Our home: our haven
Grateful and blessed
Home is the cradle of civilisation. It is the foundation of training, knowledge, shaping our early years and moulding us into the adult we will become.
Home's an oasis of calm in a world that's not. It is meant to be a peacable place, a sure dwelling and a quiet resting place. Peace. Safety. Nurture. Comfort.
I just love the imagery of this verse above and I love even more the promise that God makes to us who labour in our home. For we are wise if we do labour to show love and mercy and grace to each other and to make our habitation one of a sanctuary and place of worship through example.
May we not lose sight of the importance of home in the nurturing of ourselves and family. It is worth the effort and the results are guaranteed in the Word of God, for God blesses the habitation of the just.
© Glenys Robyn Hicks
"The curse of the LORD [is] in the house of the wicked: but he blesseth the habitation of the just. " Proverbs 3:33
Don't play shoot the spouse!
There is a very old, unpleasant and dangerous game around. In it married couples fling insults and put downs, and indulge in innuendo and other tactics that are designed to bring their spouse down.
Really good contestants in the game will acquire years of practice before finally extinguishing any semblance of respect and love in their affronted spouse. They ideally will have started with snide remarks and sarcasm, gradually building up to full blown insults, punctuated by demands and threats.The really seasoned contestants will have the ability to silence their spouse with a look or gesture, practised over many years of tense stand-offs and silent treatment.
A truly professional and seasoned player of The Game will be able to successfully reduce a spouse to tears or blows, usually dependant on the spouses’ gender. Shoot The Spouse is especially deceptive is the fact that neither player initially appears to be playing as the leading player of the game will be such a consummate player as to ensure that the game will be fully established in its unpleasantness and demoralising affect before the targeted spouse is aware that they have been engaged in play.
Once engaged in Shoot The Spouse, it is often difficult to regain the affronted spouses’ affections as mentioned previously. Therefore, this game is especially conducive to lining divorce lawyers’ and marriage counsellors’ pockets and the end result is that neither player wins!
The makers of Shoot The Spouse advise that only those prepared to lose out on a harmonious home life and happy marriage, should compete in this game. Shoot The Spouse is not a game for those who desire to keep their marriage strong, or for the kind-hearted, but it is highly recommended for those who love to live life on the edge and gamble with each other’s happiness.
Those unwilling to risk or gamble with such high odds of blowing their spouse out of the water and shooting themselves in the foot, are advised not to play Shoot The Spouse!
© Glenys Robyn Hicks
I love being mistress of my home
The four little tasks of home by Sharon White
It is nice to have a set routine of work to do at home. One can go about the day with a remembrance of certain housekeeping duties that are necessary for each day. Then, during the many breaks for rest, or visiting with guests, or a pleasant talk on the telephone, one finds refreshment and courage to go on. The times of work and the times of rest, done with quiet courage, provide happiness in our homemaking.
It's all good
Just a quick recap of the five areas of service for the Christian woman and wife in order of priority:
- God
- Husband
- Children
- Home
- Church
Because everything is spiritual in our life, I have discovered that when we serve our husbands, we are serving Christ. " Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as is fit in the Lord " Colossians 3:18 "For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband: else were your children unclean; but now are they holy" 1 Corinthians 7:14
When we look after our home, we are serving God, our husband and our children. "I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully." 1 Timothy 5:14
Serving in church or serving in God's Name is important but should not come before all the other 4 priorities are in order. (widows) " well reported of for good works; if she have brought up children, if she have lodged strangers, if she have washed the saints' feet, if she have relieved the afflicted, if she have diligently followed every good work" 1 Timothy 5:10
I have found that often I cannot place a post under just one category because it is so closely correlated to the other categories of service. This is because everything in our lives is spiritual. When we consider the umbrella of God's protection as well, we can see that God's plan for our lives is amazing. We have everything here to guide us as wives, mothers and homemakers. We can be sure that we are living our lives in a way that is pleasing to God and in keeping with His Word.
It is not only comforting to know that God's Word guides us in our daily living, but it is also amazing that we can know with a certainty that God not only approves of us being wives, mothers and homemakers, but that He calls most of us to be that!
If God has called us to be a wife with all that entails, then let us rejoice in His plan for our life. In doing so, we can be partners with God in His greatest creation: people who will love Him and live for eternity with Him! And we will live an abundant life full of blessings as Christ has promised.
© Glenys Robyn Hicks
Investing in eternal treasures
- God
- Husband
- Children
- Home
- Church
- Outreach
I think placing priorities outside the biblical order jeopardises our happiness in our homes and families, and you can believe me, even service in ministry can be a lonely experience if you have lost those closest to you. When you put God's priorities in order, He is being served first, second, third, fourth, and fifth. He is all in all and in everything you do.
Don't feel guilty for being a woman
Clean enough to be healthy
Don't relinquish your role!
After a few years of this, I noticed that my daughter, who was a teenager at the time, was changing her attitude towards me. She became cheeky and sassy and answered me back constantly. Whenever I appealed for some backup from her father, he would defend her. I felt isolated and lonely in my own home.
As she grew older, I noticed that they both talked more than he and I did, and there was a definite bond and camaraderie. I felt like the third wheel.
In the morning I would make my beds and maintain my home, and when my daughter came home from school, she would pull them all back and redo them, stating that they weren't made properly.
Often my ex-husband would come home to unmade beds and he would start screaming at me, swearing and calling me horrid names. He didn't believe me when I told him I had made them and that she had pulled them back for me to make again. Honestly, with my ill health, once a day was enough for me to find the strength to make them.
In the end, I didn't make them, letting her do them when she got home from school. It was just wasting my precious spoons (energy) for nothing- they would be remade and I would get a tongue lashing regardless.
I think this was where the rug was pulled from under my feet. I gradually was treated like a naughty child by both my ex-husband and my eldest daughter. In fact when we were moving house and it was time to choose the colours and tiles etc, they conferred and I was just informed what it would be.
To say that I was not mistress of my own home is an understatement. I was an annoying lazy freeloader according to them. I couldn't work outside the home and they begrudged me anything at all.
When finally I could no longer keep any food down due to fear and depression, and sick of punched arms and bruises, I decided to leave. And in my confusion, I grabbed some clothes pegs with my clothes and this was duly reported to her father who demanded them to be returned.
I don't believe even today that there was any sexual connection with my daughter and her father, but there was a bond that cemented them together, but which excluded me. And I was powerless to change it and my cries for marriage counselling fell on deaf ears. It became too much.
Truly, three in a marriage is never what God intended. Nor did He intend for a man to cleave to his daughter and deny his wife due regard and respect. It is not a normal marriage.
So why do I tell you this? you ask. Because you must find the strength to fight being made an outsider in your role as a wife, mother and home maker. You simply must demand respect from your husband, even if it exhausts you. You must insist on respect from your children.
I wish I had been aware of this earlier and been firmer, but I can only say that I was beaten down so badly by him and chronic illness, that I could hardly stand. Start defending your right to be a wife and a respected mother. Your role is ordained by God. Don't relinquish it.
© Glenys Robyn Hicks
Peaceful home making
Engagement is the new wedding
Taken for granted
"So teach [us] to number our days, that we may apply [our] hearts unto wisdom" Psalm 90:12
No longer taken for granted
"So teach [us] to number our days, that we may apply [our] hearts unto wisdom" Psalm 90:12
Rejoice in being a home maker
How does this confusion affect the average woman? When ten to twenty percent of the general population is depressed at some point in their lives, and this percentage is made up of twice as many women as men, the answer is so obvious that it hurts.
For the past thirty to forty years, women have been fighting for respect and recognition as more than just ‘housewives’. Women are now encouraged from childhood to put away their dolls and get an education. After the education is complete, a family is started and the woman is in pursuit of her career. She soon finds herself praised on one hand for her accomplishments, and persecuted on the other for neglecting her role as a dutiful housewife!
There is also found a handful of women who cannot ignore their desire to experience the traditionally accepted life of a woman. These are the women who devote their lives to nurturing a home and family. Their aspirations are no doubt cherished by their children, and perhaps even their husbands. However, equal disapproval is shot their way by those who view them as inferior, lacking ambition, and possibly even plain old lazy.
How, in the face of these conflicting opinions, is the woman expected to find her niche? How is her soul, the center of her being, expected to be at peace when it is torn so violently in different directions? How can the devastating reality of the ‘depressed housewife’ be overcome? author unknown.
This article expresses a basic struggle of most housewives who have been blinded by feminist views. How does one overcome? Through accepting Gods' Word about our worth as homekeepers and resisting worldly views of worth.
© Glenys Robyn Hicks
A clean house makes me happy
I think this true in my own life anyway. When my house runs smoothly and is in order, I feel in control but when it is disorganised or dirty, I feel irritable and unhappy. It is true that most people don't notice housework until it's not done, and that in itself doesn't bolster the home keepers' spirits. However, I have learnt to focus on the end result. It helps me get through the mundane cleaning.
There is a scripture that says that without a vision the people perish and I often equate housework with this verse. Unless we visualise the finished result of a clean house, we will often neglect doing it and miss the mark completely as regards of being a good home keeper. Like it or not, good housekeeping creates happiness. If we lose sight of that, we will be people without a vision!
© Glenys Robyn Hicks
Where [there is] no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy [is] he. Proverbs 29:18