Glory in the Ordinary E-Book

Courtney Reissig

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 223

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

Folding laundry. Weeding the garden. Cooking dinner. Changing diapers. Work in the home can seem so ordinary. Does any of it matter? Is there meaning in our most mundane moments at home? When the work of the home fills our days, it is easy to get disillusioned and miss God's grand purpose for our work. As image bearers of the Creator who made us to work, we contribute to society, bringing order out of chaos and loving God through loving others—meaning there's glory in every moment. In this encouraging book, Courtney Reissig combats the common misconceptions about the value of at-home work—helping us see how Christ infuses purpose into every facet of the ordinary.

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“Glory in the Ordinary is a needed reminder of the beauty and blessing of work within the home. Courtney Reissig reveals how serving others in small ways builds a lifetime of glorifying God. The simple tasks of cooking a meal, taking out the trash, fixing a car, or washing laundry might seem mundane, but offered to God, these daily tasks have kingdom significance.”

Melissa Kruger, Women’s Ministry Coordinator, Uptown Church, Charlotte, North Carolina; author, The Envy of Eve; Editor, The Gospel Coalition; blogger, Wit’s End

“Have you ever considered the significance of your work at home? Everyone needs encouragement in his or her work, and in Glory in the Ordinary, Courtney Reissig provides just that. Reissig shares honestly and humbly about the various temptations and struggles of at-home work, reminding us that our work—from cleaning dishes to wiping runny noses—is good and meaningful work, ultimately because it’s meaningful to God.”

Trillia Newbell, author, Enjoy, Fear and Faith, and United

“Living in daily life what an author writes in a book is the sure mark of authenticity, and Courtney passes that test well. She invites God into every area of her life, especially her home. I love seeing young women choose the often lonely and thankless road of mommy-land knowing the rewards will come one day, if not from grownup children, from a Father who sees all and is pleased with her sacrifice and service in his name.”

Barbara Rainey, Cofounder, FamilyLife; author, Letters to My Daughters: The Art of Being a Wife

“From the invigorating depths of theological reflection as well as personal life experience as a stay-at-home mom, Courtney Reissig opens our minds and captures our hearts to the messy grandeur of noncompensatory work. Glory in the Ordinary adeptly maintains gospel-centricity and cultural relevance while making a persuasive case that neighborly love begins in the place we call home. Whether you are presently a stay-at-home mom or your workplace is outside the home, Glory in the Ordinary will help you better connect Sunday to Monday with a more integral, coherent, and seamless gospel faith. This is a book that needed to be written, one I have been waiting for. I highly recommend it.”

Tom Nelson, author, Work Matters; Senior Pastor, Christ Community Church, Overland Park, Kansas; President, Made to Flourish

“Ordinary is a word that perfectly describes my life and the lives of most women in my church and community. Each day presents a fresh to-do list that looks remarkably like the one from yesterday—and the one from last year: lunches and laundry, dishes and dusting, gardening and grocery shopping. But with warmth and wisdom Courtney Reissig opens our eyes to God’s glory in this ordinary. Exploring questions of identity, community, service, and rest, Reissig sets work in the home in its historic and biblical context and gives meaning to our mundane. Whether your priorities include gleaming windows or PB&J for six, this book will help you to value your work in the home because God himself values it. That dirty floor can wait. Read and be encouraged.”

Megan Hill, writer; speaker; pastor’s wife; author, Praying Together; contributor, The Gospel Coalition and CT Women; editorial board member, Christianity Today Magazine

“As one who never expected to work in the home, this book is refreshing, gospel-saturated encouragement for all of us who are knee-deep in laundry, childcare, and dishes. Be prepared to see your work in a whole new way: with joy, for the kingdom, and with eternity in view.”

Christina Fox, writer; speaker; author, A Heart Set Free: A Journey to Hope through the Psalms of Lament

“I’m thankful Courtney has joined the generations of wise women who build their homes (Prov. 14:1). Her book affirms the dignity and worth of homemaking and homekeeping, even as it reminds us that such work is faithfully loving our closest neighbors: the ones who live under our own roofs.”

Candice Watters, Cofounder, Boundless.org; author, Get Married: What Women Can Do to Help It Happen

Glory in the Ordinary

Glory in the Ordinary

Why Your Work in the Home Matters to God

Courtney Reissig

Glory in the Ordinary: Why Your Work in the Home Matters to God

Copyright © 2017 by Courtney Reissig

Published by Crossway1300 Crescent StreetWheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law. Crossway® is a registered trademark in the United States of America.

Published in association with the literary agency of Wolgemuth & Associates, Inc.

Cover design: Crystal Courtney

First printing 2017

Printed in the United States of America

Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-4335-5267-0ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-5270-0PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-5268-7Mobipocket ISBN: 978-1-4335-5269-4

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Reissig, Courtney, 1983– author.

Title: Glory in the ordinary : why your work in the home matters to God / Courtney Reissig.

Description: Wheaton : Crossway, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016041199 (print) | LCCN 2017006409 (ebook) | ISBN 9781433552670 (tp) | ISBN 9781433552687 (pdf) | ISBN 9781433552694 (mobi) | ISBN 9781433552700 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Wives—Religious life. | Homemakers—Religious life. | Christian women—Religious life. | Home economics. | Home—Religious aspects—Christianity.

Classification: LCC BV4528.15 .R45 2017 (print) | LCC BV4528.15 (ebook) | DDC 248.8/435—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016041199

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

2022-03-03 11:25:31 AM

To my parents, Rick and Deb Tarter

For showing me the value and dignity of ordinary work, knowing that in the Lord my work is never in vain (1 Cor. 15:58).

Contents

Acknowledgments

 1  The Changing Nature of At-Home Work

 2  Is There Life out There?

 3  What about the Chores?

 4  My Home, My People

 5  It Takes a Village

 6  Miles to Go before I Sleep

 7  Am I Getting Fired?

 8  Our Work Is Taking Us Somewhere

Notes

Suggested Readings

General Index

Scripture Index

Acknowledgments

No one’s work is done in isolation, even the work of writing a book. Of course, my name might be on the cover, but I am not the only one responsible for this book. It took a whole community of people to get this book finished.

It’s a joy to work with such great people as the team at Crossway. Thank you especially to Tara Davis, Dave DeWit, Amy Kruis, and Lauren Harvey for believing in this book, working to make it better, and spreading its message. I consider it a privilege to partner with you.

My agent, Erik Wolgemuth, has been a great friend and encourager throughout the entire publishing process. It’s a joy to work with you.

Thank you to the Gospel Coalition for first giving me a category for thinking biblically about my work, but for also giving me a platform to process this journey in the form of this book. I’m honored to work alongside such a godly team of people.

You will read a variety of stories of women in this book. These are real women who took time to talk to me about their work in the home. Thank you to Carla Jaynes, Tovey Schmidt, Julia Straub, Leanne Jenkins, Sara Bledsoe, Laura Breeding, Rachael Newton, Emily Tarter, Rachael Metcalf, Kaileigh Mobbs, Miriam Poteet, Cecile Bledsoe, Callie Cate, Carol Jenkins, Hannah Anderson, Trillia Newbell, Jen Wilkin, Megan Hill, and Gloria Furman.

Thank you to my dear friend, Robin Ricks, for gladly watching my kids so I could leave the house to write, and for doing my laundry when you saw it piling up. You are a gift to me and to the church.

I’m greatly indebted to the people who took time to read parts (or all) of the manuscript and provide feedback. Anything good you read is owing to their help—many words were cut (which was painful but good!) and many thoughts were clarified because of them. My brother and sister-in-law, Zach and Emily Tarter, have proven so helpful for their dialogue, feedback, and care for the topic and my own engagement of it. Megan Hill carefully read a number of chapters, helped me clarify my thoughts, and brought her keen editorial eye as a former English teacher. Thanks for reading my book when you had your own book to work on, friend. Laura Breeding read every chapter of this book, and brought her helpful perspective with honesty and wisdom. Miriam Poteet was a source of encouragement both in our frequent conversations about the book and her thoughts on draft chapters.

None of this would have even happened if it weren’t for Bethany Jenkins nudging me to think about writing a book on this topic. She saw something before I did, pointed me in the direction of resources that would stretch me and grow me, and cheered me on along the way. You are a good friend and a faithful editor.

My husband, Daniel, again has proven to be a source of strength and rest for me. It sounds cliché, but none of this would be possible if it weren’t for his support and belief that I have something to contribute to this conversation. Thank you for believing in my voice, for being honest with me, and for loving me throughout every season—even the crazy book-writing one.

And to my kids: Luke, Zach, and Seth. I pray you will grow up to see the work God has called you to as good and valuable. It’s a joy to be your momma—and it’s in these ordinary days that I feel that joy most deeply.

1

The Changing Nature of At-Home Work

Last year, I had the rare opportunity to travel without kids. I was attending a conference and, for the first time, leaving my children for longer than twenty-four hours. Because I was traveling alone, I looked like just about every other passenger on the plane. I had a book. I was dressed in clothes that I wore only if I could ensure sticky toddler fingers wouldn’t stain them. And I was relaxed.

“So, what do you do for a living?” the woman sitting next to me asked. Not an uncommon airplane question—I could tell the woman was interested in small talk. I like small talk, except this time fear bubbled up inside me as I pondered how to answer. She was clearly a professional woman. I knew that because I used to be one of those women, before I had my twin boys and decided to stay home with them. Suddenly, my pride in my at-home work dwindled, and I struggled to find an answer to her question.

It’s a simple question, Courtney. Just answer her honestly. You are a stay-at-home mom.

Or maybe I should tell her I’m a writer, I thought. That wouldn’t have been a lie, since I had just sent in the manuscript for my first book. I am a writer. But I’m also a mom.

Since I was teetering on the edge of crying from having just left my sons for my first long trip away, it seemed fitting to go with the obvious.

“I’m a stay-at-home mom,” I said nervously.

Of course, I love my kids and I love my work as a mom. I just know how it can be perceived when I actually put my vocation out there for public judgment. Not wanting to feel like a failure as a woman, I often struggle with how to respond to such a question in less conservative circles. I know that being a stay-at-home mom can be confusing to some people at best, and perceived as a waste at worst. True to my expectations, she wondered at my choice to stay home.

“I don’t know how you do that all day long. I would get so bored,” she said emphatically.

Should I tell her that I actually do get bored sometimes? I asked myself. But rather than starting a dialogue on how repetitive and tedious it can be to wash dishes, wipe noses, and train children, only to do it all over again the next day, I simply smiled and nodded.

True Confessions

I have a confession. I never wanted to be a stay-at-home mom—at least not when I was younger. When I hear women say that’s all they ever wanted to do, I marvel.The truth is, I didn’t really understand what a stay-at-home mom did. My mom stayed home with us, and I have fond memories of our time with her. She was there whenever I needed her, but to be honest, I never paid much attention to what she actually did for my brothers, my dad, and me. I viewed her work from a selfish perspective—she existed for me. And I wanted a little more for my life than servitude. While I have always loved children, I’ve disdained cleaning bathrooms. I’ve always been the one to volunteer to hold the baby, but have never been able to muster the love of baking and cooking that I assumed characterized a stay-at-home mom. What I’ve always loved is writing. That I could see myself doing.

I’m not unlike many women today who have found themselves as stay-at-home moms after not giving it much thought in their younger years. I grew up in a time when girls could be anything they wanted to be. Women now have choices and options never afforded to them before. Women can work from home while staying at home with their children. They can work outside the home while their children receive quality care from someone else. Women can stay home while still retaining their dreams and aspirations through part-time work at nap time, like I do as a writer. Women can stay home and still be praised for their choice.

So I dreamed big. A lot of other women did, too. But even with all of our high aspirations, many of us are still “opting out” of promising careers when children come along—even if we never saw ourselves doing so prior to bringing home our babies.

Journalist Louise Story tracked the career aspirations of women at elite colleges over the course of forty years.1 Through in-depth interviews and questionnaires with current female students and faculty, and through surveying alumni, she found that many modern women, unlike their predecessors, actually aspire to stay home. More than that, even women who said forty years ago that they didn’t want to stay at home, in fact, did for a period of time. In her initial article in The New York Times, Story noted that among graduates of Yale University and Harvard Business School, the number of women who were still working full time later in life was only around half—compared to 90 percent of their male classmates.2 Other research confirms her findings.3 On average, 43 percent of women will likely exit their careers for a time.4 The reality that women end up working in the home may not have changed, but the aspirations have shifted drastically. One generation’s liberation can be another generation’s bondage.

But doing stay-at-home work means something completely different for me than it did for my mother and my grandmother. And in a lot of ways, that’s owing to the shift in how we view the nature of at-home work itself.

From Production to Consumption

Prior to the Industrial Revolution, everyone did at-home work—even children. Because much of society was agrarian, the father often worked in the fields or cared for the livestock, while the mother often created, cleaned, and cooked. Bread needed baking, chickens needed plucking, and laundry needed mending. All work—for men and women—was at-home work, and it was hard work too. (This is still the reality, of course, for many men and women living in agrarian areas throughout the world.)

The Industrial Revolution, though, shifted productivity from the home to the marketplace and factories. As filmmaker Carolyn McCulley and entrepreneur Nora Shank write in The Measure of Success, this shift brought about “separate spheres” for men and women—men in manufacturing and business and women in the home embracing the domestic life. This became known as the Golden Age of Domesticity.5

By the 1950s and 1960s, a single-income family with a housewife was a status symbol, and much of the laborious at-home work—by hand and from scratch—became optional for those who could afford it. With the creation of the vacuum cleaner, washer and dryer, and other modern appliances, the time it took to do traditional housework was suddenly cut in half. Bread could be bought. Clothes could be washed and dried in half the time. The home became primarily a place of consumption, not productivity.6For women of my grandmother’s generation, the home was a place of entertainment and enjoyment of the shiny new things the post–World War II economy could buy. The housewife who used the newest cleaning products, appliances, and cooking gadgets was an aspiration to be envied. The work of the home was suddenly simplified in ways never seen before. It simply didn’t take as long to cook, clean, and care for the daily tasks of the home. With children at school during the day, women had a lot of extra time on their hands. Add to this the increasingly professionalized nature of the home in the form of TV dinners, housekeepers, and even cooking shows with professional cooks, and women began to feel their amateur status and long for something different.

That extra time meant more opportunities for leisure, consumerism, and—for many—boredom. In The Feminine Mystique, Betty Freidan talks about a woman who wonders what to do with her newfound free time but has no options to move out of her domestic sphere. She sees her as trapped in her own home. What the Golden Age of Domesticity tried to answer about at-home work by making it a status symbol, Freidan tried to fix by making it irrelevant and beneath women. She saw the modernization of at-home work as an opportunity for women to put such menial tasks behind them. Friedan encouraged women to find their identity outside their husbands, children, and home.7

The Mommy Wars

By the 1980s, Friedan’s clarion call to freedom launched an unexpected war between women. Since staying at home was now optional, women—especially mothers—felt the need to explain their personal decisions.

The mom who chose to stay at home felt compelled to justify her work as the best (and most sacrificial). Her orientation shifted from her husband (“housewife”) to her children (“stay-at-home mom”). She was now expected to be a “full-time-playmate-for-little-kids,” a provider of endless hours of entertainment.8 She justified her work as the best choice for the kids.

The mom who chose to work outside the home felt compelled to justify her work as worthy, meaningful, and important enough to leave her children. She felt that this is what her mother fought for—her own career advancement. She focused on her talents and how to impact society, not just her 2.5 children. She quoted studies showing that working moms spend just as much time with their kids as their own mothers spent with them.9

Welcome to the “mommy wars.”The term was created in the late 1980s by Child Magazine to highlight the tension between working moms and stay-at-home moms.10 In 1990, Newsweek chronicled the shift from women fighting men in the 1970s with the women’s movement, to mothers fighting mothers in the late 1980s into 1990.11 At the time, 56 percent of mothers worked outside of the home, while 44 percent were stay-at-home moms. In a near fifty/fifty split, the mommy wars were a full-on battle.

And there’s still been no cease-fire. The truth is, moms are tired. I know. I am one. Moms are weary of the pressure to live up to expectations and ideals that no human being could ever attain. Either we hear that our work at home is the pinnacle of greatness (leaving the mother who works outside of the home feeling inferior) or we hear that we are letting down women everywhere by staying home instead of taking advantage of the strides women have made in the workplace (leaving the mother who stays home feeling inferior). The mommy wars pit women against each other in a failed attempt to boost our pride over our own accomplishments. Instead of looking at our work through God’s eyes, we look at it through our own—and wonder if we measure up.

Moms who stay home now are mostly doing so because of their own choice. But not all are.12 Some are staying home because of the economic downturn, some because of the difficulty of juggling home life and work life, and others because of inflexible work schedules. What used to be a status symbol is now embedded with complex stories and life circumstances.

When we look at the mommy wars in the context of a culture that has far more moms choosing to stay home—not because of a lifelong ambition, as Story’s research shows, but because of things like financial constraints, changes in perspective over a newborn baby, and pressures over work/life balance—it muddies the waters in our discussion about the value of at-home work itself. And it brings us back to the same questions our mothers and grandmothers had—questions about meaning and identity.

The Face of At-Home Work

Our search for meaning and identity has also led us to spend endless hours debating who’s doing the at-home work—women or men. With the increase of mothers in the paid workforce, the percentage of stay-at-home moms has gone down from 49 percent in 1967 to 29 percent in 2012.13 In families where Mom works outside of the home, some still sense the need for a parent, family member, or caretaker to be at home. Stay-at-home dads, though a small number, are growing. Current research says that 3.6 percent of at-home parents are dads.14At-home workers are not simply moms and dads, though. For households in which both parents work outside the home—either because of choice or necessity—grandparents, nannies, and at-home daycare workers are another group of people who spend their days in the mundane realities of childcare, housework, and creating order out of chaos.

Regardless of where we stand on who should be the face of at-home work, everyone is engaging in it on some level. My husband changes diapers. Sometimes he does laundry. We both clean up the same toys every night. My friend who is a nurse makes dinner for her kids at the end of the day. Her husband takes them to the doctor. They both help them brush their teeth and get ready for bed at night. There is no room for the mommy wars when your son gets sick in the middle of the night or your daughter needs an emergency trip to the dentist.

The majority of at-home work falls on the one who stays home, but it is for everyone. The mommy wars have no place in our discussion of at-home work because they distort it. They keep us fighting over the very work we are all doing, just in varying degrees. And in war we lose the value of the work that we all have some stake in. While we can spin our wheels endlessly debating who stays home, the reality is moms and dads everywhere wonder about the work itself. Does it matter? Is it simply a way to survive? Is there something more to see in the dirty diapers, temper tantrums, dishwashing, and repetitive nature of housework?

The Frazzled At-Home Worker

The “having it all” conversation, of course, doesn’t help us answer these questions. The mommy wars planted the seed in our minds that we could have a growing career and family without missing a beat. While many are now debunking “having it all” as a myth, the impact on how we view at-home work still lingers. Far from giving us more freedom, the false promise of “having it all” has entrapped us even more.Now, women are expected to do everything—at-home work in the form of mommy bloggers, Pinterest boards, and child-centered living, plus work outside the home as well. Depending on our particular context, we either have a subculture that’s telling us at-home work is our ultimate identity or one that’s heaping disdain on the very nature of the work. In addition, we have a steady stream of television shows and networks (HGTV, Food Network), magazines (Real Simple, Better Homes and Gardens), and entertainment personalities (Martha Stewart, Rachael Ray) that glorify the work of the home, but that make it more about the business or consumption aspect of the work. In all this, we are losing sight of the work itself—why it matters and what purpose it serves.

In the 2011 movie I Don’t Know How She Does It, stay-at-home moms are portrayed as privileged, judgmental women who spend their mornings at the gym and their afternoons dishing about school gossip, while the main character (an overworked professional mom) simply tries to remember what she is doing from day to day. She can hardly keep up with the work of her home, while her fellow moms who stay home can’t find enough things to fill their mundane days. This portrayal of at-home work as an endless vacation for the brainless, wealthy white woman is not uncommon. A recent article even goes so far as to say that while at-home work is a gift and a privilege, it’s hardly a job.15 A job takes effort and skill; playing with your children all day does not. Again, with our consumption and leisure-focused society, we are missing the point of at-home work.

Even as I talk to my friends about their perceptions regarding at-home