Uniquely God’s Man or Woman
When Ray and I committed to our family philosophy in 1994 and to a list of objectives we hoped to achieve in our children’s education, one of those objectives was this:
Be uniquely God’s man or woman.
We had no idea twenty-two years ago that this would be the issue it is today. We simply meant that we wanted John to be a strong, masculine, and godly man and Bethany and Mary Evelyn to be strong, feminine, and godly women who fulfilled the roles that God described for them in His Word.
Every husband needs a strong, feminine, and godly woman. Every wife needs a strong, masculine, and godly husband. Every child needs a strong, masculine, and godly father and a strong, feminine, and godly mother. The world needs men and women like that, too.
Ray and I have thought a lot about the unique roles of husbands and wives. We believe that two words sum up their needs well: cherish and respect. While both men and women need both of those, it seems to us that women have a particular need to be cherished and men a particular need to be respected.
I think the same is true for children. Each needs to be cherished and respected, but boys and girls have some unique needs, too. What better way to learn these crucial traits than in a family where they are modeled between the parents and toward the children, while children are expected to do the same.
Everyone of us is a human being created in the image of God with uniquely human traits. We are not tigers or vegetables. Everyone of us is also male or female. You have the wonderful — and crucial — opportunity to help your child grow into the uniquely male or female person that God wants that child to be.
God created man in His own image,
In the image of God He created him;
male and female He created them.
Genesis 1:27
I love the period photo of the bride and groom! As to whether or not she felt cherished by the gift…maybe she did, if her only other alternative would have been hand-sewing everything. It could be her hubby’s way of saying he wanted to make her work easier on her.:-)
Perhaps the man in the picture is wishing to get his bride a sewing machine because it would make life much easier for her! The sewing machine in the picture looks almost exactly like the one that my Mom, and I suspect Grandma had. It was later converted to an electric one.
I fully agree that we should bring our children up to be Godly men and women. Especially in a society that doesn’t necessarily believe this to be true.
Thank you for this message. I read your homeschooling list and that post too. That also was a much needed message!! I have been carrying homeshooling around like a sack of rocks and it became worse when I’ve needed to start working again. I truly believe God showed me this message today as a wake up call. This is how we live!! Amen!! Thank God we live in a country where we can live like that and serve and share our God!
Thank you for your post. I agree with everything you said. I do have a question, however. If a family has not been modeling the traits of cherishing and respecting one another, is it too late to start with older children?
We serve a God Who changed the apostle Paul from someone who persecuted Christians to someone who gave up everything to bring others to Jesus. And we serve a God Who turned things 180 degrees in the other direction — after Jesus died on the cross on Friday, He raised Him up on Sunday. Absolutely it is never too late to start modeling the traits of cherishing and respecting one another.