Mommies Coffee Break

The idea of the housewife in apron and pearls permeates even my line of thinking when it comes to the title “Homekeeper”.  The problem is, that is where the trivialization of this role began.  Being a Keeper At Home is far more valuable than Keeping House.

Keeping House implies housework, drudgery, and simple servitude.  A housekeeper in apron with a feather duster in one hand and a mop in the other.

Keeper At Home indicates more responsibility, an active role in not just making a house look nice, but finding a way to manage all of the responsibilities of HOME.   While a Keeper at Home may indeed use an arsenal of housekeeping tools, she is also responsible for seeing to the general affairs of home: finances, schedules, meals and planning, as well as raising children.

A Keeper at Home is no simple babysitter.  A Keeper at Home is entrusted with the life of a child, or more than one child, not only to provide safety and security – but also child and character development.

Titus 2: 3-5 is a passage of Scripture that talks about the real priorities of a Wife & Mother, Keeper at Home:

Bid the older women similarly to be reverent and devout in their deportment as becomes those engaged in sacred service, not slanderers or slaves to drink. They are to give good counsel and be teachers of what is right and noble,

So that they will wisely train the young women to be sane and sober of mind (temperate, disciplined) and to love their husbands and their children,

To be self-controlled, chaste, homemakers, good-natured (kindhearted), adapting and subordinating themselves to their husbands, that the word of God may not be exposed to reproach (blasphemed or discredited). (Amplified)

Not only is this role NOT without value, it is one of great emotion, personal investment, and even magnificence.  For it is in this role that a woman can uphold the word of God.

This is a hard thing for me to hear sometimes, I’ll be honest.  I wrestle with the need for attention, the need for recognition.  I want to be applauded for my work during the day, and yet when I find myself grumbling or complaining about it, I am not fulfilling my role as Keeper at Home.

When I listen to the winsome lies of the enemy (you know – the ones that tell me I deserve to be treated with respect and recognition, and I have to stand up for my rights no matter what it takes) – I reach out for that fruit of discontentment and self-sufficiency that is, in reality, only bitterness and ruin.

However, when I recognize and fulfill my role as wife and mother – Keeper at Home – I am filled with satisfaction and joy in the work of my hands and in the relationships that are cultivated because of my willingness to love my husband and my children as I take care of the necessary tasks at home.

© 2010, Debbie Taylor. All rights reserved.