A Slice of Organic Life

We have loved looking through this beautiful book which we borrowed from our local library. It has something for everyone. Whether you live in a flat or on a farm, there are ideas for you! Due to borrowing this book, Dave and I reconsidered the idea of getting backyard chickens and Dave is building a coop. Last night I began to try to make saurerkraut. The book is full of beautiful pictures, which makes it fun to flick through even if you don't have time to pursue any of the suggested activities.

Read more...

Why Kaz Cooke's Kid-wrangling is wrong about cloth nappies

Kid-wrangling is a popular book in Australia. I'm sure its lighthearted look at parenting is a pleasant relief from some of the more intense parenting materials out there. In between the amusement, Kaz is attempting to provide real information for parents. Much of it is probably sound and helpful. When it comes to cloth nappies, though, Kaz is just wrong. Before I start on why, I need to state my agreement with Kid-wrangling that cloth nappy advocates shouldn't go around making judgmental statements about those who use disposables. That being said, advocates of disposables need to do their homework before saying anything about cloth.

 I've just put my nappies on the line . . .

and it was way easier than Kaz would have us believe. We've used cloth nappies solely for four and a half months of Elnathan's life so far (excluding our overseas trip and his first two weeks). Disposables have their place, but good cloth nappies are really not that bad.

Kaz's comments are in italics. My responses follow.

They require far more labour.
If you use pocket nappies like Bumgenius it is very quick and easy. When we were in South Africa we used three different types of Huggies nappies, all with the same result: serious poo leaks that required clothing changes every time. Bumgenius have much better containment and reduce work in this way. Personally, I'd rather change a nappy than a whole outfit.

Soaking and washing them is an unpleasant, tedious task
Many modern cloth nappies don't need soaking. You just have to rinse off any poo at the time of changing the nappy, pop the nappy in the bucket, then dump them all in the washing machine when you feel in danger of running out of them.

They need to be washed with very hefty antibacterial chemical washing powders and in very hot water, and if poo stained they need savage bleaching products to look non-skid marked.
Huh? We don't own any of these products, and our nappies look OK. We rarely wash in hot water, either (shock, horror), and our baby's bot looks just fine.

It's hard to cope unless you have a whizzbang washing machine and dryer.
Our washing machine is fantastic (a Fisher & Paykel Intuitive Eco), but we don't own a dryer. We found it easy to get our nappies dry throughout the wettest Tasmanian winter for fifty years.

Cloth nappies are slightly trickier to fasten.
Only if you use traditional cloth squares! Bumgenius and some other pocket nappies are as easy as disposables.


You'll need:

about 30 to 35 nappies
try 20, I'm sure you'll be fine

about 6 - 8 plastic overpants
Yes, if you use nappies that need them. Pocket nappies like the marvelous Bumgenius don't.

fastners
Yes, if you use nappies that need them!

Rubber gloves
Why? Baby poo is not scary.


2 big nappy-soaking buckets with close-fitting lids
Try one, it is enough as long as you're not planning to soak your nappies (an unnecessary and annoying process).

bleach and antibacterial soaking powder
What are those things? We don't own them. The sun does the job.

a washing machine with a hot function
Handy but not strictly necessary, as long as you live in a climate where they'll get some sun.

antibacterial washing powder
Huh? We've purchased one box of ecostore powder and it is still going. With Bumgenius you are specifically required to use environmentally friendly detergent that doesn't contain enzymes, etc, and to use it very sparingly. If you don't, you're no longer eligible for the one year guarantee.

lots of clothes-line space and fine weather or a big clothes dryer
Neither are necessary. You can dry them inside if the weather is yuck. This is especially true of traditional cloth nappies, as they are thin cotton squares and dry quickly.

When I read Kaz's comments, I'm not surprised so few people use cloth. If I thought it would be like that, I probably wouldn't either. Kaz argues that using cloth is not necessarily an environmental improvement. If they are used in the way she describes, I agree. What many people forget is that you don't have to do cloth in the traditional way. Hey, it is 2009!

Read more...

Respecting God's creation

Lindsay has written an inspiring post about caring for the environment - Free to Be Green. I love her point that respecting God's creation is demonstrating respect for God himself.

Read more...

The best cloth nappies

Before Elnathan was born, we decided to use cloth nappies. Dave especially wanted us to do this, due to the environmental impact of disposables. It was sobering to realise that the total amount of garbage we put out each week would probably double if we used disposables! While some people will argue that cloth nappies are just as bad for the environment, we are convinced that this is not the case. 

I set out to discover the best and easiest way to use cloth nappies. I set up a registry of nappies for my baby shower, and received a few different ones which I could try out to decide on the best ones for us. I also purchased a few things. 

One day I conducted a little experiment to see which nappies dried the fastest! This is our drying system, hanging the nappies in front of our heater (we love to put them on the washing line in the sun, as this bleaches and sanitizes them, but it is winter right now and so this is not always an option). The BumGenius pocket nappy and the plain cotton nappies won the competition. Of course, drying time is not the only marker of a good nappy. Containment is also very important, and I had to wait until Elnathan was born to find out about that!

It was not long after the birth of Elnathan that we decided the BumGenius pocket nappies were definitely the best in other categories as well - ease of use, containment, and fit. They really do fit a newborn (unlike some of our other "one size fits all" nappies). We've found that some nappies look good, but fail to contain the messes - thereby defeating the purpose of a nappy! There are other good nappy brands out there (I can also recommend Baby Beehinds), but BumGenius wins our vote for the best nappy. The cutest little man models a BumGenius in this picture. 

Read more...

Education to the glory of God

Now that I'm a Mum to an unborn child, I plan to pay some attention to defining and understanding what our family's vision for Christian education is. My friend John Dekker once stated that he believed this was essential for excellence in home schooling, and I think he has a point. In the past, through my studies at Wesley Institute, I had the opportunity to define my beliefs in an assignment. I'll be using some of the ideas in this to build further understanding. Those of you who are interested in the topic of Christian education may also find these thoughts of interest. Here is the first part of "My personal philosophy of Christian education".

“To glorify God and enjoy Him forever” is the way Augustine described the goal of the Christian life. The education of children is part of this broader aim. Education is inescapably religious. It transfers information about what is meaningful in life, how we should live, and whom we should serve. Even when these ideas are not explicitly spoken, they form the basis of what is excluded or included in the curriculum. Secular education is not neutral. God cannot be glorified where he is not praised. Students do not have a full opportunity to enjoy God when he is not acknowledged. Christians who desire to glorify and enjoy God in education can look to the Bible for encouragement and guidance. The central biblical commands found in the Creation Mandate (Genesis 1: 26 – 28), the Great Commandment (Mark 12: 29 – 31), and the Great Commission (Matthew 28:20) provide insights into what truly Christian education should look like.

Read more...

February 2009 garden

Our garden has been giving us a lot of pleasure this month, as we've begun to harvest more from it. It is exciting that Dave has now completed all the beds and we are able to see the design come together.



We planted gem squash, a South African favourite that is not sold here in Australia. We are planning to keep most of them for winter (they keep up to 12 months) but Dave couldn't resist harvesting one and preparing it the right way, boiled whole then halved and served with a dab of butter and salt and pepper. These photos were taken on February 7.



This is a more recent photo, taken on Sunday. Dave is the resident waterer, and I am the resident planter/harvester/main cook and preserver. I think it is a good deal, because watering takes a long time each day!


Dave is becoming increasingly passionate about knowing where our food comes from and participating in its production. He's been mulling over many agrarian ideas.

Read more...

Don't Waste Your Life

Don’t Waste Your Life by John Piper is a heartfelt call to live out the Christian life with passion. John Piper does not advocate a “good” life, or an “ok” life, but a life devoted to enjoying God and making others happy in Him.

Don't Wate Your Life is full of the biblical themes that should define our lives: the Creation Mandate, the Great Commandment, and the Great Commission. Piper shows the way that all are essential to the furtherance of God’s Kingdom. He achieves a refreshing and essential integration of them in his call for devotion to Jesus Christ.

An entire chapter is devoted to “secular” work and its worth in the Kingdom of God. This chapter provides fresh perspective on what it means to be creative human beings who aim to exalt and enjoy God through daily work. I am going to dip back into this in order to apply it better to my approach to work at home.

John Piper draws all things into the centre of loving and enjoying God. He calls for us to love the cross, the gospel, and the beauty of God Himself. Piper shows the way love for God leads to love for others. This is expressed beautifully in part of a long prayer that makes up the final chapter:

“There is a quiet kind of joy, O Lord, that Jesus did both save us from our sin and show us how to love. His life, as you have said, was both a purchase and a path. He died for us, and now calls us to die with him. He took our poverty upon himself that we, in him, might have the riches of his heaven, and he calls us now to use our riches for the poor.”

This path of love that Jesus showed us leads us directly into the midst of the Great Commission. If we love people, we will want them and to be happy in Christ. If we love God, we will want every life and culture and nation in this world to glorify Him. Piper devotes much space to a call to take risks for the sake of the gospel, and to explaining the worth of frontier mission.

So often we can spend our lives on the “ok” things. The things we may be free to do, but which God has never said should be priorities in our lives. Piper critiques many of these things, including our culture’s entertainment obsession. In recent months, I’ve been reconsidering many of the things I do. Even “good” things can keep us from opportunities to obey Christ and show that we treasure the same things he does.

Read more...

See you in December!

I'll blog next time in the Christmas week.

One of the many reasons I have decided to stop blogging weekly is that there are so many great blogs out there covering some of the same main themes that I focus on here.

Check out Passionate Homemaking where Lindsay has written about Mission minded home schooling, lots of other mission-related posts, and lots of posts about caring for God's world. This blog seems fantastic.

Jasmine has written about The Environment, giving a Christian perspective on why we care for the earth.

Read more...

From White Australia to Woomera

Have you ever wondered about the composition of Australian society in comparison to that of other countries?

Do you think we are one of the most multicultural societies on earth?

Have you felt unduly swayed by newspaper reports, and wanted to understand immigration more deeply?

Do you fear a "Muslim invasion"? Or perhaps an Asian invasion, or some other variation?


If so, this book may be for you. A rational, detailed and often dry 220 pages of analysis from an expert in the field, it will leave you with more information and (hopefully) fewer prejudices. Thanks to the White Australia policy, that existed until the 1970s, Australia became one of the most British societies outside the UK. This continues even to the present day, with 3/4 of the population speaking only English and describing themselves as Christian. James Jupp provides analysis of White Australia, the movement to multiculturalism, the policies of various governments, the need for immigration, and much more.

Amongst the most helpful aspects of this book are the author's definitions of racism and xenophobia. James Jupp writes "By 'racist', I mean a fairly complex position which argues that clearly identifiable races not only exist but are hierarchically graded." Racism is an ideology that views all members of a race as superior or inferior to members of another race. "By 'xenophobic', I mean a simpler psychological reaction to people who originate in a different homeland and who are believed to be physically or culturally different." Jupp argues that this is an almost universal reaction, but must be controlled in a civilised society. Xenophobia can include fear of another religion or language.

This is a secular book, but it has aroused all kinds of religious questions in me. What does responsible dominion, as taught in the Creation Mandate, mean for a country's immigration policy? What is a loving response to refugees? Should Christians advocate that all people "fit into" society and adopt Australian values? Should we support the evaluation of people primarily on the basis of their potential economic contribution to society? How can we, who know that fear and worry are expressions of lack of trust in God, fear Muslim people coming to Australia? Should we not rather view their prescence as an opportunity? I don't have the answers to these and many other questions. However, they need to be asked if Christians are to develop a loving and biblically based response to immigration.

Read more...

Cultural story-telling

I have argued previously that the Creation Mandate is a cultural mandate. What we call "education" (and the Bible terms discipleship or teaching) is the way we transfer that cultural mandate to others and equip them to continue its advancement.

Fernhout explains it this way, as quoted in the notes of my Wesley Institute Diploma of Education Biblical Studies course:

"If education is, at bottom, a process of cultural story-telling . . . then the educational engagement of Christians should be imbued with, penetrated by the biblical story and its life-world. Each new generation of Christians needs to be steeped in that story so that their lives can tell the same story as the biblical story . . . Christians are to live in the biblical story as the community whose story it is, and from that indwelling they try to understand and cope with events int heir time in order to carry the story forward."

It is vital to understand the world through the biblical text, and to do this students must both know the text and how to apply it. Significantly, much of what we call "education" today does not disciple students to apply the biblical story. In fact, it disciples students through the lens of alternate stories. It should not be a surprise when students grow up to live those stories, or try to combine them with the biblical story.

Read more...

Co-labourers in taking dominion

This post is a continuation of the courtship series I began two months ago.

There is more to looking for Mr (or Mrs) Right than considering the traits of a godly man or woman, and paying particular attention to humility. Although I believe these are the first things it is important to consider, there are others that are also relevant. Husbands and wives are called to be co-labourers in taking dominion over the earth (Genesis 1:26 - 28). This is the Creation Mandate, and it is part of what it means to glorify God on the earth. This charge includes creating culture, and the hard work of child rearing. Married couples are to work together in their homes and in society, to do these and other things.

What does this mean in practice for those thinking about marriage? For me, one thing it means is that you must look for a life partner whom you can be in agreement with on matters that are important to you. How can you work together if you are opposed? Most of us have some personal theological or practical convictions that are strong, and impinge on how we choose to live. These will vary from person to person. I made clear decisions about these before courting Dave, and decided which of them were no compromise zones. Here is what I wrote about this before Dave and I were an item:

I see a belief that the Genesis account is literal history as foundational to my faith. The doctrine of God’s sovereignty is also important to me. I would not consider marrying someone who did not share these beliefs. I also have strong beliefs against hormonal birth control, due to my research on this matter . . . Therefore, I would not want to marry someone who wanted me to use this type of birth control. I could list a few other things, but I’m sure you get the gist! If I knew, for example, that a person was a theistic evolutionist I would not even considering going out with them. It would not matter how much I personally liked them.

I wondered if I would ever meet someone who actually believed Genesis was history and who would really let me choose not to take the Pill. It turns out that God gave me a man who sees Genesis as foundational to the Christian faith and has even led our local Creation Ministries International support group meeting a couple of times! My husband will not only "permit" me to ditch the idea of hormonal birth control, he's also just as excited as me about welcoming children into our home. Wow! Can you imagine? I still shake my head and wonder if it is possible at times!

I share this in the hope that it will encourage you, too, to hope and to wait for the person whom you can really labour with in the Lord. I'm not advocating pickiness ("oh, I just have to have a man who pulls out my chair for me"). Form your no-compromise list with much prayer and consideration of whether these things are truly important. If you really feel passionate about something, and feel it is integral to who you are as a person and to your faith, you should ask God for someone who also shares that conviction. You will be able to work better together, and you will be happier for it.

Read more...

Collecting litter

Dave and I don't live in the best area. The park up the road often features litter strewn across the ground. It is likely that people buy snacks and drinks at the nearby shop and then discard the packaging as they walk through the park. There is also a reserve down the road from our house, which also contains a lot of litter (as well as some ugly burnt out cars). Some people obviously think that the bush is an appropriate place to dump their garden and building refuse, and anything else they don't know what to do with.

For about nine months after we got married, I'd walk past all this and think "oh, that is ugly". After a while I began to think that if others could litter, I could surely collect their mess! So in June on my regular walks I began to pick up some litter.


Whenever I decide to pick up litter on a walk, I always end up with a bag full like this. I don't pick up every bit of litter, as it would take too long and ruin the enjoyment of the walk. I've come across some things that are disturbing, including one item I phoned the police about as I thought it might be indicative of child abuse. There is also a lot of broken glass which I haven't worked out how to collect yet.


I am beginning to notice a difference in some areas. To me, this is just one way to live out our Creation Mandate to care for the earth. God gave us a beautiful world to enjoy, and we can do our bit to keep it that way.

Read more...

Helping your own husband

And the LORD God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper suitable to him.” Genesis 2:18.

This verse gives us a summary of the role of a wife toward her husband. Just as Eve was created to be Adam’s helper, so God intends that each wife will help her own husband. While feminists have derided this role as life in second-class, Christian women know that God’s design is best.

As a new wife, I am at the beginning of my journey of helping my husband. I have mainly concentrated on helping my husband through willingly embracing the things the Bible indicates a wife should aspire to. I have also tried to support Dave in his research career, simply through being positive about it and trying not to complain about various difficulties such as travel. Dave’s work of studying trees is part of his role in taking dominion over the earth and providing for us.

One thing I have discovered is that my ideas of being a helpful housewife and Dave’s ideas don’t always match! For example, I believed that a good wife is frugal and is always looking for new ways to save. When I expressed this to Dave, he said we were frugal enough. I am still careful with our money, especially when it comes to groceries, but I have changed some of my ideas about budgeting.

As wives, we need to find out what our husbands want us to focus our attentions upon. Not all the good things we read on blogs, about frugality or other aspects of homemaking, will be a help to our husbands. On “A Deeper Love” I have written a lot about gardening and the Creation Mandate. However, my main reason for focusing upon this is my husband’s passion for us to grow our own vegetables. If Dave thought vegetable growing was a waste of time, I would not put as much energy into this.

Assess whatever you read on blogs on the basis of your husband’s priorities. All of us should seek to shape our priorities around God’s word, but that will look different in each family and season. For now, I’m working on the main thing Dave has told me would help him: being happy! I am generally happy, but tend to get worried and stressed at times. Learning to relax, and develop a quiet spirit, is my main challenge in being a helper. What about you?

Read more...

Spring on the other side of the world

It was fun today to read about Karen's raised beds and Stacy's garden inspiration. Spring is coming to a close over in the USA! It is great to see others' plans for making use of their space and enjoying fresh food.

Dave and I have our own dreams for spring in Australia. We are planning a whole new garden, with beds laid out in an attractive way and a potted lemon tree in the middle. The only part of the vision that exists so far is the lemon tree, which my Mum and Dad gave Dave for his birthday on the 14th. We bought a pot for it and planted the tree on the morning of the 15th, before we set out for Brisbane and Sydney for a week to see family, friends, and beautiful things! Dave is still away, on a working trip. He is in London right now, and will soon go onto Austria and then Germany. It is spring there as well!

Read more...

In April, Noel Piper write about what she learnt about caring for the environment from a trip to Kenya. The article, "Behold , It was Very Good." But Now? , details some of the environmental problems in Kenya and a possible Christian response to them.

It is very encouraging to hear of the work Christians are doing in Kenya:

Care of Creation is introducing “Farming God’s Way.” Model farms demonstrate the increased yields through sustainably replenishing the soil and retaining moisture. Over time, the method requires less strenuous hand-tilling than the usual farming method.

But what makes this a Christian mission and ministry? The practical help and methods could be demonstrated by anyone who cares about people.

The difference is that Care of Creation’s first priority is God. Then, like God, they care for people by making God and his ways more clear. This truth was the foundation of two daylong workshops presented by Craig Sorley and his coworker Francis Maina. One focused on farming. The other, for community and church leaders, focused on the problems of deforestation. During both, there was significant teaching from Scripture, looking at the earth through God’s eyes and seeking his purposes and desires for his handiwork.

As Christians we are in a unique position to understand the importance of caring for creation. Read Noel's article and find out more!

I am thankful to my friend Felicity for sending me the link to this article.

Read more...

The Creation Mandate is affirmed throughout the Bible

Jeremiah 29: 5 – 7 is interesting in the context of the Creation or Dominion Mandate God gave to the first man and woman in Genesis.

Build houses and dwell in them; plant gardens and eat their fruit. Take wives and beget sons and daughters; and take wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands, so that they may bear sons and daughters – that you may be increased there, and not diminished. And seek the peace of the city where I have caused you to be carried away captive, and pray to the LORD for it, for in its peace you will have peace.

This passage seems similar in intent to what God told mankind to do in Genesis: rule your immediate surroundings well, tend the ground, and have children. God knows that these are the ordinary things of life, but he deems them important and desires that his people do them even when they are in difficult circumstances. This is also assumed in the New Testament, although not stated explicitly in a single passage.

God’s people are commanded to work hard. Titus 3:14 says “And let our people also learn to maintain good works, to meet urgent needs, that they may not be unfruitful.” Paul made himself an example of hard work when he stated that he and his companions “worked with labor and toil night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you” (2 Thessalonians 3:8).

Childbearing and rearing is encouraged, commanded, and assumed in various passages (see Titus 2:4, 1 Timothy 3: 4, 1 Timothy 5:10 & 14, Colossians 4:21, Ephesians 6:1 – 2). One qualification a widow being supported by the church is “if she has brought up children” (1 Timothy 5:10). An elder is to be “one who rules his own house well, having his children under submission with all reverence” (1 Timothy 3:4). Parenting is obviously valued as a good and important work.

Jesus’ death and resurrection did not nullify the Creation Mandate. Even though we know that the most important realities are eternal ones, the "earthy" Creation Mandate is not abandoned. Rather, it is basic to living daily life as a Christian. We are to work hard and to rule our immediate surroundings with skill and dedication. We are to bear children and bring them up to know Christ. Our daily, ordinary work now also has eternal significance in that it speaks of the God we serve and points people to him.

But we urge you brethren that you increase more and more; that you also aspire to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, to work with your own hands, as we commanded you, that you may walk properly toward those who are outside, and that you may lack nothing. 1 Thessalonians 4:10b – 12.

Read more...

The Kitchen Gardener

In Australia, we have just entered the second month of autumn. This season and the cold winter that follows are a great time to begin thinking about the vegetables you could plant in the spring! If you would like to begin a garden in the spring, or learn more about the garden you already have, The Kitchen Gardener is a great resource.

The Kitchen Gardener by Julian Matthews is packed full of colour pictures and inspiration. It includes a beautiful section on potager gardens, which are designed to be both ornamental and edible! It also contains a section about growing vegetables and herbs in pots, titled “No garden? No problem”. General information about soils and sowing and a “Garden diary” of when to plant are other features. My favourite section of the book is the A-Z guide to vegetable growing. Each vegetable is given a double page spread that includes pictures and information about its nutritional value, suitability for pots, soil needs, seed raising, sowing, spacing, pests and diseases it may be susceptible to, and harvesting.

This book will provide all you need to start out on your adventure in vegetable gardening, and plenty of new ideas to keep you going! In Tasmania, April brings colder weather. We have planted some seeds in the garden: rocket, lettuce, carrots, chives, and beetroot. This is a bit of an experiment to see if they will grow over winter. The climate is mild enough, as it rarely snows in non-mountainous regions. When it becomes too cold to plant anything I intend to spend some extra time studying up on what we can do in the spring.

Happy gardening!

Read more...

Squash flowers

Dave and I were thrilled to see the first flowers on our squash plants. These are our "babies" as we planted them from seed (we haven't done much growing from seed) and were delighted to see them pop through the earth! We were a little concerned they were planted too late, but it seems they will be OK! They are little disk-like squash, which Dave calls "patty pans".

Read more...

When fruitfulness is hard work

So God created man in His own image; in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” Genesis 1:27 – 28

Men and women were created to reflect God’s image through fruitfulness and rulership. The woman was designed to help her husband in these tasks. If you believe, as I do, that every part of this mandate applies to us today, you will quickly find that it is hard work. God has made it so.

After Adam and Eve disobeyed God, He brought consequences. Sorrow would be multiplied as women brought forth children (Genesis 3:16). There would be marital tension and the wife would desire to rule over her husband (Genesis 3:16). The man would subdue the earth provide food for his family only after much toil (Genesis 3:19). Both fruitfulness and rulership were now troubled, hard processes.

The hardship of raising families in a fallen world is one of the main reasons why Western society has embraced a small family size of few or no children (0 – 3). On the rare occasions when I mention that I’d like to have more than the usual number of children, people usually respond that I’ll think better of it when I realise how hard it is to raise two children. Oh, and have I thought about how my injured back will do?

The trouble with embracing this view on a society wide level is that when you ditch the ideal of fruitfulness and abundant fertility, you also reduce your ability to subdue the earth and have dominion over it. It is difficult to build a thriving culture if the birth rate is very low. Even secular commentators are increasingly realising this. Cybercast News Service recently reported on Demographic Winter while Dallas News brought out the old line procreate or perish.

Couples who have many children usually don't do so because they think it is nice, or because they think it is the easiest way to live in the short term. Most choose this lifestyle because they believe it is God's plan for them. I would be the first to say we should never judge other Christians on the basis of their family size. However, I am also happy to argue that we need to challenge the mindset that leads most couples to deliberately choose a small family. We need to stop pretending that the ordinary hardships of childbearing are a reason to minimise God's plan for us to be fruitful and multiply.

I cannot say this any better than Nancy Wilson does in her book Praise Her in the Gates.

While evangelism beings more worshipers into the Church, childbearing brings more disciples into the home. A mother should be fruitful like the vine in Psalm 128 . . . Of course, fruit requires tending, and tending can be hard work. But it is a good work. Women should see that their view of children is shaped by Scripture and not by the world. Hard work, when it is good work, is soul-satisfying and soul-prospering. No matter how many children the Lord may give you, be it two or twelve, you must rejoice in the number ad be fruitful in the rearing of them.

Being fruitful and multiplying was hard for Eve, and it was hard work for her descendants who bore “sons and daughters” (Genesis chapter 5). Yet she knew that God had ordained this work, both in His original mandate to her and in His addition of extra hardship. God did not make a mistake. We can rest in the same confidence, knowing that God has made it so.

Read more...

Cleaning and the creation mandate

Two months ago I wrote about culture and the creation mandate. Tonight's topic is more trivial, but relevant to the lives of many women and fewer men. Does keeping house have anything to do with God and his plans for my life, or is it just an annoying necessity with little meaning?

I believe that we can see keeping a house orderly and attractive as part of our Creation Mandate. God made men and women in his image to rule over the specific spheres he has appointed to them (Genesis 1:26 - 28). For all those who live in houses, our mandate to rule well must include our homes!

When we create order and beauty within our homes, we reflect the order and beauty of God's character. Just as Adam was to "tend and keep" the garden (Genesis 1:15), we are to tend and keep the areas God has given us. We are created in God's image to exercise wise and godly rule over the places and tasks he gives us as individuals.

So if you choose to take up my get that stuff out the door challenge, you don't have to see it solely as a mundane household chore. You can view it as one way to act as a person made in the image of God, and to clear your life of things that cause you to spend time on what is unimportant. Make room for people, for beauty, and for order.

Read more...