Life

As I drove home today, I looked up and glanced at the trees. Imagine my surprise--the trees are bare! Bare as winter trees! Gray and brown and ugly!! I knew that the caterpillar epidemic was bad, but I didn't realize it was this bad. How dare those wretched insects destroy my beautiful trees! Summer is the best-loved time of year for me, and they are wreaking havoc on my sanctuary! Can I curse them? Tonight I was pronouncing dark judgments on them and The Little Bro rebuked me, "That's not very Christian." My reply, "I don't have to be Christian to caterpillars!" (Yes, we're joking---mostly).

The youth can always be counted on for laughs. Sometimes they distract me even when I'm preaching/teaching/sharing the Word. Like last night, I was talking about the Lord's Prayer. My question was, "Does anybody know what 'hallowed' means?" The Always Witty Kid says, "Oh, that's when something has nothing in the middle!" Ummm, no, pretty sure that's 'hollow!' :) I choked with laughter over that one.

I read a disturbing article about the role of women in Sweden today. The article extolled the glories of feminism, and the wonders of a country where children are trained from kindergarten upward that there is no set gender roles. Women may do what they please! Men are just as likely to stay home with the children! Oh, the joy! (please note sarcasm). And then this article wondered that (strangely enough) men rarely hold doors for women or help a woman struggling with something heavy. And why should they?? Ah, but that's what the culture has trained people to accept. I'd say the most disturbing quote from this article was a young woman's defense of her equal womanliness and independence, "I love makeup. I wear pink. I have an obsession with handbags!" Makeup and handbags? Not only has feminism crippled men in Sweden, the whole society has lost sight of true womanhood. And the Church as a whole is losing sight as well. Where in Proverbs 31 did it ever mention makeup and handbags? No, true femininity is not defined by a woman's clothes, but rather, how she clothes her household. A woman is a care-giver. When she loses the focus of others, she has lost her virtuousity.

When a woman is walking in her God-given role, her husband will praise her and her children will bless her. There's no need for her to play-up her supposed virtues. It's not the clothes that make a woman, nor the makeup, nor the job, or anything else... but it is her works that praise her at the gates. (Prov. 31:31). Godly women just have fruit!