relationships – Page 31

Husbands, Inspiring, Pre-schoolers, Wisdom, Wives, Womanhood

Tired and All, All Alone

Posted on October 12, 2010February 6, 2011 by Katharine

How quickly solitude can flip, can convert to loneliness!

No one else you know has just delivered a baby, at your age, right? Where can you find support?

No one else you know lives with quite such a quarrelsome husband, right? To whom would you dare confess?

You are not all alone, though, if you have Jesus. This may sound trite, but really, the truth is timeless and we’ve run out of different ways to say it. He is always there for you. His care for you continues even when you are too tired to care for yourself. His love for you increases even when you’ve lost the strength to love.

Jesus knew sleep deprivation, too. He knows how you feel, even better than I do. He stayed up, sometimes all night, on several occasions. They used to call it keeping watch. He kept the night watches, praying all night, seeking and finding the will of His Father.

I sympathize with His sleeping during a storm on a small boat. We sleep when we can, those of us who have interrupted nights, don’t we?

Jesus also endured temptation to give up. Sometimes He voiced the temptations He faced. Once He even said, “Oh, how long shall I be with you?” How uncannily familiar that rings! Almost, you have proposed the same question: How long must I endure an obstinate partner? Is this really God’s will? How long is long enough or too long?

Yes, Jesus was tempted to give up. He knows the way out of all the temptations, too. In the words of a famous song, “You never gave up./You never gave in./You never said, ‘No, can’t take any more of this.’” That was Jesus.

Do not forget to turn to Him every day. You can ask Him for strength and He will give it to you. This is the truth. His strength is the only thing that can sustain us through a tough time. Eventually, after I recover from my attitude, those times become my favorites, because of the glory of observing His hand working in my life! It is so wonderful to be able actually to SEE Him at work, changing me to be the way I wish I were.

Jesus can make so much progress in my life, where I seem to improve so slowly, if any, on my own.

I pray for you, dear Sister, and possibly many of the readers do, too. By God’s grace, I will not let you down. Christian sisters are supposed to uphold each other. What a joyful gift from God! What a privilege to share your burden with you! Bask in His love. Lie back and rest in His care. Cast it all upon Him.

Homemaking, Inspiring, Scripture, Wisdom, Wives, Womanhood

Gramma’s Wisdom – Small Things

Posted on October 9, 2010March 19, 2015 by Katharine

Scripture says knowing God’s will is a blessing. Sometimes doing it is hard.

At every step, the enemy of our souls is waiting for an opportunity to take out anyone he can and always watching for a chance to steal, kill, and destroy. We can be his victims. Or we can fight that good fight of faith. The choice is ours and this is the meaning of the verse: Choose ye this day whom ye will serve… We serve the Lord when we:

make progress, move forward,
see our invisible enemy and beat him to the blessing,
receive the goodness God had planned for us,
take our place at the front, in any role from king to pawn.

So many think we must be doing something big for God, but He created a world full of small things that also serve Him.

The humble bee, for instance, has recently encountered much more respect for its astonishing service to us all. Calmly buzzing from flower to flower for centuries, it feeds us. It goes where no man can go. We have learned: its demise is our demise.

The humble housewife, lately, has not enjoyed such an uplifting experience. Calmly buzzing from laundry to kitchen for centuries, she has kept us and her demise is our demise.

The humble mother has not enjoyed such uplifting, either. Calmly buzzing from diapers to diploma, she keeps us until we are adults. Her demise is the demise of our children.

No, the woman, as she is, has not enjoyed uplifting. Only when she pretends at being a man does even she, herself, acknowledge her value as a creature.

What if the woman were to beat off the one who would chase her into this disorder? What if she were to reach for the blessings of being herself? What if she were to take the lead as a woman, instead of grasping at being the man. She would serve the Lord.

It sure gives “charge” a new meaning.

When life is right-side up, the world works better, and our world is not working so well. We can learn this. We need to learn this. We can charge into this survival battle with confidence. Someone has to, if only for the children.

So, who has the equipment? Who has the temperament? Who has the muscles, strengths, right desires? Is it not woman, in numbers too big to ignore?

We buzz. We go where no man can go.

Antique mug from diner; antique drip coffee pot.

Blessings of Habit, Coffee-ism, Inspiring, Wisdom, Wives, Womanhood

Gramma’s Wisdom – Are We Disposable?

Posted on October 5, 2010February 23, 2025 by Katharine

Today while I was tidying the kitchen, I made fresh coffee in my favorite two-cup pot. It’s an old-time drip-through I found at a garage sale, stocky and leaky, but it makes the best couple o’ cups around.

It made me think of me. Not as shiny as I used to be, out of order, and never did produce a lot in the first place—did I disparage myself for a minute?

Yes, until I realized something: I love that old pot.

I’ve loved coffee since I was so young I had to beg for sips. I knew it was good for us then, before the scientists did. I’ve had every sort of coffee brewing experience on earth, I think. I’ve bought and pitched overpriced, electric, coffee-making gizmos until I was ashamed. I’ve brewed it through paper towels in emergencies and even had the old kind with raw egg and shell stirred in the bottom.

I collect coffeepots just because they once belonged to someone whom I know I would have loved: a coffee-ist. I own the carafe my mother first used in her married life. I own a two-gallon, granite-ware coffeepot for over the campfire. I own a cute percolator from my paternal grandparents’ estate. I’ve scouted out the glass parts from several identical glass percolators, a full set with parts to spare. My husband even brings them home from antique stores to surprise me. The day my sister-in-law introduced me to the two-cup, drip-through oldie in her kitchen, however, was the day I began the real search.

When I finally found it, my feelings were hurt—someone had used “my” darling pot for straining drippings from grease, and it wasn’t even for sale; he had planned to throw it out. I actually had to ask him to sell it to me and he valued it at only fifty cents. I lovingly sudsed and scrubbed it until it no longer stank like grease and then my kitchen filled with the wondrous aroma of pure Colombian dark roast.

Bliss.

Nowadays, after my husband and I share our morning pot and he leaves for the woods with his thermos full, I draw out the favored one. The ritual never changes: rinsed pot, filtered water, fresh grounds, a dish underneath for leaks, a comfortable mug, and me. My satisfaction level knows no limit during this hour.

And I think. While I spent my life as a grease catcher, about to be thrown away, my Lord searched until He found me. His love for His rummage-sale find has transformed me into the small one He most loves to spend time with, alone.

I leak but He loves me.

Nothing else in this world matters so to me, except that He is searching for you, too.

Don’t let them throw you away.

_______________

Katharine is a retired, home-educating wife and mom who writes about all things “woman”, from a Godly viewpoint, here on this site, and at The Conquering Mom. Her writing appeared in several magazines for 15 years, and she is currently working on several books. She loves to write, speak, teach, cook, garden, spoil her hennies, and watch old movies with popcorn.