no more utopias

Our Young Mother's Bible Study is embarking on yet another book, this time we're lucky enough to have the author of the book leading the study. :-) Our pastor. He's compiled some sermons he preached about two years ago on the family (the true cause of our summer of babies) and some other material into a book he has entitled Edifice, which he describes as concerning the life cycle of the family, from early marriage, young children, empty nesters, even difficult seasons such as divorce, remarriage, etc. As I did my preparation for our study on Wednesday, I was struck by this particular section, and I wanted to share it. It was particularly significant to me because earlier that day I had read a blog that described a homeschooling family of four children who sounded like they have everything together. She published her family's scheduled & included her children's daily checklist of items to accomplish. While her children work on their independent school work, she bakes bread. Dinner preparation is 45 min- 1 hr each night (even with a nursing baby & 2 year old). Every morning before breakfast, before supper, and before bed the two older children assist their mother with chores (including closet organization, drawer organization, folding laundry, putting it away) which put me & my one child household to shame! Her point in having drawer & closet organization on her daily/weekly list was that if you keep it up, it won't ever be a chore that takes a lot of time. Although this may be true, I just didn't know how I felt about each working member of the household having the responsibility of checking one drawer every day! It seemed a bit OCD to me. This did NOT stop me from feeling guilty about my 10 drawers that hadn't seen an organizing hand in months (maybe years!). I'm not trying to say that this lady was telling others that their schedules should be carbon copies of hers. It just seemed as though her list of tasks was insurmountable! (Cleaning, Teaching, Nursing baby, Making Supper Cheerfully with 2 year old, etc.) Again, the guilt was of my own doing, not Blogger Lady's. This also happily coincided with a laundry issue! I have a houseguest (more on that in another post) who found our clothes sitting in the dryer, took them out & folded them in the most magnificently neat way I've ever seen, and then apologized for "not doing a good job!" I waited for Josh to mention that someone else MUST have folded the clothes, but apparently, he thought I just got extra creative that day. So, spurred on by my drawer organizing blogger & neat folding houseguest, I tackled my junk drawer, and three of my dresser drawers -- refolding, throwing away, sorting, and making sense out of mayhem. I would take pictures, but my dresser mostly holds jammies & unmentionables & the last time I posted a picture of a bra on the web, people were scandalized. Anyway, that was my day.

At night, I opened up the first chapter of Edifice to read this, and I couldn't believe what a timely balance God had brought to me that day. I will quote most of the section & summarize some parts.

"Too much Christian family literature borders upon utopianism and is therefore frustrating in its application. The author prescribes the "path for the family" in whatever particular area he is addressing. The steps are followed, but change is slight, slow, and painful -- if it occurs at all. Is there something wrong with me or my family? Do we lack faith? Perhaps we need another perspective. And the cycle of frustration begins again. This lack of biblical realism about the Christian life in general and the family in particularly is the result of a failure to consider adequately the subject of cross-bearing. Being a Christian entails bearing the cross of our Savior in our daily lives. . . The Christian family is not exempt from cross-bearing, and any attempt to address it's problems and posit potential answers to its many challenges must take into account the fact that God's purposes for the family require the discipline of the cross. This does not mean that positive, even monumental change is impossible to attain in this life. Meaningful, lasting, biblical change requires repentance, self-denial, fervent, prayer, and mortification of sin. . . Expectations for family change must be realistic in the light of sin and progressive sanctification. They must be placed against the backdrop of God's sovereign purposes that he is working out in each family and in each family member, thereby producing in each family member the life of Christ.. . .
Too many Christians live as if the goal of dealing with problems is to achieve a place in life where problems no longer exist, that sanctification involves strife-less marriages, sinless children, a veritable utopia on earth. It will never happen. . . God gives us principles, purposes, and goals for which we are to strive by trusting in his grace and promises. they do not eradicate sin or create lives of ease. they enable us to approach the inevitable sins and pressures that arise in this sinful world with hope and patience, knowing that our labors are not in vain the Lord."

This passage struck me as so applicable to the guilt & frustration I was feeling about setting my own house in order. Blogger Lady wasn't prescribing any steps to fix a certain problem, but I believe the application was still viable. It seemed to me that she was describing such a Utopia to me, where there are no messes that can't be tackled in a day, no children that don't enjoy a rigorous list of chores to be accomplished daily while doing 10 or 12 subjects, including 15 minutes of piano practice & 15 mins of voice practice. (What does 15 minutes do for you???) In another post, she told how she sought God's wisdom in dealing with problems in her children. IN all three stories that she told, God saw fit to answer her prayers in a matter of days, and within days of applying her God-given answer, her children's attitude or problem was tackled!

During our discussion at the Bible Study, It just struck me that consciously or unconsciously many of these books or blogs on parenting and marriage set up this paradigm. . if you do follow these steps or principles (godly & biblical as they may be), you will "fix the problem" in your marriage, in your child, in your family. This even descends into issues like sleeping through the night, breastfeeding, and a myriad of mothering issues. Follow these steps & you will gain these results. Although the advice or principles in this type of literature may be perfectly appropriate for you and Bible based, God may not see fit to give you success even if you are doing "all of the right things." There's no magic formula. The family, in all of its facets, cannot be "fixed" or even "checklisted."

In light of this, I tried to think of what MY daily checklist should look like. Instead of trying to control my circumstance to the enth degree and trying to create artificially an environment that supposedly fosters cheerful attitudes, a hard-working Spirit, and a love for God by making sure that all the corners of the house are clean or even that the clothes are folded a certain way. . aren't there things that are more important? I tried to think of some things that SHOULD be on my checklist. . Have I communicated God's love to Kate today? Have I read to her? Have I communicated on a deeper, spiritual level with Josh today? Have I loved him? I'm sure the list could go on & each family's list would look a bit different. Cleanliness is not next to godliness, Organization is not next to godliness. All of those things should be counted as mere tools in the wife's arsenal for creating a loving, God-honoring environment that works hard to serve him & each other. They are not ends of their own. Our goal is not to recreate Utopia, the fictional land where everything worked perfectly. There was a perfect economic model, a perfect political model, a perfect societal model. We must have this biblical realism that perhaps reads the books, reads the blogs, applies biblical principles to Christian family living, but acknowledges that serving God involves bearing the cross, as individuals, as well as families.

So, what would be on YOUR list?