I enjoyed Keziah's recent post on multi-tasking, titled Work Heartily. I often try to do many things at once, especially on the Internet, and I find that I feel flustered and don't do things as well as if I was focusing on one thing at a time.
Especially now that I am studying, I need to work on being focused on the task at hand and leaving other things to be focused on later.
Yesterday was my last day teaching the ABCs class at the Christian school where I have worked this year. I have thankfully succeeded in teaching all four of my charges to read simple books, write every letter of the alphabet, and stand in lines. I will leave it up to the next teacher to help them perfect the art of leaving spaces between words and bringing in their posessions from the playground when the bell goes. I tried this year, but I am sorry to say that much improvement in some students' behaviour is still required.
The last day of school also happened to be my fortnightly day to take staff devotions. Here are some of the points I shared.
Recently Lydia introduced a new series to her blog. She has invited readers to contribute posts on what they are thankful for each Thursday. I think this is a great idea, and I am happy to have a snippet of time to participate this week. The Bible is full of instructions to give God the praise due to him, and provides us with many examples of people who were thankful. I have recently completed reading the Psalms again, which are full of examples of things to praise God for!
Here are two of my praise points:
1) I keep feeling grateful for Dave. I won't go on about it too much, lest this post become something approaching an online love letter (which I am sure Dave would not appreciate). However, I will write a brief list of some of the things I am thankful for about Dave: kindness, leadership, passion for God and the Bible, fun, respect, ease of conversation, intelligence, friendliness, diligence. I am sure I have missed out countless things - perhaps I'll share them next Thursday!
2) My job. I am very grateful that I have enjoyed this year at work, and that I have nearly completed it! There are now only four weeks to go. My year at work has been a big blessing for me, as I have had many struggles with work since my car accident seven and a half years ago. The children, the staff, and the skills I have learnt in teaching have all been a huge blessing.
My internet time has run out, so that will be it for me today on thankfulness! However, I hope to have more to share next week. Perhaps some of you will join in too, and I can enjoy reading your entries.
My birthday today is also my last day of work for this term. Tonight I will catch the bus to my parent's home, which is about three hours away. I will not be back at work for two and a half weeks. Last night, I felt like I received an early birthday present when one Mum of a child I teach unexpectedly brought in some classroom equipment. She did not know it was my birthday, she was just being generous. She is actually the same age as me, 25. Before this year, I never would have imagined I could have been so excited about abucus (frames with coloured beads). I don't think I even knew what they were. Now I am very happy to receive three for my classroom, as they are very good for little children learning how to add and subtract. My class also received two math games, and we spent about an hour playing one of them today. We also made paper geckos, and practiced sight words and reading. I enjoy the children, so it was a good way to spend my birthday.
Read more...The Proverbs 31 woman is rightly held up as an ideal for Christian women. When her roles and responsibilities are correctly understood this can be a great help. However, it is disturbing when people choose to use the Proverbs 31 woman to argue for the virtue or acceptability of being a Mum who is primarily focused on a career and thus leaves the training of her children and the running of her household to others. This view of Scripture comes from being saturated in a feminist culture, not from the text itself. We need to be very careful not to twist the Bible to fit with current feminist thinking.
I have heard women say things like "The Proverbs 31 woman is the equivilant of a modern real estate agent". I am sorry, but since when does managing your finances well so you can buy some property make you a real estate agent? It doesn't, of course. It makes you a person who bought a field. Likewise, the fact that the Proverbs 31 woman made clothing to sell to merchants does not make her the equivilant of a full time factory worker. It makes her a woman with a small business, which does not even take away from her home responsibilities much.
Kimi Harris wrote down some excellent thoughts on the Proverbs 31 woman some months ago in Knitting and Proverbs 31
some people have taken the Prov. 31 woman and made her an example of the modern career woman. It should be noted that she did most of her work at home with her family around her and that we are told in the New Testament to be “workers at home” (Titus 2). I don’t think this is a Biblical mandate for a mothers having careers and leaving most of the child raising and home keeping to others.
The principle is having busy hands serving your family. That can and even should look different depending on your family’s needs and your own skills and inclinations. Some ways of serving may bring in income, other ways may save money, other ways will just be simply meeting the daily needs of a family.
In reading Proverbs 31, it is legitimate to conclude that it is acceptable and sometimes wise for married women and mothers to engage in business. As Carolyn Mahaney wrote in Feminine Appeal, God does not confine women solely to unpaid work in the home: "Scripture provides examples of godly women who worked in other settings and earned extra income, but never to the neglect of their families and homes." Scripture places importance on the role of a married woman in caring for her family and home, above any income producing activities she may want to pursue. I am not at all saying that women should never pursue paid employment. I am saying that home and children are to be the priority for a married woman. In considering my own career options, even as a single woman, I want to take this into account. I am thinking of pursuing a Diploma of Education, so that I can earn more money per hour. Then, if I did need to work when I had children I could earn more with less time away from home. (This would also be good due to my chronic back pain).
I believe that most attempts to twist the Proverbs 31 woman into a full time career Mum are rooted in a lack of vision for what God intended when he instituted the roles of men and women. God did not intend our roles to be shackles around us. Read Psalm 128. This is a beautiful picture of the fulfilled family - a father who works hard and enjoys the work of his hand, a fruitful and home-centered wife, and the blessing of children. God intends these pictures to inspire and uplift us. This is a picture of the good life. Not dual careers and 1.7 children appropriately cared for by professsionals so we can get on with earning more money to buy more things. Instead, hard work in our respective roles, contentment with the simple things of life, joy in one another and in the children God gives us.
Susan has written a great post on the roles of men and women, focusing on the fact that without the joy and perspective of the gospel, the roles of men and women are ugly and twisted. Many people have only seen such ugly examples, so naturally they rebel and look for ways to reinterpret Biblical teaching on these topics. Unfortunately, in doing so they forsake the joy they could have had in a gospel-centered embrace of God's ways.
As Susan says:
One cannot talk about headship rightly apart from the gospel. Without the gospel, headship is an ugly truth; with the gospel, headship is a glorious picture. To properly understand Ephesians 5, one must first read Ephesians 1-4. After reading Ephesians 1-4 and then reading Ephesians 5, including the verses that charge husbands to love their wives as Christ loves the church, I cannot feel cheated, torn down, or demeaned by my call to submission. I am to aid my husband as the church aids Christ. What a beautiful mission! My husband, though, is to act as a type of Christ to me and our household! Wow.
What a beautiful role given to the man, but what a heavy responsibility, and a responsibility I would not snatch from any man. That is obligation; that is a set of very big shoes to fill. Unless a man can speak of women's roles in light of the gospel and his own call to serve his wife as Christ, than I must stand with the feminists and find his writings to be demeaning and void of any real esteem for women. The husband and wife roles of Ephesians 5 are beautiful because they are complimentary. Either, without the other, is ugly; together they are a beautiful picture.
You can read the rest of Susan's post here.
I've wanted to write about this topic for months. However, I avoided it because it is an emotive one for me and I don't want to rant. I hope this has been inspiring rather than overly harsh, and that it turns you to God's word to evaluate current trends and feminist-influenced philosophies in the church.
In her book Creed or Chaos (1949) Dorothy Sayers argues that the modern tendency identifies work as gainful employment. “The fallacy being that work is not the expression of man’s creative energy in the service of society, but only something he does in order to obtain money and leisure.” A surgeon told Sayers that “nobody works for the sake of getting the thing done. The actual result of the work is a by-product; the aim of the work is to make money to do something else.” Sayers argues we should work with our whole hearts for the work’s sake, as an expression of the divine image of creativeness in us.
I agree with Sayers that it is not helpful to define work only as the activity we do in order to receive money to do other things. It reduces the value of work to the amount of money it can be exchanged for. The person working ceases to care whether or not his or her actual work is producing something good. There is nothing wrong with working only for money. It is often necessary. However, there is something wrong with believing the only meaningful work is that which can be exchanged for money.
Defining work as that which can be exchanged for money also excludes many valuable types of work that are unpaid. One example is motherhood. Some feminists have identified unpaid work as drugery, while paid work is somehow more fulfilling. G. K. Chesterton nails this assumption: "Nine times out of ten, the only difference is that the one person is drudging for people she does care for and the other drudging for people she does not care for. " I never like to say that ____ does not work. I prefer to say that ____ works at home. The work prioritized at home may well be more fulfilling, and more useful, than paid work outside of it.
When I completed my degree, I only had about 1 and a half days paid work each week. However, this was not the only work I did. I cooked, wrote, did house work for my mother, sewed, took care of Esther while her parents worked, and completed other unpaid work. I was busy all the time, and wondered how I would fit in everything I wanted to do! My unpaid work was, to me, just as meaningful and useful as my paid work. I am now completing paid working up to my capacity, three days a week. Any more of this would be very difficult to manage with current back pain levels. Due to completing this amount of paid work, I have cut back on important unpaid work like cooking. I am sure that everyone can identify with this tension, especially those who work full time.
Most people have to complete paid work to support themselves, and so unpaid work will be limited. However, we still don't have to fall into the trap of thinking only paid work is meaningful. We can learn to value work for what it produces, how it expresses our creativity as God's image bearers, and how it furthers our mandate to take dominion over the earth, rather than solely on the basis of the pay check. Some paid jobs contribute little to the true goals of work, while unpaid work may further God's kingdom. In chosing paid work, I try to think hard about whether or not this work is truly something that is valuable in itself or if I am just doing it for the money. I would not volunteer to work in my present job, so I am doing it for the money, but at the same time I believe it to be valuable work in both a temporal and an eternal sense. I value it not only for the pay check, but also for what it produces.
I'm back from Launceston and enjoying life in the south. For those of you who know nothing about Tasmanian geography, here is a map. I work in Launceston three days a week. I enjoy my work, but almost everything else that is important to me seems to center in Hobart. My parent's home is twenty minutes south of Hobart, and Hobart is a two and half hour bus ride from Launceston. I am now home for two weeks. I'm excited that I've now completed two terms of work, and have two terms ahead. Perhaps I'll actually get through the year :). I'm also very excited about enjoying my friends, church, hobbies, and the landscapes here in the south. I woke up at 4am with a tummy ache, and I feel so excited (and sore) that I can't get back to sleep. I have been excited for days! I have invited nine people over for lunch soon, which should be a lot of fun!
My friend Mike has 52 comments in response to his speculations on What women want. This feat was almost enough to make me want to write my own version. Something like "10 things men want in a woman". However, I came to the amusing and disconcerting realisation that I really don't know what men want :). This is not overly worrying to me, since I figure it is best to just be myself and leave the rest to providence. This is not because I don't want to get married. Especially when I'm lonely in Launceston, I think that marriage sounds like a great idea! However, I figure that if a man is to spend the rest of his life with me he should know what I'm really like :). Thus, I'm not interested in finding out what men want and then trying to be "it". I want Mr. wants to spend the rest of his life with Sherrin (whoever and where ever he may be) to like me, and not some image I am trying to project. In the meantime, it is tremendously funny to be a single. The number of amusing conversations I've had in recent times is enourmous. Here are a couple of examples:
One day a few months ago, a child at school asked me whether or not I was married.
“No”, I replied.
“Do you want to get married” was the predictable next question.
“I hope to get married some day”, I said.
“But aren’t you too old”, another child said.
“No silly, she’s not too old, my grandma got married” yet another child pitched in.
You will be glad to hear that at this point I did not laugh. Neither did I cry. I did breath a sigh of thankfulness that I am not a super-sensitive single person! These little ones have no idea of how old people are. Everyone big is ancient. I asked them to guess my age a while ago, and they thought 40 or 50 sounded accurate. I have told them I am 24, but it does not seem to sink in. The other day a little one asked me if I was 44.
Another funny experience happened during babysitting. the 10-year-old boy asked me if I had a boyfriend and how old I was. Upon hearing “no” and “24”, he pointed out to his 8-year-old sister “See, Miss Ward is waiting for the right one.” Isn't it good that I can provide such useful object lessons?
Also this morning I checked back to this post to see if anyone else had commented on the wonderful poem. I discovered that John Dekker has bought me the book of poetry the poem comes from. How nice is that? Here is a bit of the poem to entice you to read it:
This faith, although I lack it, is my own,
Inherent to the marrow of the bone.
To this even the unbelieving mind
Submits its unbelief to be defined.
Check it out on John's blog.
Oh, and John had some interesting observations (or should I say confessions) in the comments sectioni of cknat's post on what men want. Cknat has a green blog exactly like mine.
I am still sick, but today has been my best day since I came down with the virus on Sunday. God willing, I'll be back to work next week.
Susan's post on her experiences volunteering at a Vacation Bible School was fun to read. They reminded me of my experiences working with little children! Susan wrote:
"Isn't it amazing how selfish little girls can be, though? My crew was very well-behaved, but all (except one) of them were so self-centered! They each wanted to be the first in line, etc., and if they did something "good" they wanted everyone to know!"
I became tired of the children I work with trying to be first in line, especially one little girl. So one day after sport I told them that Jesus said "The last shall be first, and the first shall be last". I made them repeat it after me as we stood in line on the oval. I didn't quite know how to explain the meaning of it, but I was desperate!
They all still remember the verse, and know that it means we should not try to be first. They even quote it to each other. However, the little girl it was particularly addressed toward had a unique interpretation. One day she told me that "I picked up my drink bottle last, so that means I can be first in line now."
Susan also has some good discussion about teaching the gospel to children. I feel most inadequate at this, but I do believe their understanding has improved over the year. I try to talk to them often about how we have all done wrong things, and we all need to trust that Jesus died for our sins if we want to go to heaven.
Here are some more pictures of our crafts. Even while we do crafts, we talk about the Bible and God. Discussions about God are a natural part of our conversation together.
I made the anthill out of scrunched up newspaper with tissue paper over the top. Innovative, don't you think?
Another one of our creative displays . . .
This week I had planned to make hampsters, with wool for hair. The things you miss when you are sick :(. We'll have to do it next week.
Here is a glimpse of my classroom, with one of the latest displays. It is amazing what you start getting excited about when you teach small children all day.
I was very excited about making this display :). The tiny purple fish is my demonstration one. The fish have toothpicks, fur, feathers, glitter, celophane, and tissue paper glued to them. Thus the name "Feely Fish". I enjoy seeing the children's enthusiasm for things like this! Since we made these a few weeks ago, we have made another exciting display. "Ants on an anthill" is coming soon to Small Things.
Read more...Prayer times are my favourite parts of the day at school. First thing in the morning, about 8:30am, there is a staff prayer time. It is an enourmous privilege to work at a school where God's character and word are trusted, where he is praised, and where the many difficulties encountered at school can be brought before him. Prayer times with the children are just as enjoyable. It is encouraging to see their enthusiasm for praying. When I ask who would like to pray, it is common for everyone to put up their hands. Here are some excerpts from the prayers which I have particularly enjoyed.
"Please forgive my sins, and B____'s sins, and J'____'s sins, and E____'s sins [all fellow class members] and even Miss War's sins."
Following a story about the garden of Eden, the fall and Satan's role in it, and the cross, the children seemed deeply impressed with the reality of Satan. A few days later, one prayed:
"Please Lord, take care of everyone, except please Lord don't take care of Satan, or of Satan's group."
Then another prayed:
"Don't take care of Satan's group, and don't let Satan be part of our group."
For about two weeks now, one of the children who is from a pentecostal background has been praying:
"Holy Spirit in my heart, Holy Spirit in my friend's hearts, Holy Spirit in my family's hearts, Holy Spirit all over me."
On Wednesday, she added to this "You give us power, power, power." She said this with great fervour, and rose out of her chair, adding "You can heal people".
I had to put my hand over my mouth to hide the fact that I was trying not to laugh! One of the other children did laugh, and the child who prayed felt hurt. I am so glad I managed to contain myself so that she did not notice me laughing!
To top it off, another child prayed right after her and said:
"Thank you Lord that you come down when we die, and take us up to play with you. You play with us. You love children, I know you love children."
Sometimes the children's prayers remind me that I need to teach more about who God is. I am also conscious of the need to find a way to teach the reality of the Trinity clearly - not to explain the mystery (who can!) but to help them understand that we serve one God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I was reminded of this when I told the children Jesus is God, and one said "I thought there was Jesus, and then there was God." I said "No, Jesus is God" and she seemed to accept that.
It is a privilege to share the love of God with these children, and to hear their prayers. I am grateful to have work I believe is valuable. Reading is one of my passions. I see how much it can help people, and find it meaningful to pass on these skills. My work has reminded me of how hard it must have been to gain reading skills, even though I do not remember the process, and makes me all the more grateful for them. My job would feel significant even if it was just about passing on reading skills. It is even more meaningful because I am free to pass on a greater love, and to point the children to One who can fulfill greater needs. It is not only a privilege, it is a reponsibility that I do not take lightly.
Last week I began my new job in Launceston, three hours from home. It is an answer to prayer that I have a job. I am also thanking God for a place to board, with a lovely elderly lady from the presbyterian church. I only need to be here three nights a week, but I will spend some weekends as otherwise there is too much travelling. My job is three days a week, which is what I wanted. I work with Prep students (5 year olds) as a teacher's aid every day, and also care for Kindergarten students (4 year olds) on two afternoons. There are only 3 Prep students at the moment - all girls. I may soon have two boys as well. There are 4 Kindergarten students, three girls and one boy.
In my first week, my most pressing questions seemed to be "how do I get them to keep their shoes on" and "how do I get them to make less noise". Deep, I know.
On Thursday three children cried, one twice. Two other children were seriously upset. I know, I am scary. I haven't cried once yet though - at least not at school. Today was unusual: no one cried. At least, not that I remember.
I am grateful for a sense of humour. Mum, Dad, and I laughed about my experiences for about half an hour when I got home last Thursday night. Things have been better since I instituted a reward system based on keeping five shiny, laminated cardboard apples on your cardboard apple tree. Apples get removed if you break the rules. If you keep all your apples all day, you get a big shiny, laminated apple to put on your tree. If you get three such apples, you get a special treat.
One child in my class can recite a paraphrase of the 10 commandments, so I'm having her teach the others. No doubt I'll remember them better because of her, too! She also says great prayers. All the children are very excited about praying, and eagerly volunteer every time I ask.
We have been learning the sounds of the letter A, how to write A and a, how to do what "Teacher" says, how to remember that "Teacher" is called "Miss Ward", etc. Everyone is still settling in - me included!
It is a joy to be back home - for two nights, anyway! As soon as I arrived, I rushed out to my garden to see its progress. The lettuce leaves are big enough to eat now, and new flowers are blooming. It always amazes me to see how much things grow in two weeks.
I had a good day at the staff meeting today in Launceston. It was held the school where I will be working. Today I also visited the lady who has offered me board in Launceston. It seems like a good situation. The room I will be in overlooks her garden and the hills.
I left NSW RTL on Tuesday afternoon, so I could be in Burnie for training on Wednesday and Thursday. It was hard to leave so soon, after having a good time there. I had a few difficulties on my travel to Burnie via Melbourne, but as I wrote in my diary: "I doubt the trouble will stick in my mind. Rather I'll remember the descending sun casting a golden haze around the hills and mountain peaks of my island home. The sun also shimmered lemon and gold over the water of the straight, for a long while all the eye could see and then rippling outwards from the hazy hills. The wide green swarths of grass along the coast were a welcome sight as we flew closer, even with the foreign seeming red soil gashing through. Home!"
Last week the Christian school where Mum and I work finished for the year. A presentation day was held. Students who had done well or achieved a certain level received awards. The children also performed several items. The class of 7 that I have worked with for part of this year, ages 5 to 7, were cute when they recited part of Ephesians 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. All the items had a theme of faith. There was a song and a mime about the Exodus. There was also a long Scripture recitation of part of Hebrews 11, about Moses, by most of the students.
This is a picture of the puppet play three students performed about Jesus walking on the water. It was great, and the little children especially enjoyed watching it.
Mum has done a great job with her students this year - getting them ready to perform the items, and encouraging them spiritually. It was exciting for her to see them come to know Jesus more. Also, one of her students completed year 12 and was accepted into university. This is the first time our little school has achieved this (only about 40 students from Prep to Grade 12). It only runs three days a week, and the students are home schooled for the rest of the week. Mum has been working three days as the secondary teacher, and she is looking forward to cutting back to two next year.
It is such a blessing to be able to work in a Christian school, and teach the children about God. One little boy was reading to me out of his workbook about Christ's death on the cross. Then he looked at me and said "Why did Jesus wash us with his blood?". I only had a few hours a week work at the school this year, but next year I will be working for three days a week in another campus of the group of schools this one is a part of.
Unfortunately, the topic of Christian education is a contentious one in this day between Christians. All kinds of arguments fly around. Many Christians use arguments against Christian education that have no basis in Scripture. For example, expressing concerns about the socialisation of home schooled children. I enjoyed reading Kim's post on Christian education, but it did raise a lot of controversy!
The protestant church did all Australians a huge wrong when they handed their shools over to the state in the middle of the 19th Century. Whatever possessed them? I guess Christianity was so ingrained in the culture that they figured the government would continue to promote prayer and the Bible in schools. The final fruit of this decision, however, is obvious. Unless a school is based on Christ, its fruit will be poisonous.
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