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Reward of Service
I just got back from a four day trip to a mining convention with my husband. While there, I went out to lunch with two older women, the wives of geologists. One is a widow and the other’s husband is retired. They were at the convention helping the woman’s auxiliary pass out seedlings to local students who had been brought in for educational programs. As we sat down to lunch, they began by expressing their frustration that the auxiliary was dying out because of a lack of younger women coming in. I mentioned that it was probably due to the fact that the average young wife is building her own career, not trying to think of ways to support her husband in his. Their first response was to gasp and exclaim how right I was. Very shortly, however, they brought up home schooling, since that was one of the only things they knew about me. I spent the next hour and a half defending our position that girls should prepare themselves to be a support and an asset to their husbands rather than striving for careers of their own.
They were very concerned about our girls having a sense of fulfillment, which in their minds could only be gotten outside the home. Alas, once again and from the mouths of two mothers who stayed home to raise their own children, we see that our culture places no value on living sacrificially, motivated by love and duty rather than by money and self-fulfillment. Naomi found the following poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. It wonderfully expresses my sentiments, and I want to post it in tribute to my wonderful adult daughters who have chosen to remain in our home. While we were gone, they carried on with their usual lives, which I think we are so accustomed to that we take it for granted. I give no orders about what should be done in our home. Each one simply sees what needs to be done and does it. Menus were made and grocery shopping done, the refrigerator was cleaned out, chatty calls were made to Grandma, there were visits to neighbors, shut-ins at the nursing home, and hospice patients, one tried a new cinnamon-raisin bread recipe, another made progress on a knitted afghan for a friend who has cancer, the house was spotless with a meal prepared when we returned….the list goes on. I know that most people think our girls are wasting their lives, but I am confident that though “the world may sound no trumpets, ring no bells, the Book of Life the slurring record tells.�
"Reward of Service" by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
The sweetest lives are those to duty wed,
Whose deeds both great and small
Are close-knit strands of an unbroken thread,
Where love ennobles all.
The world may sound no trumpets, ring no bells,
The Book of Life the slurring record tells.
Thy love shall chant its own beatitudes,
After its own like working. A child's kiss
Set on thy singing lips shall make thee glad;
A poor man served by thee shall make thee rich;
A sick man helped by thee shall make thee strong;
Thou shalt be served thyself by every sense
Of service which thou renderest.
Posted by lilypress at April 27, 2005 5:01 PM
