it pays well and offers flexibility. What he doesn't see or understand is the constant stress and guilt I feel. This is why I get angry when I see the flow chart and that's probably the reason for so many other women. We long to be at home, but the issue is that no one is teaching our husbands, so we have the choice to submit to our husbands and constantly feel terrible about working. My husband has never been taught that I should be at home, and there is not one godly influence in his life that would tell him. And coming from me makes it worse as you can imagine.
I have learned to be quiet, but it's still so hard. I am telling you this because I think you should know that many women do understand you and believe what you are saying is true, but they are burdened by their husband's lack of truth and desire for them to work. It would be so wonderful for you to share an encouraging post for those of us who work because our husbands want us to and ways to try and become keepers at home. There really are so many gray areas on this issue. I work, but I believe my husband and son call me blessed and I always have healthy meals on the table, so when I saw that depiction it hurt, because I am doing the best I can with the choices my husband has given me." I went to my chat room and asked them for advice and so I am going to share some of their wisdom with you!
"It's wonderful to have
the assurance that God's grace will take care of our children and protect them
as we honor our husbands who ask us to work. It is difficult to hear that we
aren't doing the best for our children because we work when we are doing the best
with what we have been given and are trying to honor our husbands."
"God always brings beauty
from the ashes. We must bloom where we're planted, and our God is so capable
of showering us with blessings during our trying seasons. Just because you're
working now doesn't mean you always will be. God could change your husband's
heart next week or next year. Use this time to focus on getting out of debt
if you're in it or building savings, learning to budget and cut expenses, so
that if your husband calls you home you will be capable of lessening the burden
of switching from two incomes to one. AND keep track of those savings/cuts so
that you're well aware of the true 'pay cut' from where you are now
by the time you stop working."
"Start with writing every
thing down expense wise and see where the money is really going on paper. When
your husband sees it in writing, he will be amazed."
"I would find it
encouraging to read testimonials of women who have prayed staying at home to
pass. I've had a job literally of some sort since I was 12 years old. I've
raised 3 children now to adults, all while keeping a home, yard, garden,
cooking, and church activities - somehow by the grace of God. I'm nearing 50.
I'm tired. I'm weary of reading how "bad" {sorry, not meaning to
offend, but this is how many post/blogs make me feel} by doing what my husband
encourages and wants. I've prayed for a long while to be home; I'm on the verge
of giving up. One thing that I think influences my husband sadly is my SIL has
been a stay home/homeschool mom all their married life. Her husband does all
the cooking, yard work, mowing, gardening, and works outside the home. Her home
is a constant disaster, dirty clothes {can't or won't keep the laundry up},
dirty dishes, clutter, unbelievable. When I have hinted to my husband my desire
to be home over the years, he just laughs and says, 'You might turn out to be
like so and so.' Vent over!!"
"As a wife and mom who
used to work, I would encourage young women to want to be home for the right
reasons. I wanted to be home at first because I was lazy. I just did not want
to work. It wasnt for the Lord. Then I went back to work for
money again, not having my reason be rooted in Him and His Word. It was
during the time I worked that He showed me His truth and His will for me to be
home. Then and only then, my heart was turned to HIM first, to both will {want} and to do His good pleasure. When I wanted to be home out of obedience to Him,
He made a way. When I wanted to go after my own way or sins of the flesh {like
my lazy nature}, He allowed me to reap the consequences of not choosing Him. I
still deal with some of those consequences today. The click was reading
Titus 2. I had been shouldering a lot of family issues with my extended family
that were not mine to shoulder. As I sought the Lord on it, He told me to stay
away, out of the issues, for a year. I asked Him to help me find something in His Word that would confirm
that. He got me to Titus 2:4-5. It gave me my list that He wanted/wants me to
focus on. And everything else had to go. I was immediately set free from the
cares of the world and from trying to figure it all out myself, as I had been
doing by going to work."
"My husband gets really
upset with me when I'm not bringing in an income. I work freelance from home so
the more I work, the more money I make, and the more my housekeeping and
interacting with my children suffers. He blew up on me the other day
because I wasn't working enough. I was literally broken and cried for a
week {no one saw that}. I'm better now but some of the things he said in anger
will never leave me. I just have to figure out how to make it all work. I'm
blessed to be able to stay home with my babies but that in itself comes at a
price. Most of the time mommy working means the little ones each get a tablet
to entertain themselves. And it kills me. {On the positive side, my two year old knows
all his colors, letters, numbers, various kids songs and has excellent language
skills.} God wants me to obey my husband so I will happily serve God. Every day, prayer calms my anxiety and allows me to have joy in my home."
"I work 30 hours a week so
if you have any questions feel free to ask! I got started by filling out a
virtual assistant profile on Upwork.com,
virtual assistants are basically just remote secretaries. There are a lot of
jobs out there for people with administrative or customer service experience, with real
hours and salaries. Upwork.com is
a great resource for this."
"The question I have always
looked for an answer to and can't find is staying home when there are no children {and mostly likely won't be]. I would love to stay home so much but my husband
always asks, 'Why would you need to?' All the reasons on Christian
sites are related to the upbringing of children. It seems like without children
it's a moot point? {And no, the decision not to have children wasn't ours. We
would have had a houseful.} If it's only necessary to raise the children, then
I need to stop focusing on being home and focus on being content working."
"I'm still working on
clarifying my thoughts on this subject. Melissa touched
on it with putting the Lord first and obeying His word out of love and
devotion. I'm used to working {outside my home until 4.5 years ago} and doing
lots of projects and my home is not very neat. I don't always have meals
prepared and I am just learning how to truly put my husband first. I haven't
known how to reconcile my wants and desires with my present life and hope for
the future. I'm a visionary/command woman {dreamer/go to gal} and I have a lot
of ambition and competitiveness. I push myself to do more and more and have a
hard time finishing projects. I love starting new projects. My husband
complains that I make everything into a project. It's true. God is showing me
how rewarding it is to put my husband before my own ambition. It has taken a
VERY long time. I think I see a pattern of highly competent women feeling good
that they have a good job, a neat home, well behaved, well socialized children
in daycare or school and thinking that they are doing a good job at home. Then
they lose their husbands and don't know why. They don't see that they didn't
study their husbands to know what makes him tick. They didn't seek to honor and
obey him as unto the Lord, with all their hearts. They prayed until they got
the answer they wanted to hear {it's OK to work outside the home; my husband
wants me to} and then they went about their merry way.
Some men want the money more than their wife's undivided attention. They don't understand how much richer their lives will be if they have the full devotion of the wife God gave them to be their help meet. It's a very good point that we serve bosses or clients and we can't serve both our husbands and our clients/bosses at the same time unless our husbands farm us out for money. Then technically, we are serving our husbands by working, but we are not within God's design when we do this. I used to be very pragmatic about my desires and tried to give over all my desires to God so that they wouldn't hurt me.
I want a bunch of children and have attempted to put it out of my mind and to be helpful to mothers and neighbors, elderly and sick folk. My husband is more liberal about women making money, especially from home and when there are no kids involved. He doesn't want kids but when he asked me what I really want to do {because I don't like my business} and I said I really want to have kids, his heart melted a pinch. He agreed that we could start the process to adopt. Since that day, he has seen my joy at the thought of having kids and how he can be my hero and make my dreams come true. I have seen him grow towards being the provider and I have hope where I didn't for so long.
It is my heart's desire and if I had hardened my heart, there wouldn't have been a sorrow close enough to the surface to be expressed in a way that he could hear it. The sorrow would have been buried in bitterness. When women works outside or inside the home, unless it is part of a family business with her husband and kids like a farm or other extension of the home, her attention is divided and the husband and the kids are not given the fullness of her talents and attention. We can never know what might have become of the marriage, husband's career/ministry, children. We ought to sorrow after God's perfect will. It is written in our hearts and consciences. We pray and hope and through the fruit of the spirit, we have patience, goodness, meekness, joy, peace. Creation groans after righteousness. We do too! Sorry to write a book and I hope at least one person reads it through to the end.
Some men want the money more than their wife's undivided attention. They don't understand how much richer their lives will be if they have the full devotion of the wife God gave them to be their help meet. It's a very good point that we serve bosses or clients and we can't serve both our husbands and our clients/bosses at the same time unless our husbands farm us out for money. Then technically, we are serving our husbands by working, but we are not within God's design when we do this. I used to be very pragmatic about my desires and tried to give over all my desires to God so that they wouldn't hurt me.
I want a bunch of children and have attempted to put it out of my mind and to be helpful to mothers and neighbors, elderly and sick folk. My husband is more liberal about women making money, especially from home and when there are no kids involved. He doesn't want kids but when he asked me what I really want to do {because I don't like my business} and I said I really want to have kids, his heart melted a pinch. He agreed that we could start the process to adopt. Since that day, he has seen my joy at the thought of having kids and how he can be my hero and make my dreams come true. I have seen him grow towards being the provider and I have hope where I didn't for so long.
It is my heart's desire and if I had hardened my heart, there wouldn't have been a sorrow close enough to the surface to be expressed in a way that he could hear it. The sorrow would have been buried in bitterness. When women works outside or inside the home, unless it is part of a family business with her husband and kids like a farm or other extension of the home, her attention is divided and the husband and the kids are not given the fullness of her talents and attention. We can never know what might have become of the marriage, husband's career/ministry, children. We ought to sorrow after God's perfect will. It is written in our hearts and consciences. We pray and hope and through the fruit of the spirit, we have patience, goodness, meekness, joy, peace. Creation groans after righteousness. We do too! Sorry to write a book and I hope at least one person reads it through to the end.
A woman commented on a
post that Lori wrote on her Always Learning blog Facebook page about women getting
college degrees in order to work. She said that she is glad she got an
education and worked before and after getting married at 29 because her
husband left her after 7 years for another woman and now she has to work
to provide for her son. Her point was that Lori is wrong, but her story may
actually prove Lori's point. She was always working and so she could not have
been doing as much at home as if she had actually been at home. Search 'do
careers give meaning to women' in Facebook to find the post on the Public Always
Learning page.
That 'self-fulfilling prophecy' seems to happen a lot. I have a few acquaintances who have gone to school and worked 'just in case' things don't work out and guess what? They don't work out. It's a lot easier to leave a marriage when you already have a way of supporting yourself. Having an easy way out is hardly a good thing.
It makes
sense that it can be a self fulfilling prophesy and what I want to
stress is that it's okay to have a godly desire that is unfulfilled. It is better
to have sorrow {that develops character in us and leads us to lean on
Jesus and
come boldly to the throne of grace} than to give into our own pride and self-centered desire to have no pain, at the expense of God's perfect will. Women
are adaptable and many/most have adapted to the cultural norms of everyone
should help provide. Husbands have a decreased understanding of how good a good
wife is and since she doesn't pay attention to him now, she may as well work for
a living {his own laziness and lack of godly leadership of his family}. We are
also very creative at justifying what we have chosen to do. We say we have no
choice; my husband doesn't make enough money to support us; my husband wants me
to work, etc. I've seen God bless wise decisions with finances. I've seen God
make changes in my husband when my heart is made right with God.
I have wanted a baby for so many years and I trusted God that if he wanted me to have a baby he would change my husband's heart or kill him and give me a new husband who wanted to adopt kids. This helped me keep things in perspective. It wasn't until I stopped working as many hours that I realized how little attention I was giving my husband. He also didn't know how nice it could be having my undivided attention. I can only imagine how hard it is to put my husband first when there are kids, but I know this is God's plan {for us to be fruitful and multiply} and that his order for the family is what will bring him the most glory. I look forward to training our children to love, honor and respect their daddy and their Father in Heaven! I trust that God will make a way for me to close my business and focus on serving my family with my full attention."
He maketh the barren woman to keep house,
and to be a joyful mother of children. Praise ye the LORD.
Psalm 113:9
picture source
I have wanted a baby for so many years and I trusted God that if he wanted me to have a baby he would change my husband's heart or kill him and give me a new husband who wanted to adopt kids. This helped me keep things in perspective. It wasn't until I stopped working as many hours that I realized how little attention I was giving my husband. He also didn't know how nice it could be having my undivided attention. I can only imagine how hard it is to put my husband first when there are kids, but I know this is God's plan {for us to be fruitful and multiply} and that his order for the family is what will bring him the most glory. I look forward to training our children to love, honor and respect their daddy and their Father in Heaven! I trust that God will make a way for me to close my business and focus on serving my family with my full attention."
He maketh the barren woman to keep house,
and to be a joyful mother of children. Praise ye the LORD.
Psalm 113:9
picture source
