What I’ve Learned About Homemaking From the Older Generation
Perhaps when you saw the title of this post you envisioned all the domestic skills of days gone by. You imagined an older lady teaching me how to can food from the garden, wash clothes by hand, or knit blankets.
But that's not where I'm going with this at all.
I've been watching the older ladies I know, and I've learned a lot about homemaking from them without their ever saying a word to me.
When I go to church, here's what I see:
I see ladies whose bodies are old and worn out. When they walk up the steps to the choir loft or go downstairs to teach their Sunday School classes I see them hobbling along and hear the occasional “Mmph” that involuntarily escapes their lips as they wince in pain.
Their tired eyes betray the sleepless night they've spent as they tossed and turned in pain.
But still they serve, week after week, without a single word of complaint.
The excitement over the privilege of serving God overrides the weariness and pain that their worn-out bodies feel.
It's not easy or convenient for them to serve the Lord in these ways, but they do it anyway. They love the Lord and want to be faithful to serve him until they no longer have any breath in their body.
Then I try to imagine these ladies in their younger days, their lives full of children to love and housework to be done.
I imagine them as young wives and mothers fighting weariness and discouragement, often feeling overwhelmed, but never giving up as they fulfilled God's calling to love their husbands, love their children, and to be keepers at home (Titus 2:4-5.)
I want to be like that! I want to follow their example of perseverance when the days are difficult and tiring. I don't want to give up when the going gets tough.
Will you join me in following the example of the older generation and work diligently to build your home?
Will you persevere through the most difficult days?
Will you do all this with joy, counting it a privilege to serve your King in this noble task to which you have been assigned?
Will your sunset years find you still serving others as well as your health allows, the younger generation of wives and mothers observing your faithfulness to your home and family and to the Lord?
Or will you leave your home and family ill cared-for, throwing up your hands and quitting when the task feels too hard?
Fellow homemakers, let's work. Let's labor diligently, not giving up when the going gets tough. What a privilege to serve God in the place where he has called us! Let's do it faithfully, through good days and bad, not stopping until God brings us to the place of eternal rest.
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