Who I Am

For as long as I can remember, I've wanted to be a wife and mother. Every year, as my mom filled out my School Days book I dutifully came up with some appropriate career for her to write on the

What I Want to Be When I Grow Up line.

It was something like teacher or nurse or some such thing, but never was it wife and mother. Somewhere in my 7 year old head, I knew wife and mother just wasn't what that phrase What I Want to Be When I Grow Up meant.

As I matured, I realized that my desire to have a home and family of my own was simply not enough in the world's eyes. I went to college and pretended to be getting my degree so I could be a writer (or an editor if I couldn't get a book to sell). When asked what I would be doing with my life after college, I never said what I really wanted to do...be a wife and mother.

When I became engaged at the age of 18, I was highly encouraged to wait until I finished college to marry. I married at the age of 19. I was then highly encouraged to wait until I finished college to start a family. I had my first child a month after I turned 21. I was still in college; so was Daddy.

My goal had been accomplished. I was a wife and a mother. I had a dreamy husband. I had a home, or rather, an apartment to call my own. I had a cute blond-haired little boy, and I was happy.

But, according to the world, this is not enough. This could not be true happiness. There is no possible way I enjoy this.

I have wasted my degree.
I have wasted my brain.
I have wasted money and time and effort.

I have noticed in certain circles, it is assumed I have nothing to talk about because I have baby spit-up on my shoulder. It is assumed I cannot speak intelligently about anything beyond breastfeeding and changing diapers. It is assumed I do not understand the business world because I stay home all day, immersed in toys and Cheerios.

These assumptions are a temptation to me.

Yes, you read that correctly.

I am tempted.

I am tempted to legitimize my stay-at-homeness by saying, "I'm a freelance writer." I am tempted to vindicate my intelligence by spouting off my college GPA. I am tempted to lean toward verbosity (where "transgression is unavoidable" see Proverbs 10:19). All this, because I don't want anyone to think wife and mother go hand in hand with lazy and ignorant.

But, who am I trying to convince?

Is it a world where a feminist regime makes my domesticity look "less than"?

OR

Is it a woman who fears they are right?

Am I so uncomfortable with the words wife and mother that I feel I need to resort to making up some long job title as a way of thumbing my nose at the world who is thumbing its nose at me? Do I feel as though the only way I am going to be taken seriously is if I pretend to be someone other than who I am? Or wait...

Am I afraid the Bible is wrong?

Am I afraid that when the Lord says young women are to be "keepers at home" that maybe, just maybe...it isn't true? Or maybe He only meant a handful of women were to be keepers at home. Or maybe He meant that if you don't have anything better to do, you could be a keeper at home.

And since, I had nothing better to do, I chose to be a keeper at home...a wife and a mother and that is it.

You see, every time I try to legitimize what I do by making it sound like something other than what it is, I am implying Scripture is not suffcient. I am suggesting that what the Lord deems the perfect place for young women isn't really the perfect place for young women. I am suggesting that I have chosen one of many options. I am letting those around me know that I could be more like the world if I wanted to be because I have the college degree to back me up; however, in my piety, I have chosen a Titus 2 lifestyle. My attitude toward the words wife and mother speak volumes of what I believe to be the truth.

In the end it will not matter what my college GPA was.

In the end it will not matter if I wrote the great American novel.

In the end it will not matter how many people I impressed nor how many people I annoyed. (and I know there's more than a few of you reading this!)

It will all come down to faithfulness. Did I "rightly divide the word of truth"? (2 Tim 2:15)

I have to stop making excuses, stop trying to sound bigger and better according to the standards of a sin-ridden world. I have to boldly speak the truth...

I did not pick wife and mother out of a long list of possible careers. It is who I am because I am HIS.