I’m also over at (in)courage today with the article, Something Has to Give – read it here!

My hands down favorite resource for teaching my babes the catechism (teaching the Word of God) is Songs for Saplings.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE Songs for Saplings (did you catch that, I LOVE them!).   I love the music, I love the lyrics (taken from The Short Catechism for Children), and the fact that after listening to Songs for Saplings my children walk around singing deep spiritual truths from the Word of God.

Just to show you how great Songs for Saplings is, I made my own little video so you could hear a sample of two of our favorite songs from the Question & Answers CD’s…

The first volume is ‘God and Creation,’ the second is ‘The Fall and Salvation,’ and the third is ‘Christ and His Work.’

Some of the questions and answers you and your babes will learn are:

Q: Why did God make you and all things?

A: For His glory

Q: How can you glorify God?

A: By loving Him and doing what He commands

Q: What is a covenant?

A: An agreement between two or more persons

Q: Why can none be saved through the covenant of works?

A: Because all have broken it and are condemned by it

Q: How were people saved before the coming of Christ?

A: By believing in a Savior to come.

Q: How is Christ a priest?

A: Because He died for our sins and pleads with God for us

In all three volumes you and your babes will be filled with the Word of God…and you will actually remember it!

So, why am I telling you all this today?

Because…

Anyone that purchases the Questions and Answers volume, 1, 2, 3, or the bundle…

…will be automatically entered in a chance to win 1 of 4 FREE Songs for Saplings ABC’s (scripture verses for each letter of the alphabet)!

And that’s not all.

Go ahead and take 10% off the CD’s with coupon code QUESTIONS10.

Oh, and one more thing…

If we can sell 65 Songs for Saplings CD’s or CD bundles, I’ll give away a $150 Visa Gift Card to one of YOU who purchased the CD’s!

That’s why I’m telling you about them today!

CLICK HERE to buy Songs for Saplings, Questions & Answers Volumes 1, 2, and 3 (the bundle)

CLICK HERE to buy the Songs for Saplings Questions & Answers Volume 1, 2, or 3 (sold individually)

I PROMISE you will love these CD’s (and if you don’t, return them with no questions asked, but you’ll love them!)

Contest and coupon code open until Thursday, June 17th, winners announced Friday, June 18th. Once you make the purchase, you are automatically entered for a chance to win!

Today’s post is from Courtney…

The condition of our bodies affects our minds.

There are physical ailments that tend to promote depression. There’s hormones, chronic pain, tiredness, exhaustion and life threatening diseases that affect the state of our minds. We cannot separate our body from our mind and spirit.

Since college I have suffered from a chronic neck pain. After many Dr. visits, medications, x-rays and an MRI – we discovered the causes and I have finally found a way to manage my flare ups. An ice pack, a few medications and some good stretches go a long way. Also, I have learned that if I exercise at least 3 times a week I can turn the sharp pain into a dull pain that I can live cheerfully with.

You may not suffer from chronic neck pain – but it may be some other type of physical chronic pain that darkens your days. When I hear of the suffering of some with crohn’s disease, fibromyalgia, cancer, pinched nerves, eczema covering half their body, back pain, and many other ailments – I know that there are many who have suffered much. If you are one of them – you know what it’s like to “Fight for Joy”.

What is the fight for joy? It’s a fight to see – to see what? To see God clearly in the midst of darkness. John Piper writes: “When we understand that seeing Christ is what leads to enjoying Christ, and that therefore the fight for joy is mainly a fight to see…then our joy will be the greater because we see him as the one who gives both the joy and the strength to fight for it.”

The fight for joy starts with prayer – I mean real prayer – get on your knees and ask God to give you joy and the strength to fight for it. And then open his word – and look for God. He promises that those who seek him will find him. He is on every page! Your suffering may be the very key that unlocks the meaning of scripture for you. There will be passages that will be more real to you than the air you breathe. Others who have not suffered may not even notice certain verses that leap off the page at you. It may be your very pathway to joy! If you choose to wait to seek God in his Word – you choose to prolong the fight.

Remember some practical weapons that you can also use in the fight for joy – rest, healthy eating and exercise. You must embrace these disciplines as a necessity for your mind, body and spirit. Now pursue joy. I want to say with Paul – “I have fought the good fight.”(2 Tim. 4:7) .

Walk with the King!
Courtney
Women Living Well

I wanted to comment because, reading the comment section, I saw a lot of questions about what a daughter would do during those “in-between” years: once she has graduated high school, what if she doesn’t automatically get married by the time she’s eighteen or twenty? What if she doesn’t get married until she’s twenty-nine or thirty-two? What if she doesn’t get married at all? Wouldn’t those homemaking skills go to waste?

I am twenty, and I’m what some would call a “stay-at-home daughter” I have chosen to live at home under the covering of my family until marriage, so I kind of “specialize” in answering the “what can a girl do in between?” question. I am a junior in an online college program. I am an aspiring author who just signed her first publishing contract last month. I am finished with the first draft of my first book and working on my second. I ran my dad’s online store (he is a pastor/evangelist/author) from sixteen to nineteen, and by the time we outsourced, I was taking care of 100 orders a week. After I have my B.A., I would love to start working on an English curriculum to tutor homeschoolers in my area.

And, most importantly, I have a family to serve -five brothers, four of whom are five and under -homeschool lessons to help with (I teach my three-year-old brother while Mama teaches my five-year-old brother), meal-plans to write up, laundry to keep going… I am my mom’s helper, and I’m loving the on-the-job training. I don’t assume that I will be married someday -the ratio of women to men in American is 2 to 1, and, as a black woman, I know that 46% of women of my particular ethnicity will never get married. But I trust that, if it’s God’s will to send me a husband, it only takes one man to come along. :) If not, I have a full life -I could ask for nothing more than the opportunities the Lord has opened up for me here.

I don’t want to write a second article in the comment section here, but I just wanted to offer my perspective as one of these “homemaker in training” daughters. If I don’t get married for ten years -if I never get married -I plan on continuing to develop those Proverbs 31 skills to bless my family, church, and community. If I have a homeward focus during singleness, and end up remaining single, I have lost nothing -I have gained practical skills that have helped me to have a full life at home doing what I love with the people I love! If I spend my time only investing in those passions that have nothing to do with my home and end up married, I have lost much time of preparation.

At least, that’s how I look at it. ;)

-Jasmine Baucham, Joyfully at Home

I am a peacemaker.

By my very nature I want everything to be okay and everyone to get along and sing in harmony while fluttering along with the butterflies….while eating cupcakes.

I do not like conflict. I do not even like the possibility of conflict. But alas, one cannot escape it…and that is not a bad thing (repeat over and over self, “conflict isn’t always bad”).  It is with a sincere and “peacemaking” heart that I write the following…

A sweet friend had some wonderful questions about my decision to raise a homemaker. I have decided to post the questions and my answers for any of you who be interested in *my* thoughts on the raising homemakers…

1. Would you still encourage your daughters to go to college?

I don’t know.  How I feel about college so far on my journey is that we will not be talking a lot about it because it is not our focus for our daughters.  If we are raising them to be homemakers I don’t want to send them off to college and strap them with debt that they (or their husbands) will have to pay off.  So many women have to work so they can pay off college debts.  Also, I’d rather them spend their time focusing on serving the church, ministering to others, and continuing in their life and homemaking skills…on a more practical level.  This is no way means that they will not have an education!  Some of the most educated women I have come across have not been schooled at a college (see Jasmine Baucham and be blown away).  Would I stop my daughters from going to college? Probably not (could I even?).  There are so many options for education in between!  I will love my children no matter what life path they choose. For a wonderful explanation about how I feel about the college thing, read this: Should a Young Woman Go to College?

2.  What if they want to pursue careers? What if God has instilled a deep desire in them to fight social injustice, climb Mt. Everest, start their own company, become a professor, train as a veterinarian, go into the military? Would these clash with this idea of homemaker?

If my daughters want to pursue careers outside the home that is their choice.  I will encourage, teach, and train them as homemakers with the hope that they will choose to stay home and raise their children throughout the day, side by side teaching, discipling, educating, and mentoring.  I think a homemaker can fight social injustice, climb Mt. Everest, start their own company, and be a professor to their children!  A woman, as we all know, is capable of many things, it doesn’t mean she has to do them working a job outside the home.  I would not encourage military service as a soldier, ever (and yes, my sister is in the army).

3. What can we do to prepare women whose children have left the nest, who need to go back into the workforce, or find themselves called into work beyond the home?

Women whose children have left the nest can dedicate themselves to ministry!  ”Washing the saints feet,” “ministering to the poor,” “teaching and training younger women…”  or working alongside her husband. The body of Christ needs women!

4. Does one need to be based at home 24/7 to be termed a “homemaker”?

No.

5. Don’t many of the skills one gains in the “career world” directly impact one’s ability to be an “intentional homemaker”? Time management, discipline, organizational skills, strategic thinking, networking, dealing with conflict….

Yes!  There are skills that can certainly be used from the “career world” to help anyone in life.  However, with regards to managing a home well, there definitely needs to be additional, intentional training (just ask most any stay-at-home mom who wasn’t trained in the homemaking arts!).

____

I believe it is God’s call for women to be home, not working a career outside the home.  I also believe (and reality dictates) that things in life are not cut and dry.  Therefore we as women need to love each other as sisters in Christ without condemnation…on either side of the “debate.”

Here’s the thing, it doesn’t so much matter what we think, it matters what God says.

There are many women out there, including my gracious, brilliant writer friend, who can write a much better article then I on perhaps why a woman should be able to work and not be raised solely as a homemaker.  But this is what I know:

“Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.” Titus 2:3-5

I believe God when He says that women should be “working at home” so that His word would not be “reviled (or blasphemed).”

I think Jennie Chancey puts it well when she says,

“How does a woman blaspheme the Word of God? This isn’t something we can just brush aside or take lightly as a “cultural thing.” St. Paul evidently believed it would be obvious enough to his readers that he didn’t need to say, “Leaving the home and going out into the workforce is sin,” as Rev. Sandlin seems to think is necessary in order for us to avoid Phariseeism. But do we need such bald statements in order to understand St. Paul? Apparently, blaspheming God’s Word involves doing the opposite of what St. Paul has just exhorted women to do: be “reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things — that they admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands.” Going to the Greek again, the word for “homemaker” used here is oikouros, which literally means “guard or watcher of the house.” Thayer’s Lexicon renders the meaning “keeping at home and taking care of household affairs.” A woman cannot both “keep at home” (or “guard the house”) and “keep” in a separate workplace.” Responding to Titus 2 Cynics

God made a woman to be Adams helper-completer – she came from him and was for him.  God made our bodies to grow life…He made our bodies to then nurture that life from our breasts.  He gave us a good and noble call to love our husbands and children and work at home…why? So we could be free to tend to our children’s souls day in and day out without the pressures of a “job.”  So we could manage a household well in order to invite people in – to show and share the love of Christ with hospitality, minister to those in need, disciple our children, and so much more!

We  may be gifted and skilled in many areas, but I think we can be creative and learn how to use those giftings to serve God without forgoing our place in the home.

____

I know that many of the things I said here will offend or hurt some of you out there.  I hate that.  I do not have that intention whatsoever, I am just speaking to where I am at right now.  I am always learning and seeking truth…and falling hard into grace.

Thanks for reading.

Becky from So Very Blessed

Winner of the Flag Page game:

Dina from Apples of Gold

Winner of the Slugs & Bugs & Lullabies CD’s:

Jessica from KidWhys

Katy from The Country Blossom

Tiffany Harper

OpenSky is giving $1000 to whoever wins for best shop page.  You can see my shop page here and if you think it’s worthy, would you kindly consider voting for it?

You can vote for Like a Warm Cup of Coffee here. (To vote, click on “view poll” under “Results” – click on the circle by Like a Warm Cup of Coffee and then scroll down and click the blue vote tab!)

Thank you!  :)

The contest ends June 11th.

P.S.  If I win, I’ll have a giveaway… hint hint

I am so excited to announce the new website, RaisingHomemakers.com!  Raising Homemakers is dedicated to inspiring, teaching and blessing mothers who have an interest in raising their daughter in godliness and preparing them in the arts of homemaking to the glory of God.  You can subscribe to Raising Homemakers here and become a fan on Facebook here.

I hope you will take a minute and visit Raising Homemakers and the wonderful contributors involved. There is also a fun giveaway happening…

:)

Subscribe to Like a Warm Cup of Coffee here.

Become a “Liker” on Facebook here.

Today I’m taking in freedom…

The freedom to sleep in just a little bit.

The freedom to say “no” to being more involved in church (during this season in life).

The freedom to let go of false guilt.

The freedom to fall apart sometimes.

The freedom to rest in the peace that I don’t have to have it all together to receive the grace of God.

His grace offers freedom to the battle worn soul.

I Recommend… (enjoy with a glorious cup of coffee…)

Articles:

Invisible Hope Chest (daughters, what are you filling your invisible hope chest with? Mothers, how are you helping your daughters to fill it?)

Just Me Bad-Mouthing My Man

To Prosperity Teachers (“Why would a preacher want to preach a gospel that encourages the desire to be rich and thus confirms people in their natural unfitness for the kingdom of God?”)

Whacking Social Media With My Big Stick…

Idle Time is the Devil’s Playground (parents, read this)

Book List For Daughters

Vlog:

What is the Best Age?

Fun:

Giveaway for a FREE Relevant Conference ticket

Flusher Flukes (this is SO funny!  My old college roomie wrote it…and I agree!)

Entire Facebook Staff Laughs as Man Tightens Security Settings

The “go-everywhere” handbag – cuuuute! (ad)

Praying for my friend today…

“You know, my mom won’t be bringing the baby home with her from the hospital.

But d’ya wanna know what’s great about it?

The baby is in Heaven… and didn’t even have to read the Bible to get there!”

Read her beautiful, heart-wrenching, hopeful words here.