Is It Too Late?

Spring Daydreams by William Magnum (allposters)

When women realize that they were not taught the natural alternative to the feminist agenda ,they want to be home and do all the nurturing and baking and homemaking things that they missed out on. They see their families getting older and wonder if it is too late for them to do the best thing. Then, they wonder how they can reclaim “the wasted years, which the swarming locusts have eaten.”*

Locusts could so completely destroy whatever food was growing, whether it be fruit trees or crops, that it would not grow again for some time. Yet the Israelites were assured that the years that it would take to recover from that spoiler, the locusts, would be restored, as if they had not occurred. That is like, if you will, a person who has lived carelessly with his money for a long long time, and then upon learning a better way to manage his finances, recovering quickly. In fact, he lives so abundantly that when he tells people, "I was once in debt, had nowhere to live, and job." The way he looks and lives would make it difficult to believe. Since he went in a different direction in his life, he reaped the rewards of a lifetime.

In the same way, a homemaker can live in such a way as to fill in all those gaps she missed while working, so that others will cannot even imagine her ever being away. I met a wonderful woman once who had a lovely home, and although it was modest and she was not rich, she managed to have well behaved children and a good marriage. I asked her what her secret was and she said, "I came home after several years as a lawyer. My life just gets better and better. Before, I had a terrible marriage and couldn't manage my home." I was all astonishment. She was such a natural and her family was obviously so well loved and attended to that she must have been doing it for a lifetime.

Sunlit Path (allposters.com)

When you pack up your things and come home for good, do not worry about how you will catch up. You will find that your decision alone erases a lot of the grief and loss of those "wasted years that the swarming locusts have eaten." Most women find their paycheck is eaten up by the time they get it, anyway. That is certainly like the effect of the locusts on a land.

Secret Garden by Gabriela (allposters)

A parable is told in Matthew** (a parable is an earthly story with a heavenly meaning) about a man who owned a vineyard. At various times throughout the day, he hired laborers. Those who were hired first agreed to the wage they would receive.

In the evening, he paid off the workers. The ones who came first were given the same wage as the ones who came first. The parable of course refers to the fact that even if a person were to wait all his life to do what was right, he would still get the reward.

Please don't get any ideas about being lazy and then wanting the reward at the last minute. This parable was talking about sincere people who were not hired at first because they did not know where the harvest was.

In the same way, sincere women who realize they have missed out on a lot of years with their families at home, will find that they catch on quickly to full-time homemaking and seem to overcome those lost years.

I used to think that children should learn to read by the age of 6 or they would be "behind." When my own children did not read until they were 9 or 10, I discovered that they enjoyed their new skill so much, they quickly caught up with, and surpassed the standard. When others heard them read fluently from the KJV Bible and classic literature, they assumed they had been reading since babyhood. A new homemaker who has not had marriage and homemaking bred into her during her youth, will find she quickly graduates from point to point until no one would believe that she just quit work a few months ago.

Is there anyone who would say upon seeing an autumn rose that it was not as delightful as one that had bloomed early in the season?

Although many people will not become Christians til later in life, God has promised they will still get the reward of Heaven that the lifetime Christians will get. However, let us not make the mistake of thinking, "Well, if the results are going to be the same, I might as well waste my youth, and live my life as I please. It looks like it all comes out even in the end." The fact is, that even though the late-comers will enjoy success in marriage, home and family, coming home early has many more advantages:

Years of getting to know your own children: really looking them in the eyes and learning their moods to discern where correction and encouragement is needed. Children shuffled from daycare to home in their childhood really miss out on the wonderful, quiet moments at home. As I said in my book, "Just Breathing the Air," my mother often said that her childhood, though one in poverty, was "one, long, golden summer." It cannot be like that for children if the mother is not with them.

-Years of learning to manage the home. Some women will work til they have a child and then come home, and find it all very overwhelming. If they would stay home from the very beginning, (see the story, "When Queens Ride By,") they would learn to manage just two people (the husband and wife) and when they became three, they would have a lot of tasks on automatic drive. The baby at home would only be a small adjustment.

-All that time as a fulltime homemaker helped her develop patience and understanding. Changing diapers to her was not "a mindless job" as her young friends would claim, because she is helping someone who is helpless and developing a bonding with her child at the same time, a bond that, with proper care, will benefit her later on in life.

-Really learning about things like nutrition and food value, and ways to be frugal. When a woman works for years and years and then comes home, it is harder to adjust. That does not mean that she cannot do it. It just means that she didn't have the time to really develop cooking and homemaking skills that she needed when she quit work. There will be a lot of trial and error to coming home full time. She won't be used to making her husband's salary stretch. She may not have picked up any frugal habits. She may not know how to be resourceful. She may not have taught her children all the reasons they should keep the lights off in rooms not being used. She may not understand how her life at home can make or break her family. This is a good reason to raise up daughters who have a good understanding of home life.

When you come home at the last hour, you miss out on years and years of memories and blessings. That is not to say that a woman cannot come home later and have some reward. Of course she can, but let us not be careless. Let us pass on these values to the younger generation. Teach your daughters not to overlook their child-bearing years. Teach your children that the time to be home having a family and managing a home is in the beginning, not the end.

We have all seen the heartache of those elderly women who, through the influence of feminist talk, believed they shouldn't be "just a homemaker" and went to work most of their lives. Later, they retired, and there was no family to come home to. Not feeling needed, they went back to work. We reap what we sow. If we can be dedicated to the family, even if you have only a husband and no children, or only children and no husband, you will get back that investment in later years.

When home, you can learn as you go, just like a lot of people did. When I first began home schooling my children, I had no clue how to do it, but I knew it was the best thing for my family. I began to teach whatever was needed at the moment, from how to bathe and dress to how to formulate proper words (diction). When starting out, all you need to do is observe what is needed at the moment; what the most important thing is that needs to be done. Is it a meal, an ironed shirt, a made bed, the organization of paperwork?

Once you begin to see how a day goes, you will fall into your own routine. Your husband may come home at 4 p.m. and you will find yourself busy preparing a meal in anticipation of that. Maybe he leaves for an appointment at 9 a.m. In preparation you will need to see that he has clean clothes available.

Eventually, instead of doing things at the very last minute, you'll find it necessary to prepare hours and even days ahead. That gives you more free time to do creative things, write to your mother, show hospitality to someone, or do essential shopping.

One of the best examples I ever watched was a woman from Britain whose mother was an excellent homemaker. This daughter had developed habits without knowing it, just from the home life she had, observing her mother. When I stayed in her home I noticed that she had plenty of leisure time. She rarely had huge jobs to do or had to "climb out" of a pile of work. She managed this by never making a wasted motion in her house.

Once, she and I were going to watch a movie in her sitting room. As I was being seated in a comfortable chair, I noticed that on her way to her own chair, she straightened up a stack of books, removed some old papers, and put away a sweater that someone had left. Later in her kitchen, she did the same thing as we were merely walking through. If she were to go to one end of the house, she would surely take something on the way, or find something to put away somewhere else. She never saved up work for a cleaning day, but she was not always cleaning!

In my own home, I've had to learn the skill of not creating more work for myself. Instead of getting out an entire set of pots and pans I sometimes cook in one pan, beginning with the hardest to cook item, and ending with the food needing only minimal cooking. Instead of using an entire set of measuring cups and spoons, I measure out the dry ingredients in one big cup and then the liquid ingredients. One cup to wash is better than 4. Mixing and patting baked goods in one pan is also a time saver. It is not necessary to always do this, but it is good to know when you are creating more work for yourself than necessary.

The homemaker also needs to enlist the help of the other members of the family, as she is not there to do everything, but to guard and guide the home and to see that it gets done. Even if she cannot manage it altogether, and is not a particularly good cook or a brilliant teacher, just her very presence, and her attempt to be on her throne as manager of the home, will make a big, big difference in her own life and the lives of those around her.

*Joel 2:25

**Matthew 20:1-15