Become a patron
Sisters, there is great value in a wife’s and mother’s work in the home. The impact she makes in her obedience to the Lord, in submitting to and following her husband, in loving her children, and in caring for her home cannot be overstated. Yet society has long lied and downplayed the importance of her work.
“One expression in Titus 2 deserves special notice. It is the word homemakers. The Greek word is oikourgous, which literally means “workers at home.” Oikos is the Greek word for “home,” and ergon means “work, employment.” It suggests that a married woman’s first duty is to her own family, in her own household. Managing her own home should be her primary employment, her first task, her most important job, and her true career.” ~John MacArthur
A wife’s and mother’s work affects everything. Though she works in the home, through her obedience, she impacts the church, and society, just as much as she does her individual home. The home is foundational to the church and to society; without godly women living in obedience to God’s commands, they flounder. Much as we see around us today.
We’ve been encouraged to believe that if we serve our families, our work is useless because it doesn’t advance us (or so we’re told) but is rather “slavery”, a giving up of self for “useless” men and “parasitic” children. We have forgotten the glorious importance of a wife’s and mother’s work in the home. No matter what we are told, serving self is vain; whereas, loving and serving our husbands and our children is the greatest work any woman could ever be called to do.
Mothers were not created to be away from their children all day. Children were not created so as to thrive in the care of strangers. A woman with children has a job, that of mother, that supersedes every other job except that of wife.
A woman is not meant to do her duty as well as her husband’s. It is his job to provide and protect his family while it is hers to love and nurture her family. The two jobs are equally important but they must not and ,truly, cannot, be interchanged otherwise God’s Word is held up to ridicule.
“Woman’s work is foundation work for society, for the state, for the kingdom of Heaven. In the homes of America are born the children of America; and from them goes forth American life. Who has the hand upon these springs of life? Woman. These children of American homes go out with the stamp of these homes upon them, and only as these homes are what they ought to be will these children be what they ought to be. …Woman may think her sphere and work are limited and contracted, but in this she was never found in a graver mistake. In the home she is imprinting herself upon the man; in him she builds up society, in him she builds up the state, in him she legislates, in him she executes, in him she rules. She makes man what he is, so far as human power can operate. Yes, if she never does anything else but “nurse babies,” she can do no grander work. May God impress upon our women the high, heavenly, holy duty of rearing the children of our country, and making our homes places of joy and comfort.”~ William H. Felix (1838-1912), from his essay “The Work and Sphere of True Womanhood”
The siren call to “have it all” has long captivated many a woman with no understanding. No one, not a woman nor a man, can “have it all”. Each and everyone of us can only have some. No matter how determined our efforts, we cannot spread ourselves thinly enough while also giving plenty to each to achieve the “allness” we have been conditioned to believe in.
There simply aren’t enough hours in the day nor will your husband or child survive your striving for completeness while leaving them to their own devices. A wife’s and mother’s work is far too important and foundational for that.
Sisters, when you invest yourself in the home, when you come alongside your husband and raise up godly seed, you are helping to take dominion for the Lord. There is no greater work you can do. Being a godly wife and mother IS the greater work.
Soli Deo Gloria!
