Where Does That Leave Us?
And write they did— on the tablet of my heart…
When Old Fuzzy and I were young and tender, I was at a ladies’ function and it was necessary to introduce myself. We had just moved to Tennessee to attend preacher training school and there were several new wives along with myself.
I waited my turn listening as others introduced themselves. Many of the wives introduced themselves with, “Hello, I’m so and so’s wife.” That was the way to put people together indicating who went with whom.
That was somewhat nonsensical since none of us were much associated with each other yet, and as wives, we didn’t know the other women’s husbands anyway.
Yet, one of the teacher’s wives didn’t follow the standard line.
After these many years, I don’t remember what her introduction was, but only that she broke the mold, showing us that yes we were wives, but we were more than just one dimensional.
We were wives, we were mothers, daughters, Christians, students, and the list could go on. All of these things made us who we were; today it makes us who we are.
Quite a few years later, at the time when several of my children were leaving the nest, my daughter said to me “Mom, it’s a good thing you have Buddy or you’d be an empty nester pretty soon.” And she was right.
Well, if that wasn’t a wake-up moment. An empty nester? And I was just over forty years old. There were our first six children born within ten years, then after ten more years, we had our last child.
Our first six were ready to scatter, most of them one right after another. And in my odd way of thinking it came to me, “I was a person before I had children, and I plan on being a person after they are gone…” The next question is, what kind of a person? Where does that take us, and then where does that leave us?
In reflection, the before I had children and the after I had children person was two completely different people. I had planned on only two children. God knew better. Life has a way of changing us, a way of writing on the heart. I hear women who say they don’t plan on nor do they want children.
There was a time when I told people who voiced that opinion, to hold on and wait a few years before making a permanent decision.
In our present society, I have found myself agreeing with many of these young women, especially the ones shouting ‘my body, my choice’. We live in a selfish world where too many people are more interested in themselves.
At one time women planned on marriage, and families were an offshoot of these unions. It was a given that as the childhood ditty said, “First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes XXXX with a baby carriage.” It was expected and most people did want children.
One of the thoughts I have seen lately says, “Most people raise children while working at the important things in life, not realizing that raising children is the most important thing in life.”
There is a basic need for people to recognize the value of life—The value of living, and the value of the future being rolled into the value of the moment.
Genesis 3:
4) And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
5) For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
6) And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.”
