*Affiliate links included.
{Editor’s note: Today Emily Beth continues her series on homemaking for the working woman. Yesterday, Emily Beth discussed expectations in regard to housekeeping and working outside the home in Homemaking for the Working Woman, Part 1.}
Wrestle with your mind and heart to have realistic expectations of yourself, your home, and your husband.
Expectations can make or break a relationship.
Too low and the relationship may suffer with not enough effort being put into it or laziness presiding.
Too high and the standard of perfection may be felt in your home and your family resent you.
For example, I am a very clean, neat, and organized individual. These can be good and bad characteristics. When my husband and I first married, I would constantly pick up after him, even his water glass that he just poured water in and left on the kitchen table. After many a discussion about my need for a perfect home, my husband said to me one day, “I’m sorry. I live here and I’m messy.” He was spot on—we live in our homes, we’re human, and humans are messy because life is messy.
We cannot plan our lives and they go in accordance to our plans.
No matter how many times we pick up our shoes, or water glasses, or do laundry—there will always be more times to do so. Have realistic expectations: for yourself, what you can accomplish in the twenty-four hours God gives us all; for your husband, who is a human being that you know better than any other; and for your home, which will never be perfect but is a place that reflects the lives inside it.
Your life is not defined by seasons in which you must work or not work. Your life is defined by the legacy you leave in those seasons.
Your life is defined by the legacy you leave in your home. Is your husband glad when you come home? Or do you immediately begin to complain–about the day you’ve had or things you see out of place or undone–as you walk through the door?
Titus 2:4-5 reminds us to “love our husbands and children, be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to our own husbands, that the Word of God may not be reviled.” Put these words into practice.Love your husband, display the character of God in your life, be busy at home, and submit to your husband so that the Word of God may be evident and known to all who come in contact with your life.
Recommended Resources:
The Nesting Place: It Doesn’t Have to Be Perfect to Be Beautiful
by Myquillyn Smith
Glimpses of Grace: Treasuring the Gospel in Your Home
by Gloria Furman
Treasuring Christ When Your Hands Are Full: Gospel Meditations for Busy Moms
by Gloria Furman
Women of the Word: How to Study the Bible with Both Our Hearts and Our Minds
by Jen Wilkin
Sources:
Randolph, Laura B. “Working Women.” Ebony 50, no. 5 (March 1995): 20.
About Emily Beth Davidson
Emily Davidson is a country girl from Mississippi in the big city of Fort Worth, Texas and loving life! Married in August 2014 to the man God hand-picked for her, she spends her days working in a corporate office, trying out new Paleo recipes, decorating and rearranging her 650 square foot apartment, Instagramming and completing her seminary degree at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. She and her Texan-husband spend Friday nights watching Redbox movies and Saturday’s antiquing. Follow her on Instagram @mrs.emilydavidson.
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