This chapter was good and I think it's a key concept to understanding what we can "do" now that we understand how we should think. We can think well about the role we play and things like respect, obedience, and reverence but here we go into the "how" of living it out.
The word "sober" reminds me of another word in Scripture describing the elders in the church and women in another section...which is "sensible". That word seems to go hand in hand with this sober. How many insensible wives come to mind to me. So many. I know many lazy, foolish, unorganized, unplanning, apathetic women who view themselves as Godly women of God. Yikes. I've felt so convicted in the last several years (especially when my kids were babies) in this area of sober. Now I know why, GOD CALLS ME TO IT! I don't take managing my home lightly. I once had a friend say that at seminary she heard a man say that pastor's wives should all have house maids because they are just so swamped with ministry....she thought I'd agree and possibly even rally that our husbands should get us maids...but instead I busted out laughing and said something like "that's MY job and if I'm not doing it then I'm neglecting my calling as a wife and mom and I'm plain old lazy!" At no point am I to put ministry (even good things) over my family and my home. I also had a woman "confront" me upon arriving at a new church my husband was hired at, that I needed to be in a woman's Bible study and that I was basically in sin for not being in one. I explained to her that I had a 15 month old and I was pregnant with a very difficult pregnancy and was throwing up all day with very little strength and assured her that I was not able to do all the rigid homework the women's studies were requiring at the time. I barely made it to church on Sundays! She responded by saying that I could come to her Bible study and just excuse myself to go throw up in her bathroom. I then told her that when I would throw up I would also pee all over the floor. That shut her up. My point is, Bible study is a noble thing but my family still came first. I was raising and caring for a baby and also making one all at the same time and I had to embrace the limits of the season of life I was in. This didn't make me less Godly, less in the Word nor distant from God. My baby and the baby inside me, needed my body to be HOME. My home needed me to be HOME since it got the leftovers of any energy I had each day which was just enough to keep it running. My husband needed me HOME so that if I accomplished anything that day it was a meal for dinner.
I think I tend to "over plan" things in that I'm type A and the perfectionist in me makes things harder than they are. I'm always making things more complex and my struggle is learning how to simplify...so I really appreciated the tips and the thinking that Debi shared about simplifying your life in order to better serve our families. That really helped me in terms of thinking how to simplify!
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