Make for the Higher

The pressure to conform was immense, but the real confusion came from her being pushed to conform, not to worldliness, but to their form of “godliness�. After all, it was a Christian campus and the other students were Christians. One phone call that still makes me chuckle when I think of it started with, “Hey, Mom. If you tattoo ‘prayer warrior’ on your ankle, does that make you one?� Over time, our cheerful, vivacious daughter grew more and more weary.
The second year of college dawned a little brighter. She had formed a few close acquaintances that were a great comfort to her. She learned to live with others disapproval and take their comments in stride. At Christmas that year, at her father’s request, she was able to walk away from college life, not having been defeated by it, but as one able to say that “what you have, I do not want.�

HOME AGAIN, HOME AGAIN

The transition to Naomi’s being home and the realization that our other graduating daughter would not be leaving was a bit tumultuous. It was not difficult in the sense that they were rebellious, but more in the fact that we did not have a clear vision on which to build. Many questions remained inadequately answered. We are a family of vision. We have a thought out philosophy for pretty much everything we do. Don’t ever ask a Valine why they are doing something unless you want a full and complete answer. One of our basic philosophies is that you cannot home school because you are running away from something, but that you must be running toward something. In this situation, we chose to leave the modern version of higher learning behind, that was clear, but what remained too cloudy was what were we running toward? To say that the girls were staying home, waiting for time to pass until they got married proved very inadequate. First of all, daily existence gets a bit dreary when you have pinned all your hopes for happiness on tomorrow. To live rightly you must have goals for today, not just a “someday�. Secondly, the idea of waiting to be married seemed to perpetuate a storybook frame of mind that somehow a man will come along who will love and value you and then you will live happily ever after. For many years we said, “We are training our girls to be wives and mothers�. As true as that statement is, and as much as that is our desire for them, when you have intelligent, discerning adult daughters, that explanation for their existence falls short. When the question comes up, “What if they don’t marry?� you are forced to quickly brush past it. You can tell them they should expect to get married, they should pray for a husband, and they should have hope that they will be married. But, as the home school population ages, we know beautiful eligible young women who are quickly passing through their twenties without matrimony. There is also no denying that the number of committed, qualified young men falls short of the number of eligible girls. Our daughters and we their parents had to have answers to these questions. We needed real answers, not just quick pacifying statements about how it will work out alright.
Surprisingly enough, the first concrete answer came to us in the form of another twenty year old oft quoted family-held philosophy. We are not raising children; we are raising Godly adults. We had no desire to have our daughters remain children. Our goal all along has been that they become Godly women. Suddenly, the light bulb went on. Our definition of Godly womanhood had been too narrow. We had inadvertently confined womanhood to the roles of wife and mother. Womanhood is much more than that, much broader, grander, and higher. If our past definition was accurate, then no unmarried woman and no widow could ever hope to live a life of true womanhood. Can that be true? As the question was put to my husband and I at a business dinner, as he was giving our usual speech on raising our daughters to be wives and mothers…�then if they don’t marry, you are a failure?� No! Nothing could be farther from the truth…and yet, that is precisely what we had been saying! We want our daughters to be content cooking and cleaning in our houses hoping that someday they can be relieved from their monotonous uninspiring existence and get on with “true womanhood�. Is it any wonder that some of our girls have declared that they have had enough of being “mother’s little helper� and have walked away from their childhood homes. What other conclusion can we expect our post high school girls to come to when we give them no foundation for a purposeful existence today and no guarantee that tomorrow will be any different? The first major change in our house was a change of definition.
God’s highest calling for a woman is a call to godliness. What a profound difference a subtle shift makes! A woman void of godliness is not fit to be wife or mother, but a godly woman in whatever circumstance she finds herself, is a true woman indeed. Suddenly, our daughters had a vision for womanhood that could be lived today!

“It should be the highest ambition of every young woman to possess a true womanhood. Earth presents no higher object of attainment. To be a woman, in the truest and highest sense of the word, is to be the best thing beneath the skies. To be a woman is something more than to live eighteen or twenty years; something more than to grow to the physical stature of women; something more than to wear flounces, exhibit dry-goods, sport jewelry, catch the gaze of men; something more than to be a belle, a wife, a mother. Put all these qualifications together and they do but little toward making a true woman.�

Every bit of energy expended toward the formation of character and skills will be of benefit if wifery and motherhood are in the girls’ future, but are of immediate, earthly, and eternal value no matter what position life holds for them. Our vision was beginning to take shape.

HE WHO HEEDS COUNSEL IS WISE

Another giant step forward came when we found “Between School and Marriage� in an antique book store. This author from more than a hundred years ago seemed to be speaking right to us. We got excited as we realized that the women of the past were no different from us, and that in the late 1800s there was a dialogue taking place on the subjects of what girls should be doing after their formal education is completed and what is the definition of true womanhood. We searched out and purchased as many old books from the period that we could find. It was quite entertaining to discover that the girls and women of that time period were tempted by the same things that face us today – the lack of contentedness in the home, too much time “shopping�, a love of clothes and attention, laziness, selfishness, and complacency. The references to specific items of clothing and servants were outdated, but the wisdom itself was timeless. The counsel from the authors applied perfectly to our situation. We had much to learn.
I could tell you all that we have gleaned from the reprinted essays in this book, but you can read them yourself. What I would like to share with you is a verse from Proverbs that I feel sums up perfectly what we have walked away from, and what we are walking toward. “The wicked covet the catch of evil men, but the root of the righteous yields fruit.� (Proverbs 12:15) Many people spend their whole lives coveting and trying to “catch� what they need and want. They try to obtain success, security, happiness, love, and admiration from their surroundings. They are built up by their friends, their achievements, promotions, grades, even Christian work. The righteous, the Biblically righteous, instead of pulling to themselves what they need, are pouring out of themselves what those around them need. There are times when it is hard to live so counter to the culture around us. The last of Naomi’s friends from college is now married; vacation is coming when their other home school friends now at college will be over with their tales of classes, parties, and days full of activity. Even those living at home have jobs, paychecks, and busy social lives. We have all been encouraged by an admonition from one essay, “Make for the higher.� Our quiet lives in this house may look like deprivation from a distance; it is anything but. The girls study without grades, work without pay, serve without recognition, live lives of quiet worship where nobody is watching. Their roots are going deep. I believe our daughters’ willingness to walk in and strive for true womanhood will result in the production of spiritual fruit that will feed those around them for the rest of their lives. Make for the higher, girls. God knows. He is watching.