It’s moments like these that I am fully aware that they are watching me.
They are learning to live their lives by watching how I live mine. It’s no small responsibility to bear. This long circuitous journey that I have made through medical education, residency training and then a six year career in medical practice has finally brought me HOME. Where I have struggled to find my way. Where I am learning to ‘serve my neighbor’ in the most intimate but also seemingly mundane ways. I entered this vocation ill-prepared and ill-advised on what it meant to be a full time homemaker. And the questions that haunt me sometimes in the throws of laundry and dishes, about whether I am using my gifts to their full potential, are answered decidedly in those little eyes and hands helping me make dinner. I am making a bold statement to them.
The vocation of motherhood is honorable; instituted by God for the raising of children, for the domestication of men, and for the stabilization of society. It is His design and I’ve learned that I am most ‘female’ and truly most fulfilled when I embrace and nurture this role as wife and mother.
‘comfortable concentration camp’ to work and to be educated so that they may contribute so society in a meaningful way, thus finding true fulfillment. She says, ”
A woman must create, out of her own needs and abilities, a new life plan, fitting in the love and children and home that have defined feminity in the past with the work toward a greater purpose that shapes the future”.p. 338
Well, speaking from experience, I have never felt that I was contributing more meaningfully to society than when I decided to put my own career on hold to be home with my children. Any ‘ole Joe can refill Ralph’s prescription for hypertension, but I am the most uniquely qualified and gifted person to raise my own children and to love and serve my husband. Noone else can do that with the same passion and care. So, I want to stand up for all educated, professional women who have made an informed and conscious choice to give their lives in service to their families. I applaud you. What you do is important and powerful and instituted by God himself. There is no higher calling. There is no greater work.
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.