Ultimate Christian Living Bundle

03 Nov 2014 Leave a comment

by Sweet-Water-and-Bitter in Christian Life, Literacy or the Lack Thereof Tags: , ,

This amazing sale only runs November 5th thru 10th, so click below for the info. You probably couldn’t buy TWO regular books for this price, and this way you get to choose up to 75 of them! This is an awesome opportunity!

What’s a “Bundle?”

03 Nov 2014 Leave a comment

by Sweet-Water-and-Bitter in Christian Life, Literacy or the Lack Thereof Tags: , ,

I’ve seen other bloggers advertising “bundles,” but until yesterday I never checked into them closely enough to even really know what that meant! Turns out it’s a pretty awesome thing if you like to read. A BUNDLE is a large quantity of Christian reading material at a great price, and I’m excited to bring you this opportunity. Read on below!
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Who among us doesn’t want to lead a life worth emulating?

With great kids, a loving marriage, a successful career or business and a closer, faith-filled walk with the Lord. But for many of us, making that a reality is big challenge!

Balancing life’s priorities can seem a bit overwhelming at times. The pressures of work, the need for finances, the demands of parenting and the resulting strain on marriage can leave us weathered, weary and wondering what really works in life?

That’s where the Ultimate Christian Living Bundle comes in. Ultimate-Bundles.com called in some best selling authors, leading experts and top business professionals to address the most common challenges faced by families and individuals today – all from a solid, Biblical foundation.

For the ridiculously low price of just $34.95 (for the PDF version) or $39.97 (for the eReader version), you can get access to a carefully curated collection of eBooks and eCourses with a total combined value of over $1,140 that addresses these issues with stunning clarity and practical application.

For the family…

The bundle contains 11 wonderful books focused on incredibly inventive ways you can craft the marriage you signed on for. To complement that subject, they added 8 more books focused on parenting and passing on your faith to your kids. That wouldn’t be complete without books just for kids so they also included 8 children’s books that parents can read with their children. To close out the content for family life, the Singing Bible MP3 version that Focus on the Family so highly praised was added (a $25 value all by itself). It actually teaches children the story of the Bible not just random stories.

For your professional life…

You will find John Muratori and Michael Pink’s six -hour Christian Wealth Building course ($77 value) which was complemented with Bob Lotich’s 31-day devotional Managing Money God’s Way. There are a total of 14 business related books and courses including Zig Ziglar’s powerful Born To Win course (that Seth Godin and Dave Ramsey rave about), Dr. James B. Richards, Wired For Success – Programmed For Failure and Untold Secrets for Creating Wealth by Brig Hart and John Beehner. You’ll even find one of the best selling Christian business books of all time, The Bible Incorporated – In Your Life, Job & Business.

To ignite your faith…

Rounding out the package, Bridge Logos and Moody Press made a series of classic Christian literature available from generals of the faith like Charles Spurgeon, D.L. Moody, A.W. Pink, E.M. Bounds, Calvin, Wesley, Edwards and more who wrote about grace, prayer, faith and an overcoming life.

In addition to these wonderful classics, the Ultimate Bundles team snagged 14 heart-stirring devotionals from authors like A.W. Tozer and Nancy Leigh DeMoss that speak to matters of faith that are sure to inspire. Let’s not forget Gary Chapman’s Extraordinary Grace or Ray Comfort’s Way of the Master for sharing your faith with others. Both heartbreaking and inspiring, don’t miss Philip Cameron’s, They Call Me Dad, the story of one man’s fight to save orphans from human trafficking.

So as you can see, the Ultimate Christian Living Bundle is an extraordinary value.

But it still gets better…

The Ultimate Bundles team asked several sponsors to step up to the plate and with no strings attached, provide meaningful BONUS GIFTS. One of the first to step up was Dayspring Greeting Cards who offered a choice of heart-warming gift card packages to choose from.  Another, is a downloadable DVD workout series for getting in shape and maintaining health. With a retail value of $62.99 it includes a Biblical study guide for stewarding your health. Bonus gifts alone have a total retail value of over $160

So now you know…

For as little as $34.95 you can receive over $1,140 worth of valuable eBooks and eCourses that address the issues of life most of us face at one time or another, from a profoundly Biblical worldview. The BONUS GIFTS alone are worth more than four times the price of the bundle! So, if you want to ignite your faith, strengthen your family and help your professional life, there’s no better place to start! All the hard work has been done for you…

The Ultimate Christian Living Bundle will only be on sale for 6 days – from 8am (EST) on Wednesday, November 5th until 11:59pm (EST) on Monday, November 10th.

But don’t wait until the last moment – there are only 18,500 bundles available and once they’re gone, they’re gone!

You can buy with confidence because your purchase is covered by the Ultimate Bundles 30-day guarantee: you have a full month to enjoy all the books and courses in the bundle, and if you don’t feel like it’s made a huge difference to your family’s life, you’ll get your money back in full!

Here’s what you need to know about the sale:

When? 8 a.m. (EST) Wednesday, November 5th until 11:59 p.m. (EST) Monday, November 10th (or until 18,500 bundles are sold).

What? 75 eBooks plus eCourses and more, PLUS over $160 worth of bonus products you’ll really use!

Where? Purchase the bundle HERE.

How much? Well now, that’s the best part. The entire package is worth over $1,140, and it’s yours for as little as $34.95. Sweet deal, right?

When you’re ready, you can either buy here directly, or right through the website. It’s fast and easy, and you’ll have your bundle sent to you via email within minutes.

Click here for more info or to buy now.

Remember, this bundle is available for 6 days only, from 8 a.m. (EST) on Wednesday, November 5th to 11:59 p.m. (EST) on Monday, November 10th (or until 18,500 bundles are sold).

Want to know exactly what’s included in the bundle?

Take a look through the categories, as well as the full list of included resources.

Business & Personal Finance

Christian Classics Series

Christian Living

Devotional Life

For Children

Inspirational Novels

Married Life

Parenting

Reaching the Lost

Click here for more info or to buy now.

Remember, this bundle is available for 6 days only, from 8 a.m. (EST) on Wednesday, November 5th to 11:59 p.m. (EST) on Monday, November 10th (or until 18,500 bundles are sold).

Disclosure: I have included affiliate links in this post. Read the fine print about this bundle and read the answers to frequently asked questions about the bundle.

Where Is Your Dignity?

01 Nov 2014 2 Comments

by Sweet-Water-and-Bitter in Beauty, Christian Life, Looks, Modesty Tags: ,

Clown-Stuart Miles

 (Image by Stuart Miles, courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

My son goes to public school, and as we all know, public schools are touchy these days about acknowledging any sort of holiday, lest they get complaints from someone who doesn’t celebrate it. But I was driving him to school yesterday morning, which was Halloween, and I noticed a girl about his age, riding her bicycle down the street in fuzzy pajamas. Well, you never know about THAT anymore–today is the first really chilly day we’ve had in Florida, and I saw kids wearing pajamas in both of the public places I went this morning. It’s a ridiculous habit and I think their parents could use a good spanking…I mean, is it too much trouble for your children–or YOU, for that matter–to at least put some CLOTHES on when you go to a store or a restaurant? I think not!  But I digress.

Anyway, I asked my son about the girl on the bike, and he said it was Pajama Day, the culmination of School Spirit Week. It’s all in good fun, of course, but I was rather glad he hadn’t participated because, as I was mentioning to him, you just never know what a day may bring. I can think of situations where one might really regret being caught in foolish dress.

Here is a real-life example. I once worked at a bank, and we all dressed up for Halloween. I was a cat, and my coworkers were witches and gypsies, superheroes and headless ghouls. One lady, the vice president, dressed as a clown. She was a tall, heavyset, older lady, and she went all-out for her costume, with the typical multi-colored suit, giant colorful curly wig, white face makeup and huge red painted-on smile. It was a great costume…until the vice president had to sit down with a grieving, recently-widowed customer to go over her late husband’s finances. Can you imagine what the vice president would have given to not be dressed like a clown at that moment? She certainly hadn’t meant any offense; she just hadn’t anticipated this meeting. But the end result was that she felt mortified and ashamed, and vowed never again to dress up at work.

I really think there’s a lesson in that. No matter what may happen to us in the course of a day, I think our appearance should give an accurate portrayal of who and what we are.  Whenever a Christian starts talking about standards of dress, somebody will cry “Legalism!” and state how they have freedom in Christ and it doesn’t matter what they put on their bodies. But do a little bit more studying on the subject, and you’re bound to run across the example of “wearing the uniform of the team you represent.” I happen to be watching the Georgia/Florida football game right now, and I can tell you that if a guy came on the field in an orange and blue (FL) uniform and started running touchdowns for Georgia, everybody would be very confused. (Don’t get me wrong, Georgia would be GLAD for somebody to run them a touchdown right about now, but I’m digressing again.) It’s pretty simple, really…if you dress rather simply and modestly, you’re likely to be perceived as a Christian. Dress like a floozy and you’ll be assumed to be a floozy. Dress like a bum or just like a pure-T fool with your pants hanging off your rear and a tattoo of  some silly character on your body—you’ll look like a bum or a fool. So what do you want to say with your appearance? Do you count on your behavior and demeanor to CORRECT the initial negative impression you made? Or just reinforce a positive one?

Ah, here’s another true story. The other day, a 20-something friend related that she had gone into a store (wearing the type of sexy outfit she wears most every day)  to buy a sandwich, and when she came out minutes later, someone had left a gospel tract on the window of her car. She suspected an older man she had seen, but noticed that the tracts were not left on everyone’s car–just hers. Laughingly she told us, “He probably looked at me and said, ‘She can’t be a Christian–she’s too cute!'”  Oh, honey, I wanted to say. That’s not what he was thinking…not at all.

If you are considering the subject of appropriate dress, may I recommend a couple of good books to you? They are written by authors with very different backgrounds–one Catholic, one Baptist. But I find them both very worthwhile and recommend them highly to you.

Dressing With Dignity, by Colleen Hammond. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DJGL240?btkr=1

Your Clothes Say It For You, by Elizabeth Rice Handford. http://www.amazon.com/Your-Clothes-Say-It-You/dp/0873989503

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Speaking of reading…watch for emails or updates from me in the next few days, because I’m going to tell you about an awesome BUNDLE…do  you know what a bundle is?? Neither did I, until today, although I’ve seen them mentioned on blogs. Let’s just say it’s a large quantity of materials for a low price. The one I am going to tell you about is the ULTIMATE CHRISTIAN LIVING  bundle. For the very low price of $34.95, you will be able to have access to a large quantity of Christian e-books (please note the E!) in various categories, from marriage, to parenting, to inspirational novels, to devotionals, and more! Download the ones you want to your computer or tablet and have plenty to read for at least a year. Even if you only like 2-3 of them, this price makes it a great deal. PLUS, included in the same price, you will receive Bonus Reward Points from Tyndale Publishing–enough to purchase a physical (real, not E) book of your choice, which they’ll ship to you. You will receive a selection of Day Spring greeting cards. And finally, you’ll get access to a Christian workout program and accompanying DVD. All this stuff would retail for over $1000 if you purchased the items separately!

This is an awesome deal and will only run from November 5th through 10th, so watch for more info from me!

Prayer for Housework + Homecoming Hoochie-Wear

19 Oct 2014 5 Comments

by Sweet-Water-and-Bitter in Christian Life, Cleaning, Homemaking, Modesty, Parenting Tags: , , , ,

You’d think for once maybe I’d just write something NICE…especially since the idea for the first part of this post literally came to me in a dream, and I can’t remember that ever happening to me before. But alas, I cannot be as nice as some of my fellow bloggers, much as I admire them.  Hence the name Sweet Water AND Bitter. Here’s the nicer part:

Laundry tongdang

(Image by Tongdang, Courtesy of FreeDigitalImages.net)

 

A PRAYER FOR DOING HOUSEWORK

I woke up this morning

(Awake, thou that sleepest)

And threw on some clothes.

(Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.)

As usual, it was waiting for me:

(Go therefore now, and work)

the housework.

(To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.)

Making beds

( Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled)

Washing dishes

(Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.)

Dusting

(My soul cleaveth unto the dust: quicken thou me according to thy word.)

Caring for pets

(Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God?)

Doing laundry

(Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow)

Cooking

(Thou preparest a table before me)

Sweeping

(And when he cometh, he findeth it swept and garnished)

Surely there are more “fun” things to do in life

(Folly is joy to him that is destitute of wisdom)

But I am blessed to have a home to call my own

(Every wise woman buildeth her house)

And spaces to keep clean and orderly, out of love

(To love their husbands; to love their children)

For those who fill the once-empty rooms.

(God setteth the solitary in families.)

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NOW…..ABOUT THE HOMECOMING DRESSES:

Well, ladies, it’s that time again…seems like prom and wedding season was just yesterday, and here we are posting pictures of our beautiful teenagers in their homecoming attire. For those readers outside the US ( and I’m pleased to say there are many!) a high school homecoming, in its simplest terms, is a football game followed by a special dance at which the students dress up somewhat more than usual. It’s called homecoming because former students (whether college-aged or adult) often come back to visit and relive old times at their alma mater. I don’t know about you, but in my high school years, a homecoming outfit was simply a nice date outfit. Maybe a new skirt or sweater, but certainly something that could be worn for many other occasions as well. Nowadays, homecoming is one step below prom, and the girls wear…well, there’s hardly another word for them…cocktail dresses.

Prom DC Dominici

(Image by David Castillo Dominici, courtesy of FreeDigitalImages.net)

A few of my friends have proudly posted pictures of their beautiful daughters all dressed up for their special night, but I find the pictures distressing. The first one was a buxom fourteen-year-old wearing an all-black dress. She was fully covered on top, but her skirt was form-fitting and very, very short. Next I saw a pretty, slender girl in a strapless, jeweled gown. Not to say that any strapless dress is sufficient covering (by the standards of many Christian parents), but this dress was so poorly fitted that it covered even less than expected. It came down far lower than it should have, so that the entire viewing public was within an nth of seeing that which was designed for feeding her babies. (See, I could make a crack right here about how she’s liable to have some pretty soon, too, if she keeps going out dressed like that, but I’m too classy. ;-)) Another shot showed a girl in a white mini-dress, leaning back against a tree with her arms thrown over her head, doing an excellent job of looking sultry and provocative. Parents post these pictures, and their friends chime in, “Get the shotgun, Daddy!” and other such statements that are meant to be complimentary. But these are not compliments to a young girl’s loveliness. These are roundabout ways of saying, “Your daughter looks very sexually attractive!” Is that what you were going for?

Oh dear, and their poor dates. Those poor, scruffy, half-grown boys who don’t even own a pair of dress shoes, and who have no idea that they will never again in their lives attract girls as beautiful as the ones they are dating right now…do you think it’s even fair to them to expect them to view that much of your daughter’s skin and not want to do more than view it? And by the way…young girls are emotional and sentimental, and sometimes they have a hard time resisting the urge to make a special occasion even more special. Why put them both in a situation where it will be sooooo much harder than usual to keep their guard up?

If it’s the custom at your daughter’s school to have a special new dress and you desire to provide one, there is nothing wrong with that. And she needn’t look like a nun. But it is not nearly as difficult as people like to pretend, to find a party dress that decently covers a young girl’s body. One excellent resource is online stores catering to LDS (Mormon) girls and ladies. I’ve decided not to list any particular sites, but simply Google “LDS Homecoming dresses” for a selection of dresses that are special and fancy, yet modest. You might also consider using the word Apostolic in your searches…or simply the word modest.

Granny Has to Move

10 Oct 2014 1 Comment

by Sweet-Water-and-Bitter in Christian Life, Homemaking Tags: ,

sofagranny-ambro

 

(Image by Ambro, courtesy of FreeDigitalImages.net)

My husband’s grandmother has to move, and it makes perfect sense for her to do so.  She’s been a widow for–gosh, must be nearly fifteen years by now. She was always a homemaker and never learned to drive, so with her husband’s passing, the active years of her life came to a sudden halt. She’s been awfully lonely, and more so with each passing year. She hopes for visits on Sunday afternoons from one of her five children or maybe some other relative. Sometimes someone comes, sometimes not. She never has been able to sleep in a bed since her husband died,  so she catches forty winks in her recliner. She never cared to cook for just one, so she doesn’t eat very healthfully.

She’s lived in her little frame house for fifty-six years. Back then, Callaway Mills was everyone’s employer; a  strong, thriving backbone to the little community, and to hear my husband’s parents (who grew up as next-door-neighbors) tell it, the mill children might have had more fun than the rich folks. A swimming pool and skating rink were provided by Callaway, as were baseball fields. There was a grocery store in the community, and several churches in walking distance. All the neighbors worked and worshiped together, and it was a fine place to raise a family. But now the mill has been shut down for many long years, and the neighborhood is not so desirable anymore. We are not entirely sure of Granny’s safety there, and she’s certainly unable to manage any upkeep on the house or yard.

She’s declined a lot in the past couple of years. Her mind seems fine, but her hearing’s going and her arthritis leaves her nearly unable to scrawl her name on our birthday cards. She has a walker but doesn’t like to use it, so she’s taken a few falls. This last time, after she was safely rescued, her children descended on her and said Enough is enough. We’re not asking you, we’re telling you. It’s time to move.

We’d tried for years to encourage her to move, but she would have none of it. She called her husband by his nickname, Sleepy, and she would say, “Sleepy left me here and this is where I’m staying.” This was sentimental talk, of course, and we pointed out rather bluntly that Sleepy wasn’t coming back and would want her to be somewhere secure.  She wouldn’t hear of it. But this last tumble must have scared her, because the kids told her she was moving and she simply agreed and put the matter into their hands. They will handle the sale of her house, the moving of her belongings, the getting rid of what needs to go, and the transferring of utilities. And she is a very blessed lady to have a place to go! Only a few miles from her current home, my mother- and father-in-law live. And they happen to manage a small rental complex, just around the block from their house. Another of Granny’s daughters (plus an adult granddaughter) live in one of the apartments, and there’s a vacancy right next door to them. Neat as a pin, small and affordable. Perfect! We rejoice for her that while she’ll be within four new walls, all else will be familiar. The town and the faces, she knows. She can still go to familiar businesses, and see her same doctors. That should help.

GrantvilleNot every older person is so blessed. When I was a little girl, I lived in a small town, a portion of which is pictured at left. The Historic Grill in the photo was, back then, an office where my great-uncle worked. (Fans of “The Walking Dead” may recognize this scenery. The TV show is taped in my hometown.) Anyway, right next to the office was a grocery store owned by my other great-uncle (the first one’s brother). Meanwhile, a hop and a skip away, I was growing up in a house with their third brother, my great-grandfather. (And my parents.)

My great-grandfather, whom I called Poppy, was (or seemed to be) an ancient man, even when I was born. He was certainly an old-timey man, at any rate. I never saw him dress in anything but suit pants and a button-up shirt, and often a suit jacket and a hat. I never remember him walking without a cane. We lived with him in the house where he and his late wife had spent their fifty-plus years of marriage, and he spent many a day just sitting on the front porch. He would whistle to catch the attention of the occasional semi-truck driver who passed the house, only to throw up his hand in a wave to them. He explained to me that he made this gesture of kindness because the truckers got “lonesome” on the road. Poppy went to church faithfully on Sundays and and he loved to watch Lawrence Welk and Perry Mason. I believe he must have relished the independence of being able, even with his cane, to take a notion to walk downtown to the store and visit with his brothers.

But then one day his daughter came to get him. I was just a child so I am not sure why this happened. My parents had a hellishly unhappy marriage, so maybe she was removing him from unpleasant conditions. Maybe there was a disagreement of some sort. I’m not sure and there’s no one left for me to ask, so I don’t know how Poppy felt about this move. I can’t imagine it was anything other than traumatic and heartbreaking.

While his daughter had good intentions toward her father, she lived many miles away, in a larger town he didn’t know. And she lived, well, not in the country but not in walking distance of anything. She lived right off a very busy highway, and her porch was too far from the road for Poppy to wave at the truck drivers. How sad it must have been for a man in his eighties to be ripped away from everything and everyone he’d ever known. He didn’t live many years after the move.

boyslndgTo be honest with you, it was pretty difficult for my husband and me to get adjusted to life after moving to Florida in our forties. Look at that beautiful scenery! We moved to a good place but it took me a very long time to get over the feeling of being disconnected to everyone and everything I saw. There was no use scanning any crowd for old friends. There was no building or house where any portion of my life had taken place. I knew if I disappeared, nobody would realize I’d ever been here at all. It was very disconcerting. If you know any families who move far from home, keep them in  your prayers. They will tell you about all the good things, and probably won’t mention that empty feeling that they’re living a fake life. It really took a long time to get over that and begin to feel like a dual citizen of both my homes.

Some seniors may feel they won’t be around long enough to make the work of getting adjusted worthwhile. While a new home of their own or a place with family is surely better than a nursing home, I’m afraid their hearts may grieve for their real homes, and their absolute powerlessness to get back to them.

I think Granny will be okay, though. I think she’ll have many more visitors and much more activity. We, her family, are happy for her to open this new chapter in her life. And we think her beloved Sleepy would be happy, too. <3

happyoldwoman-ambro

 Image by Ambro, courtesy of FreeDigitalImages.net.

Her Feet Abide Not in Her House

27 Sep 2014 4 Comments

by Sweet-Water-and-Bitter in Christian Life, Homemaking, Marriage, Modesty, Submission Tags:

David Castillo Dominici

(Image courtesy of David Castillo Dominici at FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

It has happened again: a young girl, alone and wandering around drunk after a late-night party, has disappeared. We don’t know yet exactly what has happened to her, but we can assume it was something horrible. What a tragic thing for her and her family. I have every sympathy for them.  And yet, more and more when this sort of thing happens, I find myself thinking regretfully, “If only she had stayed at home.”

Let me stop and make a few concessions and/or admissions before I continue:

1) No one deserves to be victimized by anyone simply by being alone or being in a public place, or even being intoxicated. No one deserves it for any reason. No one is “asking for it.”

2) In my young and single days, I partied and drank in bars on a weekly basis. Generally I was with a friend, but there were occasions when I went out alone.

3) It is entirely possible to be victimized anytime, anywhere (including your own home or workplace), and even while engaged in the most innocent of activities.

All that being said, let me admit in addition that I watch an inordinate amount of true crime TV:  “Snapped,” and “Suburban Secrets” and “Deadly Women” and all such as that. I don’t make a particular point to catch these shows; I think I just wind up watching a lot of them because unlike network TV sitcoms or dramas, there is no particular premise I need to understand and no characters I have to be familiar with. I can tune in at any point and pretty much catch on to the action, so I tend to watch bits and pieces of them. As I listen to the descriptions of circumstances that lead to murders and other crimes, I again find myself noticing a pattern. Much of the time, if she hadn’t been out carousing, she’d be alive. If she hadn’t been out cheating on her husband, she’d be alive. If she hadn’t been trying to enrich herself by hurting somebody else, she wouldn’t have gotten into trouble.

We’re all just trying to feel happy, aren’t we? The latest missing girl probably just wanted to have some fun that night. I know that’s what I was doing when I was in my twenties…trying to have fun and looking for a relationship. Thankfully, nobody ever harmed me, but I can easily think of DOZENS, if not hundreds, of times when they could have. How many dark parking lots could I have been snatched from? How many times did I enter a home or a car of someone I didn’t know well enough to trust with my life? One of the main verses of scripture that constantly pops into my mind is I Timothy 5:6: “But she that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth.”

This can be applied various ways. Obviously, it does not mean “don’t have any fun or you’ll get yourself killed.” I’m not saying that. I am suggesting that if the main thing on a woman’s mind is partying, getting drunk, getting high, finding some sex, getting male attention and acquiring money or possessions, she’s on the wrong path. If you’re single and this is what you live for—you might want to rethink your priorities. If you’re married and you can hardly WAIT for the next girls’ night out, bachelorette party, or whatever social occasion takes you away from your family and out into the street to relive your more hedonistic days, you definitely need to reconsider. She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth. Your life should be about more than making yourself feel good.

I’d like to call your attention to the biblical phrase, “keepers at home.” (Titus 2:5.) This phrase is often used in connection with our more modern word, “housekeeping,” and is thought to refer to being a housewife, a stay-at-home mother, or a person who manages her home well and maintains a clean and organized house. Maintaining an orderly home is obviously a good and admirable thing to do (as opposed to, y’know, sitting around watching “Snapped.” :-) ) But I happen to think that the verse is actually stating that a good and chaste woman ought primarily to stay at home, rather than be out at the bar, the restaurant, the friend’s house, the country club, or the shopping mall.

Consider the description of the woman in Proverbs 7. She is not, you”ll note, a professional prostitute. She is a married woman, merely wearing the attire of a harlot in the episode described. (Hmm, what do you wear when you go out with your girlfriends?)  She is further described as “loud and stubborn; her feet abide not in her house.” (Emphasis mine.) There are several translations of that phrase available in the various versions of the Bible, but they all amount to the same thing: the woman described will not stay home and behave herself; she’s always out running the streets. Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible expands further on this passage with the following statement: “Her feet abide not in her house; to attend to the business of it; but she is gadding abroad to seek her lovers, and bring them in; it is the character of good women that they are keepers at home, but it is the sign of a harlot to gad abroad…”

stockimages (2)

(Image courtesy of Stockimages at FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

Getting pretty radical in here now, isn’t it? I hope no feminists are reading this, or their heads may have just exploded. SURELY I’m not saying you ought to be like a prisoner in your own home, am I? Surely I’m not saying that we shouldn’t venture outside the house unescorted by a male relative. Next thing you know, I’ll be saying it’s a sin to go to the grocery store, or drop your children off at school, or go to work, for that matter, since it involves leaving the house.

Well no, I wouldn’t take it that far. But there is a bit of a difference, wouldn’t you say, in going about your normal life doing good and necessary things, and in “letting your hair down,” escaping the responsibilities of being a wife and mother, and seeking your own pleasure by going places and doing things that a Christian woman simply ought not to do.

Compared with “gadding abroad,” chances are better that you’ll be safe at home. Chances are better that, in your own home, you won’t encounter someone who either wants to harm you or lead you astray. You have liberty; of course you do. But if you search the whole Bible, I am pretty sure you won’t come up with any description of a wise woman that says, “She hangeth out with her girlfriends and drinketh margaritas.” The world thinks it’s perfectly acceptable. But Christian women have a different standard…..don’t we?

Staying Home is Not the Hardest

20 Sep 2014 10 Comments

by Sweet-Water-and-Bitter in Christian Life, Homemaking, Marriage, Submission Tags: , , ,

motherchild

I would love to stay at home.

Over the course of my years as a mother, I’ve done it all three ways: working full-time, part-time, and staying home. Staying home was by far the happiest, most fulfilling, most enjoyable time I’ve ever spent as a mother. I knew it was temporary, and I continued to pay my share of the household expenses by spending up the entire balance of a 401K account that had taken me twelve years to accumulate.  I have yet to regret it. Sure, I might want to retire some day, but I wanted to stay home right then, and it was a wonderful time.

I was aware, every day that year, of the luxury of time available to me. If I didn’t get to a task today–eh, well, I could do it tomorrow. There was no rush, no need to cram every possible errand into a Saturday morning. I had time to take my children where they needed to go, and time to chitchat with them. Time to sit out on the deck and watch the rain with them–you know, it rained today while I was in the office, but I couldn’t go outside and enjoy the smell of it and the feel of the breeze. My time belongs to my boss, and she doesn’t pay me to sniff raindrops.

I kept on top of the housework while I stayed home, and I was able to circulate around to several different stores to catch the grocery bargains. (That’s unthinkable to me now…my husband usually does the shopping while I stay home Friday nights to clean, but if I DO occasionally get drafted to go, after that one hour of shopping I’m totally beat, because I’m already running on fumes when I get there.) When I stayed home, I cooked for the family every night. My kids would ask me what was for dinner and I would have an answer for them. (Sometimes now my son gets a shrug.) I remember my husband remarking about how nice it was to come home and find there was nothing he needed to do. (Now he does a couple of loads of laundry every night, at least.) I joined a gym while I stayed home! They had free child care available for my little boy. Now, we have a free gym available in our neighborhood.  My son ( now twelve) asked me, this very night, didn’t we say we were going to start going to the gym? I groaned and said, “Let’s not.” Driving home and climbing the stairs is workout enough. Once I get in the door and get out of my work clothes, leaving again is not in the forecast.

I’ve been giving you a picture of my life. Granted, not everyone will experience working or staying home as I do/did. I’m sure lots of women think working full-time is a piece of cake, and they still have plenty of time and energy to do what they want in their off hours.

And I am even MORE sure that a number of SAHMs are chomping at the keyboard to tell me that their lives are not a breeze because they have ten kids, not two, and they homeschool them and live on a farm and churn their own butter and whatnot. Yes…that sounds much harder and more taxing than my stay-at-home time. But there were some choices made there, right? You did choose to have that many children, you certainly chose to homeschool them, and they do sell butter at the grocery store. I am not knocking you! God bless you in the life you chose.

If you would only stop complaining about it. That’s right…complaining. When you say, “It’s the hardest job in the world….oh, um, and the most fulfilling.” Or when you post those memes about “I work twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.” When you commiserate about what a sacrifice it is to stay home. When you gripe about how your baby kept you up all night or your kids have been sick for days. (Try the agony of deciding whether to send a somewhat-sick child to school or face dire consequences at your job. Try being up with that crying baby and still having to put on your dress and heels and makeup, and then sit up straight and look at little numbers on a computer all day.)   What’s worst is when you describe your job as “thankless.”

Wow, I wonder how that makes your husband feel? In my eyes, the fact that you are allowed to stay home is an extreme PRIVILEGE. Have you lost sight of the fact that it is a GIFT made possible by your husband? Thankless? How about you being a little more thankFUL? If my husband came home tomorrow and said, “Hey, guess what–why don’t you quit your job and stay home. I’ll continue to drive in rush hour to work all day every day to satisfy customers and bosses who may or may not be reasonable. I’ll deal with the stress of knowing that at any moment, if I make an error or if I  don’t perform well, they could walk in and tell me I no longer have a job. I’ll pay for the roof over your head and the food in your mouth and every stitch of clothing you wear…and if you decide you need volumizing mascara or new cushions for the sofa because you’re just no longer “feeling” the old ones, well, honey, I’ll pay for that, too. I’ll pay for your mammogram and your prescriptions, and your glasses, oh and of course your car and gas. If you want to buy a birthday gift for a friend, I’ll pick up the tab for that, even though your name will be on the card and I don’t even know her.” Etc., etc., etc.  Are you kidding me—I would fall down dead of surprise.

I realize some of you have red faces and steam coming out of your ears right now, because you are wanting to say “I DO MY SHARE AROUND HERE. I WORK TOO, and my work is just as valuable as his.” All right. No argument. But suppose you (like me) were married to a man who felt that there were two able-bodied adults in the house, so why should he carry the entire financial burden? Just imagine it for one second…a husband who believed  that whatever contributions you might make around the home would be far outweighed by those you could make as an employed financial contributor.

Please understand that I am not bashing my husband. When I think of “do unto others,” then I must consider how I would feel if HE wanted to stay home while I carried the entire load. I tried it once, by the way. We had two kids at home and I had a great, well-paying job, when his company shut down. He drew unemployment for a while, attended school, did the housework and had dinner cooked every night when I got home. My response to this was to have a literal nervous breakdown. The idea that four people were depending on me made every moment I spent at work somehow magnified in importance, leading to terrible stress. And despite the fact that my husband was keeping things up at home, I seethed with resentment over the free time he had and the relaxed pace he was living with. It wasn’t fair.

I am not proud of that, because he certainly did not treat me that way when I spent my year at home, but that’s just the difference in the sexes, I think. While I felt embarrassed to have an unemployed husband, he felt a certain amount of pride at having a wife at home. The thing is, he was not willing to pay, indefinitely, for that feeling. After a while, enough was enough, and he was more than happy to return to pitching in with the laundry and groceries and whatever else needed doing at home, in exchange for the salary I could earn.

If you are a stay-at-home wife and/or mother, then yes–of course what you are doing is valuable. But take a moment today to realize that you, too, could be married to a man who would consider a paycheck more valuable. The fact that you’re home is a gift from him to you. Be thankful.

 

Also linking with:

Mom's Morning Coffee

Put Some Clothes On, Granny

13 Sep 2014 24 Comments

by Sweet-Water-and-Bitter in Beauty, Christian Life, Looks, Modesty, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , ,

oldgranny

I have read many, many, many a blog post on the topic of modesty. And not just blog posts…I spent a year or two seeking out every published article I could find, and I’ve read several books about it as well. If you are interested in the topic of modesty, you may very well have done the same, so I am excusing myself from presenting an exhaustive review of the following:

1) Modesty is a biblical principle, although the exact application of it to modern life is a matter that individuals may differ about.

2) Yes, what’s in your heart matters most, but many of us believe that there is a standard of decency that Christian women should follow, and that this standard requires clothing that is quite a bit different from what many women wear (and completely different than what most celebrities wear).

3) We should give grace to those who may not yet know what we have learned, and to those who interpret the scriptures differently than we do.

Are we mostly agreed? I sure hope so, because I’m about to bust right out and tell you that

I AM TIRED OF PEOPLE COMING HALF NAKED TO CHURCH.

OK, maybe I exaggerate just a bit, but I see a lot more skin than I want to, and my husband sees a lot more than I want him to. I can’t even count how many young women come to services in backless, strapless, and/or too short garments.  It bothers me, because I’m always wondering– even if these women choose to wear revealing clothes elsewhere, why don’t they have enough sense to put on something decent for church? Oh, wait…..it’s because their mothers and grandmothers are doing the same thing.

I’ll be honest with you, it hasn’t been that long since I went through what bloggers like to call a “modesty transformation,” but one thing that has made it extremely easy is the knowledge that I am neither a spring chicken nor a fashion model, and there isn’t that much of my body that anybody is dying to see anyway! Can I get an AMEN on that?? I mean really…it’s a blessing to me to cover up what needs to be covered, and I know a few trying-real-hard-to-look-hot grandmas who might want to give that idea a try themselves, and be a better example to their younger counterparts.

Can I say this plain and simple? We all have different ideas of what’s pretty and what’s appropriate. But church is NOT the place for any outfit that could possibly be called sexy. It’s just not. Stop advertising if you’re not selling, and throw on a cardigan or something.

And while we’re at it, do you really need to come to church in jean shorts and a graphic T-shirt? Do you really?  I get the idea that nobody wants to get all dressed up on a Sunday morning, especially if the weather is not conducive to that. As a society, we don’t do very much dressing up anymore…it seems we’ve all (except my boss, of course) agreed that we’d rather be comfortable.  I have to dress in “professional” clothes every day at work…like this:

leop-fuschia

OR THIS:

best

 

….and you can bet your sweet patootie that there is quite a bit of the wailing and gnashing of teeth when I have to get up on Sunday and put on the exact same type of thing. It’s HOT here, and now I’ll have to come home after church instead of going straight on to whatever else I planned to do and I don’t feel like dressing up today and blah, blah, blah. Oh well, that’s too bad, and I have to get over it and put on something appropriate to where I’m going–just as I would for a job interview, a date, a wedding (to which people also go dressed in any old rag nowadays, and that’s extremely RUDE ) or for that matter, to work out at the gym or clean out the garage. You dress for the occasion, not just to suit yourSELF.

I could show up to my church in denim shorts (if I had any). Women do it every week. And I could wear a sundress, or bare my cleavage and give the pastor a heart attack when he looks down from the altar (no joke, women really are very inconsiderate of the pastor when they do that). I could wear a mini-skirt, or something peek-a-boo with a plunging bare back to give the men in the pews behind me a distraction. (Hey, I didn’t say a pleasant one…just a distraction.)

But I do none of these things, and I don’t think anybody should, and do you know why? Because, in the famous words of “Mammy” from Gone With the Wind…

.mammy2
 

… “It ain’t fittin’, it jest ain’t fittin.’ IT AIN’T FITTIN’.

If Your Tragedy Had Never Happened

06 Sep 2014 12 Comments

by Sweet-Water-and-Bitter in Christian Life Tags: , , ,

 

sad

(Image by David Castillo Dominici, courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.com)

In 1990, I was twenty-five years old and nine months pregnant. I went to my final doctor visit on December 5th, and while there, the doctor told me that if I didn’t go into labor over the weekend, he would induce me the following week. He also accidentally revealed that the baby was a boy. I floated out the office door and went down the stairs to where my then-husband was waiting in the car. We always wore our seat belts, but this time we were so busy chattering, so excited over the news,  that we both forgot.

We never made it home.

wreck

I am very careful when I write about my son, who was born that day. He was a real person whose life was snatched away from him (not just from me). I never write in such a way as to allow what happened that day to become a “story” with my son as a mere character. So there is no need for me to delve into all the details of our accident right now, because at any rate what I really want to talk to you about is the place of tragedy in our lives.

Relatively minor things are going to happen to everybody, right? Somebody breaks into the house and steals the valuables. The “love of our life” strays away. We lose jobs, we lose our looks, maybe we lose a few of our marbles. The kids grow up and do things we don’t approve of. And in all these things, we generally grit our teeth and keep slogging on, until eventually there comes a day that we can praise the Lord that we didn’t marry that person, that we didn’t get Job A because Job B was even better, and so on. Then everything comes into focus and it’s easy to talk about how all things work together for good and how the Lord had a wonderful plan in place all the time.

It’s very different when you’re facing a tragedy so cruel and so devastating that no matter how you turn it, no matter how you analyze it and try to understand, you can’t see anything but emptiness and horror.

I remember a day, it must have been close to a year after my son’s death, that I came home from work and was just sitting in the living room alone. I can still remember the light fixture that was above my head, because that’s what I was looking at when I burst out sobbing and crying, “Why? Why?” I got up daily and went about my life, but the grief was constantly in my heart. I could never make any sense of why a precious, wanted baby would form so miraculously inside me, day after day and month after month, only to die in a senseless accident. And I would have given anything, anything, to have him back. I will never stop being sorry for him that his life ended after eleven days.

But that was many years ago, and so I’ve had time to consider what my life would be today if we had made it home safely from the doctor’s office, and everything had proceeded as expected. I think anytime an accident happens, you ask “what if” in a thousand ways. For example, I remember the doctor’s receptionist offering me an early-morning appointment, but I thought I’d rather sleep in so I took a later one. And after the appointment, my then-husband wanted to go one direction but I reminded him of an errand we’d promised to do, in the other direction. What if? The slightest variation in anything that day, and we would not have been there to collide with another vehicle at that particular moment. Over the years, I have learned to ask “What if we hadn’t?”

I am not about to sit here and think up a list of positive things that happened because my child died; that’s not what I’m getting at. But I do sometimes consider my now-husband, my soulmate of twenty years, and realize that I would never have met him if my life had stayed on the path I expected it to. I look at my beautiful daughter and my precious second son and wonder if they would have existed at all. What if I were given the chance to reverse all these years? What if the Lord said to me that he would turn back the clock, give my baby back to me, but I would never know these other three that I now call my family? I might bow my head and cry, but I would leave things as they are. And that gives me faith that I can trust God to know what he is doing after all–no matter how impossible it might be to see it at the time. He understands what we cannot even fathom.

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This week in addition to my usual linkup I am sharing with:

The Black Dog that Lurks

25 Aug 2014 4 Comments

by Sweet-Water-and-Bitter in Christian Life, Uncategorized Tags: , ,

black dog

For over a hundred years, people have used black dog as a metaphor for clinical depression. Winston Churchill said it. So did Sheryl Crow. Poets and writers mention it. Do a little research and you’ll find there is such a thing as the Black Dog Institute and the Black Dog Campaign. I was curious about the origin of this expression, so I read an essay about it that went (I believe) completely overboard to prove that our ancestors had a superstitious fear of man’s best friend, and that there were negative connotations to the color black (duh).

I think there’s a much simpler reason why so many people hit on the very same image to describe depression: because that’s what it feels like. It’s a dark creature lurking just outside your place of safety. You don’t claim him or want him. You didn’t ask for him to come and you don’t set out food for him. He comes anyway, though,  and paces up and down in front of your door. If you stay very still and quiet, locked inside your house, he might not get you. But he is blocking your path to the rest of the world, and to life.

I distinctly remember my first episode of depression. I was eighteen years old and a senior in high school. I had a new boyfriend. Nothing was wrong. And yet one day in French class, my favorite class, I put my head down on my desk and cried for the whole class period. About nothing. While never suicidal or overly dramatic, that day started me down a life path that included a lot of sighing, a lot of shrugging, a lot of staring at people blankly for a moment too long after they asked me a question. A lot of saying, “I’m tired.” It’s funny how negative things can occasionally work in your favor, because many times at work I was described as “calm, cool, and collected,” or “even-tempered.” People remarked about how I failed to get upset or take offense at various aggravations that occurred on the job. Well, folks, here’s my secret….it was because I didn’t care. I was so insulated in my own numb world that  daily squabbles and work-related crises barely made a ripple in my consciousness.

Times like that, the black dog is not lurking outside, he has come in and made himself at home. And just like a real dog, you get used to living with him. You might not like  him, but he is so firmly entrenched that you don’t remember what life was like before and you don’t know how to get him out. For years I tried to explain to people, “I get depressed the way you get a migraine. There is not necessarily a why. It comes to me and I am stuck with it until it goes away.” I’m sure I was never much fun to live with, and there were a couple of times when my frame of mind dipped so severely that I sought medication for a while, but in general I was just sort of an Eeyore every day, dragging through life.

eeyore

And then a few years ago, there was a crisis. First of all, excuse me for mentioning it, but I started to have severe PMS, which I’d never suffered from in my life. Several months in a row, I threw a screaming fit at my husband without realizing the cause until afterward.  I eventually learned to watch for times when I was very angry about something that seemed perfectly rational to me at the moment and only later proved inconsequential. But before I could figure that out, there came a particular week that changed our lives.

We were already dealing with some trouble and some drama. Things were going on in our personal life…and he was out of a job at the time, so I was feeling the strain of that…plus my supervisor at work had been fired and then replaced with a recent college grad who had to learn everything from the ground up…just a lot going on. Every day that week, I spent my lunch hour on the phone with my husband, sobbing like my heart would break (and ordinarily, I’m not a crier). Long story really short: I quit my job, we burned our bridges behind us and moved to a new state where promptly everything went even further down the tubes…for a while.

But in the midst of the wondering-how-we’ll-survive strife, I noticed an interesting thing…the black dog had wandered off. I was worried, all right, and stressed and a lot of other things, but I was not depressed.  Maybe the Lord was saying to me, like a  parent says to a whining child, “You keep that up and I’ll give you something to cry about.”  I did have plenty to cry about for a year or so. But while dealing with real problems, real regret, real grief…the lingering malaise that had followed me around most of my life disappeared. And while we’ve since regained our equilibrium in our personal life, it hasn’t returned.

Advice about depression has limited usefulness. Going back to my comparison to a migraine, I might tell you a hundred ways to avoid a migraine, but that doesn’t mean it’s  your fault if one shows up anyway. You can, however, do your best to avoid known triggers.  I find it best to steer clear of tear-jerker movies, for example. I avoid news stories that sound especially disturbing. The Bible tells us to dwell on what is pure and good and lovely, not to wallow around in what’s sad and horrible, so I try to do that. And also, now that the black dog no longer lives with me, I’m better able to discern when he comes around, scratching at the door, trying to get inside. I recognize him for what he is, and do my best to run him off before he gets any ideas about staying. He’s not my dog, and I don’t want him around.

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