My Career ... Or His?

 I remember as a girl thinking about what I wanted to do when I grew up. I thought maybe I could be a missionary—all the missionary stories we heard made it sound like an exciting adventure to go into foreign lands and lead heathen to the Lord! It would be nice to be a mother, I thought, to have babies to take care of and my own little house to work in.

But one thing that I thought would be lots of fun was to work in the little department store where we shopped sometimes. To me, the question of whether or not a woman should have a job outside the home wasn’t any different than the question of which dress I would wear the next day. Everywhere we went we saw women working in public workplaces. Having family and friends who did the same, I did not see any harm in it.

As I grew older, I began to read and study the Bible for myself. And I began to ask the Lord what He wanted me to do in life. Some of the first verses I began to study were found in Proverbs 31, which shows that there is much work for a woman to do:

She seeketh wool, and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands. … She bringeth her food from afar. She riseth also while it is yet night, and giveth meat to her household …. She considereth a field, and buyeth it: with the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard. … She layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff. She stretcheth out her hand to the poor; yea, she reacheth forth her hands to the needy. … She maketh herself coverings of tapestry …. She maketh fine linen, and selleth it; and delivereth girdles unto the merchant. … She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness. Pr. 31:13-27

I found more verses in Titus chapter 2, beginning at verse 3:

The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things; That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.

Now wait a minute … “that the word of God be not blasphemed”? What does blaspheme mean? “To defame, rail on, revile, speak evil of.” Is that what I want to do to the Word of God?

Be sober—to be self-controlled, temperate.

Love my husband—to be fond of him, friendly, affectionate.

Love my children—to have a fond, motherly love for them.

Be discreet—to have proper restraint, prudent.

Be chaste—to be innocent, modest, pure.

 Be a keeper at home—to be a guard of the home and a stayer at home.

Be good—to do well, virtuous.

Be obedient to my own husband—to submit myself unto him.

As I read, I began to ask myself: Why was I created? What is the purpose of my life? So I went back to the beginning of the Bible, back to Genesis 2:18-23:

And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. … And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.

So then, I as a wife have been created to be a help to my husband in the vocation the Lord has given him. In doing that, I fulfill the purpose the Lord has given me, and bring honor and glory to Him. How can I be a help to my husband in his work if I have my own career?

In his book “The Little Boy Down the Road,” Douglas W. Phillips writes the following:

Less than one hundred years ago, the architects of the atheistic Communist Soviet state anticipated the death of the Christian family. They explained the need for destroying the Christian family with its emphasis on motherhood and replacing it with a vision for a “new family.” Lenin wrote: “We must now say proudly and without exaggeration that apart from Soviet Russia, there is not a country in the world where women enjoy full equality and where women are not placed in the humiliating position felt particularly in day-to-day family life. This is one of our first and most important tasks … Housework is the most unproductive, the most barbarous, and the most arduous work a woman can do. It is exceptionally petty and does not include anything that would in any way promote the development of the woman … The building of socialism will begin only when we have achieved the complete equality of women and when we undertake the new work together with women who have been emancipated from that petty, stultifying, unproductive work … We are setting up model institutions, dining rooms, and nurseries that will emancipate women from housework … These institutions that liberate women from their position as household slaves are springing up where it is in any way possible … Our task is to make politics available to every working woman.”

In his 1920 International Working Women’s Day speech, Lenin emphasized: “The chief thing is to get women to take part in socially productive labor, to liberate them from ‘domestic slavery,’ to free them from their stupefying (idiotic) and humiliating subjugation to the eternal drudgery of the kitchen and the nursery. This struggle will be a long one, and it demands a radical reconstruction, both of social technique and of morale. But it will end in the complete triumph of Communism.”

 Lenin’s comrade Trotsky played a key role in communication of the Marxist vision of what he called the ‘new family.’ Lenin and Trotsky believed in the overthrow of Christianity by destroying the biblical family. They sought to build a new state, free from historic Christian presuppositions concerning the family. This meant defaming the biblical notion of male headship and hierarchy within the family. It meant eliminating any sense of that there should be a division of labor between man and wife. This required delivering women from the burdens of childbirth and childcare. It meant adopting tools like birth control as guarantors that women could be free to remain in the workforce. Trotsky said this:

“Socialization of family housekeeping and public education of children are unthinkable without a marked improvement in our economics as a whole. We need more socialist economic forms. Only under such conditions can we free the family from the functions and cares that now oppress and disintegrate it. Washing must be done by a public workshop. Children must be educated by good public teachers who have a real vocation for the work. Then the bond between husband and wife would be freed from everything external and accidental, and the one would cease to absorb the life of the other. Genuine equality would at last be established …”[1]

It was with growing horror that I realized that Satan has a plan in this whole situation. It all seems innocent enough to have my own career, to do what I want to do, to answer only to myself. But it comes at a terrible price. First, the destruction of the home, then the destruction of the church, and finally the destruction of the nation. There is no middle road—either I follow God’s plan for my life, or I follow Satan’s plan for my life.

So now I have a choice to make. Will I just be what I want to be and do what I want to do—disregarding the purpose the Lord has for my life … and helping to bring about a complete triumph of Marxist ideas? Or will I willingly step into the role the Lord has created for me—to be a help meet for my husband and a keeper at home, to bring honor and glory to His name, and find true fulfillment?

Every wise woman buildeth her house: but the foolish plucketh it down with her hands. Pr. 14:1

Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the LORD, she shall be praised. Give her of the fruit of her hands; and let her own works praise her in the gates. Pr. 31:30-31 ~

[1] Phillips, Douglas W. The Little Boy Down the Road: Short Stories & Essays on the Beauty of Family Life. Vision Forum, 2009. Used by permission.

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