Stay-at-Home Wife Status (Painful to Write, Freeing to "Publish")
I've been married nearly two months now (Whew! Where does the time go?!) and have not made the time to post on my blog in what seems like, (in the words, voice, and inflection of the beloved Gru), "Forever!"
Some days, I'm just too busy with finding delight in accomplishing daily chores/tasks and/or crafting, creating, fun times, and memory-making. Other days, I'm honestly just too lazy to capture all of my thoughts, collect them together, and string them into something that makes any semblance of sense to anyone outside of my little mind, self, "kingdom" (a.k.a. my house), and world.
But I've wanted to give some updates and some clarifications on the recent updates in my life for those of you that are naturally curious, personally concerned, or simply lacking better things to read at the moment, so here goes:
As many of you know, I'm now embarking on a new (very unpopular, might I add) journey. I am a stay-at-home wife. You read that right. (For those of you already asking the fast-forward-questions-of-a-lifetime, No, Jeff and I are not expecting babies anytime soon. <insert smiley face, but careful-not-to-make-it-a-winky-face emoticon here>) I'm a resident-stay-at-home wife. Not a mom. Just a wife. Not currently working anywhere outside the home, but staying inside. At home. With no kids. All day long.
To some of you (if you're anything like me), that sounds completely awesome, right? All day long just to sit back and relax, to cook and clean, to learn and create, to grow in wisdom and favor with the Lord, and to give my husband something happy to come home to every single day. (Yay!!)
To others of you, you're judging me right now. Right this very second, you are. I know it, and you need to stop it. (I tease, I'm not really upset.) But I know I am getting judged for this life move because it grates against the norm, and I know what you're thinking because I've felt the looks. I get the ill-responses. I've even thought some of the same thoughts that some of you are thinking right now. "Plenty of other women manage households and carry a full-time job. You don't even have kids, so what exactly is it that you do all day?!"
I'll give you that. If I'm completely honest with you, about two days out of the week so far, I've been bored to the brink of tears. It's on those two days that I look around my house, and everything is immaculately clean. Laundry and dishes are done and put away. Meal planning, couponing (give me a crockpot, and I've become my mother), and shopping all are done for the week. Dinners and desserts are pretty much making and baking themselves these days. {Fun PSA: I make enough spaghetti-pasta and chocolate chip cookies on a regular basis to keep everyone in this household fed, fat, and sassy.} And all is right with the world. In my world. In my house.
Yet somehow, on a few days out of the stay-at-home-work-week, I find myself...
Bored.
Lonely.
Still.
"Bored" is nothing more than a waste of time. Don't judge. We all do it from time to time, but I'm working on my personal time management and creating things with my free time instead of toiling it away. (Perhaps, a book or an Etsy shop will show up with my name on it, one of these days...)
"Lonely" is simply a waste of relationship potential, so I'm building new friendships in the area whilst sending cards, letters, and all sorts of encouraging-love-via-USPS to old (vintage?) friends who are far away.
"Still" is the word that our culture simply cannot handle. And at first try-me-out, I found that I couldn't handle it. Thankfully, I'm coming along okay with it now, only 7 weeks in (and going strong!). There's nothing to it, yet everything right with it at the same time. A lot of planning goes into just simply being "still." It's a beautiful habit to get into, yet one that isn't cherished, held, or appreciated as often as it should be, especially in our Western culture.
{Busy is oftentimes viewed and valued as better, but along the way (if we aren't careful!) it can make us bitter.}
Note: Being "still" is MUCH DIFFERENT than being "idle." "Still" is beautiful and wise and (dare I say?) God-honoring. "Idle" is plain foolish. It opens the door for all sorts of spiritual attack. And really, it's a whole other world to explore in another blog and after more thought on its harmful side-effects (physically, emotionally, socially, spiritually, etc.).... Ok, ok, I'm grabbing the rabbit and getting off the trail now....
Here we go. Where was I? Ahhh, yes. The looks. The stares. The "oh that's (not really) so nice" remarks about being a stay-at-home wife. The judgement. The unasked questions.
I know, I know, after 8 years of college, a Master's degree in education, and 6 years of full-time classroom teaching in two of the biggest Southern Baptist mega-church Christian day schools this side of the Mississippi, why would I leave? There are many, many, many contributors to making this decision. All of which I won't go into in this post, but if you truly want the full and unedited version, simply ask my sweet momma all about it. She knows. And she'll talk. :-)
For the sake of this post, I'll simply solidify it down to two main reasons. One is personal. The other, Biblical.
#1. I quit teaching and entered into this new stay-at-home wife status because teaching quickly became my all-exhaustive-(and boy was it exhaustive!!)-identity. Anything other than 1,000% identity in Jesus Christ alone is shaky and scary and plainly just not worth it. So, for me, teaching had to go.
In addition and in close relation to that, my sweet husband Jeff and I talked it over, and we simply couldn't reckon bringing that much stress into our fresh, new, ripe-young marriage. You see, for me, teaching was not just a job I held. It was a lifestyle. An all-consuming, every day, left-no-room-for-anything-else affair. It was wonderful when I was single; after all, what else would I do with my time? But it took getting engaged-and-married for me to realize that for a long time, I was biting off way more than any one person could possibly chew, and I simply had to sit back and come to grips with the fact that I was choking under all the pressure, not receiving the personal, spiritual, and social nutrients that were needed for a healthy life outside of the classroom walls. If Jesus wanted the identity I made for myself in teaching, I surely wanted to give it to Him, let Him fill in all the gaps where He may, and honor Him in my new slower-paced lifestyle.
[end scene.]
Curtain closes.
#2. I found this verse and have very recently adopted it into my new stay-at-home wife life.
"The wisest of women builds her house, but folly with her own hands tears it down."
Some days, I'm just too busy with finding delight in accomplishing daily chores/tasks and/or crafting, creating, fun times, and memory-making. Other days, I'm honestly just too lazy to capture all of my thoughts, collect them together, and string them into something that makes any semblance of sense to anyone outside of my little mind, self, "kingdom" (a.k.a. my house), and world.
But I've wanted to give some updates and some clarifications on the recent updates in my life for those of you that are naturally curious, personally concerned, or simply lacking better things to read at the moment, so here goes:
As many of you know, I'm now embarking on a new (very unpopular, might I add) journey. I am a stay-at-home wife. You read that right. (For those of you already asking the fast-forward-questions-of-a-lifetime, No, Jeff and I are not expecting babies anytime soon. <insert smiley face, but careful-not-to-make-it-a-winky-face emoticon here>) I'm a resident-stay-at-home wife. Not a mom. Just a wife. Not currently working anywhere outside the home, but staying inside. At home. With no kids. All day long.
To some of you (if you're anything like me), that sounds completely awesome, right? All day long just to sit back and relax, to cook and clean, to learn and create, to grow in wisdom and favor with the Lord, and to give my husband something happy to come home to every single day. (Yay!!)
To others of you, you're judging me right now. Right this very second, you are. I know it, and you need to stop it. (I tease, I'm not really upset.) But I know I am getting judged for this life move because it grates against the norm, and I know what you're thinking because I've felt the looks. I get the ill-responses. I've even thought some of the same thoughts that some of you are thinking right now. "Plenty of other women manage households and carry a full-time job. You don't even have kids, so what exactly is it that you do all day?!"
I'll give you that. If I'm completely honest with you, about two days out of the week so far, I've been bored to the brink of tears. It's on those two days that I look around my house, and everything is immaculately clean. Laundry and dishes are done and put away. Meal planning, couponing (give me a crockpot, and I've become my mother), and shopping all are done for the week. Dinners and desserts are pretty much making and baking themselves these days. {Fun PSA: I make enough spaghetti-pasta and chocolate chip cookies on a regular basis to keep everyone in this household fed, fat, and sassy.} And all is right with the world. In my world. In my house.
Yet somehow, on a few days out of the stay-at-home-work-week, I find myself...
Bored.
Lonely.
Still.
"Bored" is nothing more than a waste of time. Don't judge. We all do it from time to time, but I'm working on my personal time management and creating things with my free time instead of toiling it away. (Perhaps, a book or an Etsy shop will show up with my name on it, one of these days...)
"Lonely" is simply a waste of relationship potential, so I'm building new friendships in the area whilst sending cards, letters, and all sorts of encouraging-love-via-USPS to old (vintage?) friends who are far away.
"Still" is the word that our culture simply cannot handle. And at first try-me-out, I found that I couldn't handle it. Thankfully, I'm coming along okay with it now, only 7 weeks in (and going strong!). There's nothing to it, yet everything right with it at the same time. A lot of planning goes into just simply being "still." It's a beautiful habit to get into, yet one that isn't cherished, held, or appreciated as often as it should be, especially in our Western culture.
{Busy is oftentimes viewed and valued as better, but along the way (if we aren't careful!) it can make us bitter.}
Note: Being "still" is MUCH DIFFERENT than being "idle." "Still" is beautiful and wise and (dare I say?) God-honoring. "Idle" is plain foolish. It opens the door for all sorts of spiritual attack. And really, it's a whole other world to explore in another blog and after more thought on its harmful side-effects (physically, emotionally, socially, spiritually, etc.).... Ok, ok, I'm grabbing the rabbit and getting off the trail now....
Here we go. Where was I? Ahhh, yes. The looks. The stares. The "oh that's (not really) so nice" remarks about being a stay-at-home wife. The judgement. The unasked questions.
I know, I know, after 8 years of college, a Master's degree in education, and 6 years of full-time classroom teaching in two of the biggest Southern Baptist mega-church Christian day schools this side of the Mississippi, why would I leave? There are many, many, many contributors to making this decision. All of which I won't go into in this post, but if you truly want the full and unedited version, simply ask my sweet momma all about it. She knows. And she'll talk. :-)
For the sake of this post, I'll simply solidify it down to two main reasons. One is personal. The other, Biblical.
#1. I quit teaching and entered into this new stay-at-home wife status because teaching quickly became my all-exhaustive-(and boy was it exhaustive!!)-identity. Anything other than 1,000% identity in Jesus Christ alone is shaky and scary and plainly just not worth it. So, for me, teaching had to go.
In addition and in close relation to that, my sweet husband Jeff and I talked it over, and we simply couldn't reckon bringing that much stress into our fresh, new, ripe-young marriage. You see, for me, teaching was not just a job I held. It was a lifestyle. An all-consuming, every day, left-no-room-for-anything-else affair. It was wonderful when I was single; after all, what else would I do with my time? But it took getting engaged-and-married for me to realize that for a long time, I was biting off way more than any one person could possibly chew, and I simply had to sit back and come to grips with the fact that I was choking under all the pressure, not receiving the personal, spiritual, and social nutrients that were needed for a healthy life outside of the classroom walls. If Jesus wanted the identity I made for myself in teaching, I surely wanted to give it to Him, let Him fill in all the gaps where He may, and honor Him in my new slower-paced lifestyle.
[end scene.]
Curtain closes.
#2. I found this verse and have very recently adopted it into my new stay-at-home wife life.
"The wisest of women builds her house, but folly with her own hands tears it down."
~Proverbs 14:1, ESV
Last time I checked, it takes a ton of time, money, dedication, supplies, and expertise-know-how to build a real house. And that's just mortar and bricks, people! Imagine how much more of a sacrifice it is to build genuine, God-honoring relationships within a family structure (a.k.a."house") while simultaneously doing all the nitty-gritty's that it takes to successfully "run" a household. It takes a work of the Lord's Spirit to do it all, and to do it all well. And that's what I want. Really, it's all I've ever wanted. I want wisdom that comes from the Lord. Wisdom that only comes through the stillness we plan for in our lives. With that wisdom from the Lord, I want to build my house. To build it, like the wise man did, on the Rock. Safe. Secure. And built well.
So that's it. That's (one of) the reason(s) I'm a stay-at-home wife.
Not so others can look in and say, "How do you get your house so spotlessly-clean?!"
Or, "Wow, I didn't know one household (of only 2 people, mind you) could possibly consume all that spaghetti, chocolate chip cookies, etc.!"
Those accolades are far too trivial to live and move and breath by.
Ultimately, I'm a stay-at-home wife, so that God would infiltrate the stillness, restore my identity in Him, and establish the Hazard house as one that is built well, for now and for generations to come.
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