Have you been thinking a lot lately about your role as a wife and mother? Do you not work out in the “real world”? Are you not a bread winner? Do you stay at home and take care of children? Do you feel guilty staying at home? I read an interview with Elisabeth Elliot that really pin pointed what I believe and know but never found the right words. Read what she says in this interview. She has many good points for you whether you are a wife or a mother.

Confusion over Womanhood and Manhood

-An interview with Elisabeth Elliot

“PR-You travel quite a bit, speaking to church groups and on campuses, especially to women. What do you find is on Christian women’s minds today?

EE-I think that the feminist movement has had a much more powerful influence on the thinking of both men and women than most of us realize. I find many women who are deeply confused and troubled because they have been made to feel guilty if all they do is stay at home and take care of children and cook and clean house.

That very vocabulary is indicative of what is happening in Christians’ thinking. ‘All I do is take care of my children at home.’ What do you mean ‘All that I do’? Isn’t that a fulfilling job if that happens to be God’s will for you?

I have women coming to me feeling guilty because they are not working outside their home or because they have three children instead of just two, or because they are not going back to school to get another degree. They feel guilty because they enjoy housework. They come to me and ask if this is wrong. They are very confused.

PR-What do you say to try and clear up the confusion and guilt?

EE-One of my primary targets is the meaning of sexuality. I try to get women to think about what it really means. When I ask the question as to what it means, I see that many of them haven’t thought about its meaning anything, whereas scripture makes it very plain that sexuality is a paradigm of a relationship which exists between Christ and the church. And because it is a pattern of a heavenly mystery it should not be tampered with. For this reason I think that we are in grave danger when we tamper with divine appointments for both men and women.

PR-What do you tell Christian women about what it means to be womanly?

EE-I believe that the Bible makes it plain that the essence of femininity is response, and the essence of masculinity is initiation. That’s where we start. The woman was made for the man, made to be a responder. That, I think, is unarguable from Genesis 2. She was made for the man. She was made to be adaptable and adapted, fit, for his needs. She was a helpmeet for him.

God brought the woman to Adam, he didn’t bring Adam to the woman. He gave her to Adam, and Adam, by naming her, accepted responsibility as the initiator, provider, and cherisher.

The fact that the church is represented as female, the bride of Christ, is a proof that the church is the responder. We do nothing but respond to Christ. We have nothing to give him, other than what he has given us. He has been the initiator. ‘While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.’

PR- What roles and tasks do you think are appropriate for women?

EE- In the last analysis, of course, femininity cannot be defined socially or culturally. What I argue for is the recognition of a distinction between the woman’s role and the man’s role, and the preservation of that distinction in whatever ways are appropriate within the culture. The distinction will express itself in cultural and social ways which will differ from culture to culture.

For example, the Auca Indian women in Equador were the burden bearers, and they were physically trained to bear heavy loads. So men considered themselves physically incapable of carrying heavy loads. This, of course, is a switch from the way we look at it, isn’t it? We usually think of men as always being physically stronger.

Any doctor will testify to the fact that women are stronger in certain ways. They generally live longer, they don’t have as many heart attacks, and they are better at bearing pain. So there are certain ways in which women are physically stronger.

I’m not one to argue that it is wrong for women of the Auca tribe to bear burdens, and for the men to do the hunting.

PR- Could you be more specific about what you think is appropriate in Western culture today?

EE- You cannot demonstrate that men ought to stay home and that women ought to go out and win the bread. You simply cannot change the biological reality that women are the childbearers and nurturers, because they are physically equipped to do that. When you start arguing that women ought not to take care of small children, you are arguing against a biological reality.

When I say that within the terms of a culture there will be certain different expressions of masculinity and femininity, I am talking about external things that are not that clearly defined biologically. The Techua men of the mountains of Equador wear longer hair than the women. They wear a long pigtail down the middle of their backs. Who can argue that that goes against biology?

But to try to change all of biology, all of psychology, all of history, all of poetry, all of legend, and reverse the roles, that is a violation of one of the deepest elements of our humanity- our sexuality.

If you just look at sexuality by itself as a physical, visible reality, you can see that man was made for initiation, and woman was made to receive. The woman was made to bear and carry and nurture children. And so it makes sense from every standpoint that women should be willing to accept this role.

I believe the feminist movement is a form of rebellion against God, because God is the one who arranged this.

PR: Are there some legitimate strengths in the women’s movement?

EE: In so far as our awareness has been heightened of the need for women to be what God wants women to be, then that is to the good. What probably most women are rebelling against are the abuses of femininity and masculinity which have become common wherever the church has wrongfully suppressed the gifts of women.

I can understand women rebelling against that suppression. Where men are misunderstanding the whole idea of scriptural authority and taking it to mean bossism, tyranny, and cruelty, women have been hurt. Unfortunately, many of them are rebelling against the whole scriptural idea instead of against the abuses of the scriptural idea.

This is what I try to clarify. When I say the husband is the head of the wife, I don’t mean the husband is the boss. I don’t mean the husband is supposed to trample the wife under his feet. I simply try to remind them of what the Bible says headship means.

In the case of Christ, being head of the church means he became a servant, a suffering servant. So that reveals the lie of the whole idea of bossism and tyranny.

If the husband is to love the wife as Christ loved the church, he has to lay down his life for her perfection and holiness and to make her glorious, just as Christ loved the church.

PR: Have you encountered some women who have suffered great abuse and, somewhat unwillingly, have fallen into the feminist mentality?

EE: Yes. I meet many women like this. The women’s movement is swarming with women who have suffered at the hands of men, women who have not had a happy relationship with their father or husband or brothers, and women who have been abused in the work world.

What is pathetic and sad is that they seek a false remedy in feminism. That is not the remedy. The remedy is a clear understanding of what the Bible says about the roles that God puts men and women in.

PR: How is the kind of strength that a Christian woman is supposed to have different from the feminist ideal?

EE: First, I would look at the strength that Jesus exhibited. He was strong willed in his ability to will against himself. The one who submits is not by any means necessarily weak by that submission. There is a dreadful misconception that submission is an admission of weakness, an admission of inferior worth.

The life of Jesus proves the very opposite. He submitted to the will of the Father. He was not admitting thereby that He was not equal with the Father. He was equal with the Father, but did not consider equality a thing to be grasped at, but made himself nothing and humbled himself and became obedient to death. That is strength, to be able to say, “Not my will, but thine be done.” So a woman submits to her husband requires a much greater strength than a woman who defies the position that God has given her and defies her husband.

To look at it another way, who is the stronger woman: the one who grabs her yogurt for breakfast, picks up her attaché case, and races off to the executive law office for an eight-hour day, comes home and collapses with a cocktail in front of the fire; or the woman who works eighteen hours a day taking care of four small children, cooking meals, washing clothes, scrubbing floors? What kind of strength does it take to do one job or the other? To me there is no question at all but the latter woman has to be the stronger in every way. It is just sheer nonsense to say that women, to prove their strength, must do what men do.

My brother, Tom Howard, says that one might take the view that men have been relegated to the periphery of things, and that it is women who already at the very heart of the universe by being the lifebearers. Men have to sort of be given a consolation prize of being allowed to do other things, because they can’t do the thing which is really the center of life; they go out and hunt, make war, run businesses, and do all these secondary things.

I don’t know what model of womanly strength we need other than the Virgin Mary, who, by her willingness to say, “Be it unto me according to thy word.” Sanctified for all time what motherhood is all about and was willing to be known forever as somebody’s mother.

PR: Many people today object that the domestic role is not fulfilling for a woman.

EE: No woman and no man can ever be fulfilled except by doing the will of God. That is where fulfillment lies.

Of course, singleness as well as marriage and motherhood is a valid means of serving God. I am not saying a woman cannot be fulfilled except by being a mother. I am saying that no man or woman can ever be fulfilled except by doing the will of God.

Unarguably, for the vast majority of women the will of God is motherhood and wifehood, and homemaking. The world is telling us that that is not where it is at, that you can’t be just a wife, just a mother, just a homemaker; if you don’t go out and do something “fulfilling”- by which feminists usually mean a man’s job- then you cannot really be a full person. Well, that is baloney.

PR: You have spoken elsewhere of sexuality being profaned today. What do you mean by that?

EE: I really believe that sexuality has been profaned. Profanity is treating something with spiritual significance as if it meant nothing. The profaning of God, obviously, is the ultimate way of treating something totally significant as insignificant. Sexuality can also be treated as though it were opaque, as though you couldn’t see any spiritual significance through it. Ephesians 5 is the definitive passage on that.

PR: Do you think that is what radical feminists are doing when they say that there is such a thing as masculine and feminine but cannot really define them?

EE: Yes. The common denominator of both the biblical and nonbiblical feminists, I find, is that all insist there is no distinction between men and women, apart from the biological. That is basically what they are saying, even if they do not articulate it. When you push them to the end, that’s what it comes out as. That is what feminism says. The biblical and nonbiblical feminists are saying the same thing- you don’t know the difference between masculine and feminine. But the bible makes it absolutely clear that the female principle represents creation, the church, the soul; these have been seen as female in all Christian history, because they are the receivers and the responders. They are acted on by the Creator. God is a masculine principle. C.S. Lewis says that God is so masculine, all creation is feminine in comparison. Why else would the church have thought of the creation as a “she”? And the church as a “she”? And the soul as “she”? Because we are the responders and receivers.

PR: What recommendations would you offer to those pastoring Christian women?

EE: Women must be seen as being made in the image of God and as being gifted in many different ways. Paul certainly recognized that women had spiritual gifts. Those gifts must be exercised just as responsibly as men’s gifts but always within the framework which has been established by God.

Men are not free to exercise their gifts any old way, any old time; they are within the framework of discipline. Likewise are women So when I say that women’s gifts are to be freely exercised in the church, I mean just as men’s gifts are.

There is the principle in which men are to hold the authority in both the church and the home. I would say that there are heavier constraints on the men than on the women.  I am tired of people talking about how Paul was so hard on women. Paul  was much harder on men than he was on women.

When Paul says, “Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church,” to me that’s the most impossible demand imaginable. There isn’t a husband in the world who ever loved his wife as Christ loved the church, anymore then there has ever been a wife who has submitted as we are supposed to submit to Christ.

We are a bunch of miserable offenders, both men and women. We have done things which we ought not to have done, and we have left undone things which we ought to have done, and there is no help in any of us. That is why we are in such a mess. But the principles are there for us to obey. The sooner we start obeying, the happier we will be, and the more harmony there will be in the church. Pastoral leaders must recognize this distinction; they must be willing to have the guts to stand up for it against the screaming women. There aren’t very many men strong enough to stand up to screaming women.

This is one of the reasons for our troubles in the church. I think too many weak-kneed pastoral leaders have capitulated because women can be so impossible. They come demanding this and this; and men, out of some very misguided notion of chivalry, say, “Okay, let the poor little women have what they want.” They’ve got to stand up against it.

They must teach about the gifts of women and find ways in which they can be properly exercised within the order that God has established.”

This interview was in the Pastoral Renewal Magazine.

If reading this interview has really hit home for you, if you feel that God is revealing something to you through this or if you feel that you need to make a change in your relationship with your husband then I encourage you to put it into action, for hearing is not obedience. There has been so many times at church that I hear something and I think that was a great sermon for me, I can apply that to my life, but I hardly ever end up following through and really applying it.

There are so many good points in this interview. I like what Elisabeth Elliot says about the feministic movement being a rebellion against God. I think that is so true. Women have been belittled or hurt by man and instead of turning to God they decide to belittle man back through their feministic ideals. God has made woman a woman and man a man and it is not God’s will to try to be a man when you are a woman and it is not God’s will for either to belittle one another. A husband is to be loving and a wife submissive, to go against that is going against the will of God.

What if your husband does not love? Do you still need to be submissive? Well if someone else sins does that give you the right to sin? I know it’s not that simple but I am saying that no matter what situation you are in the Bible still applies to you. I want to share something from my own life. Several years ago I met a man and I fell in love with him. After a few months of friendship we started dating and after a year and a half of dating he asked me to marry him and I said yes. He talked about his relationship with the Lord openly with me. I liked his musical abilities and his personality. I liked him and he liked me. During our engagement he got a job at a pharmacy. I don’t know why but he started to steal prescription drugs. He became addicted to vicodin, alcohol and smoked pot occasionally. Our relationship was changing and our common interests were becoming fewer and fewer. I still loved him and wanted him to get better. A few months before our wedding date he started to become very angry and would hit me. I am quick to give my opinion about things and was not careful with my words. I remember one time we had looked at a potential place we would live after we got married. I was saying something about not liking it or maybe I liked it and he didn’t, I just remember I voiced my disagreement and he hit me once. A month later one hit turned into a couple blows in a row. At first he would be angered at disagreements but later it could have been a tiny little thing that could set him off. I remember I had planned a special date for our birthdays (our birthdays were a day apart) as a surprise for him. I went to pick him up and was getting worried because he was taking too long getting ready and we were running late. He did not like me hurrying him one bit and hit me on the shoulder so hard it sent me to the floor and then a punch to the face and about a dozen in the stomach. After that I was so physically hurt but I was afraid to press charges. I didn’t see him for a while and I called off the wedding.

Someone once told me that the first time he hits you it’s his fault but after that it is your fault for not leaving him. I don’t totally agree with that statement but I see now that if a man ever hits a woman that the woman should not be around him. She should leave. The physical body is too fragile and the woman’s life is too valuable to be put in that situation. It’s not a matter of submitting for abuse is never in God’s plan. I know it’s not the easiest thing in the world to leave someone who has hit you although it sounds like common sense. When you love someone you want so badly for them to love you back but the most important thing is to love God more and receive God’s love and how are you receiving God’s love if you are allowing someone to hit you?

While I was in this abusive relationship there were times that he came to me crying and saying how sorry he was. I think that he did feel remorse but he would hurt me again and again. I shouldn’t have stayed in that relationship. After I broke off the wedding I received a letter in the mail saying that he was attending an anger management class. What did I do? The most stupid thing ever of course, I decided to see him again. We had an argument and he head butted me and choked me. While he was choking me he must have felt some type of guilt and let go and immediately said he was sorry. I threw up and ran to my car and never returned to him. I wasn’t even married to him and it was so hard to leave. I can’t imagine how hard it is for a wife to leave an abusive husband. God can restore an abusive marriage but until that happens I think the wife should not be around him and should not try to restore it herself.

Being a victim of abuse does not give anyone the right to disobey God’s Word nor form hatred in the heart. If you are in an abusive relationship, seek help right away and go somewhere safe. Do not let bitterness and hatred find a place in your heart. Do not form feministic ideals in your mind.

If you are not in an abusive marriage and if you know in your heart how you can be submissive and encouraging to your husband then do it. Love your husband continually and put him before your friends, yourself and your kids. Yes, put him before your kids. As a mother I can tell you how easy it is to love my own child and as a wife I can tell you how sometimes it’s hard to love my husband (most of the time it’s easy though because I’m married to a pretty awesome man of God). But the relationship with the husband should be the most important relationship next to God.

Some people say “it’s the little things that matter”, but I think that it’s not the little things that matter but that the little things are a reflection of the big things. I remember my parents getting into a fight about carrots. One had thrown the carrots away because they were too old and had been sitting in the refrigerator too long. The other parent didn’t think so and started yelling because the carrots that we were going to eat were thrown out. The fight went on and on. Was it the carrots that mattered? No, it definitely was not. I tell you now, if you have carrot issues in your marriage, you better look at the big picture and love your spouse or you will end up divorced and alone like my parents. Work on the big issues in your heart and those little fights should become nearly extinct. When those little issues come up, talk to your spouse lovingly and keep the big picture in mind.

As far as your identity, be sure you always know who you are in Christ. Yes, what you do effects who you are but it does not limit you. Your job as a mother or a lawyer or whatever you do is apart of who you are but it isn’t your whole identity. Clara Schumann, a famous musician, was limiting herself in her early career as a musician by saying “I once believed that I possessed creative talent, but I have given up this idea; a woman must not desire to compose- there has never yet been one able to do it. Should I expect to be one? To believe this would be arrogant, something that my father once, in former days, induced me to.” When her husband died she had to compose to provide for herself and 7 children. She was an amazing composer. I wonder how far she could have gone hadn’t it been for her misconception of womanhood. Do not have the misconception that being a woman somehow limits you.

I hope this helps you in your relationship with your husband and in your role as a wife. Continue to read the Word and love your husband.

It is very important as a mother to know what is dangerous to your child. The Texas Poison Center Network has been dedicated to providing safety information for years. Their phones are staffed by specially trained nurses and pharmacists. Their staff are trained in emergency cases. In fact their nurses all worked in an emergency room. You can have peace of mind when calling the Texas Poison Center Network because they are professionals and have a very detailed computer listing of medication (Micromedex), chemicals, plants, bugs, etc. and can give you very critical advice that can save your childs life or can save you a trip to the hospital. They can tell you what chemicals can harm your child, what to do if your child comes in contact with poisonous things, and what you should do to provide immediate care for your child. It is very important to program their number in your phone now for when you might need it (1-800-222-1222).

The Texas Poison Center Network not only provide information about poisons but also what medications you should give your child if he or she is sick. Some moms have experienced that they are more knowledgeable than their child’s pediatrician staff and quicker to answer their questions.  They can also give you information about your pet getting in contact with poisons.

In addition to putting their number in your phone, look at their website http://www.poisoncontrol.org/prevention.html and find out how to safety proof your home. It is very important to install a carbon monoxide detector in your home for carbon monoxide poisoning is the leading cause of deaths caused by poisons. It is also good to be sure all house plants are non toxic to your child. Make sure all medication is locked up and out of reach of your child. Be sure you have child locks on all cleaning chemical cabnets. Don’t just use any child lock but be sure its not a lock that your child could figure out how to open. Your child watches how you open locks and could figure it out. Be aware of everything in your house that can be a danger to your child. Did you know that baby oil can kill your child if swallowed down the wrong tube? (baby oil in a childs lung can kill him.) That is one thing that I learned from the Texas Poison Center. I also learned that I have two plants in my yard, oleander and lily of the valley, that can affect the heart if ingested. In fact here is a picture of my son in lilies of the valley flowers that I took last year. Little did I know how dangerous these little flowers were. I just thought they would make a pretty picture.

Snakes and bugs

Most people are very afraid of snakes but in fact more people die from insect bites than snake bites. There are a few dangerous snakes in Texas to look out for. They are rattlesnakes, copperheads, cottonmouths, and coral snakes.

For snake bites:

• Do not use ice or a tourniquet
• Call the Poison Center for instructions
• Go to the ER

What to do when you or your child is bit or stung by an insect or spider:

• Remove stinger if it is possible
• Wash the area with soap and water
• If itching or irritation develops call the Poison Center for instructions
• If breathing problems, wheezing or swelling around lips or tongue develop call 911

There are over 20,000 different species of spiders but almost all of them cannot hurt humans. The two spiders that are the most dangerous are brown recluse and black widow.  Orb spiders, like the one pictured here, are quite harmless to humans and kill lots of insects.

If you are a mother of a little one it is so important to be aware of dangers and safety precautions in and out of your home. Even if you are a grandparent, relative, or babysitter of a little child, it is important to keep your house as safe a place as a parent would. Listen to Mike Yudizky from the Texas Poison Center Network in this audio to hear more important information regarding poisons and safety. Mike Yudizkyis a public educator from Texas Poison Control Network and gives about 400 speeches a year around the state. He is a former teacher and has a teahing degree. He was also a firefighter and paramedic for the Dallas Fire Department for 27 years and received the “Paramedic of the year” award. Please listen to what he says and visit the Texas Poison Center Network website.

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