Epiphany

I had the occasion to spend some time with a dear friend and sister in the faith last week. It was a tremendous blessing since we haven’t had many opportunities in recent months to just sit together and talk. She works full time and while I am always encouraged and honored to talk with her over the phone, days like the one we shared are extra special to me.

She recounted an “epiphany” she had recently that is sure to change her life and the life of her family forever. It will be an adjustment, but certainly a change for the better. I’m sharing a bit of it here because I was having a similar epiphany on the other side of town on the exact same day as she was having hers.

She had a matter to attend to at a local business. It was a very large company where security officers could be seen at various places in the building. Several of them were women, in the standard unisex uniforms. At that moment she said that The Savior began to speak to her heart and tell her that what she was seeing around her was a total reversal of order. That this was not the role He created woman to fill. That if every one of those women who had a family was at home instead of where she was, there would be no job shortage, our children wouldn’t be confused and out of control, and more families would remain intact. Oh yes, and that she needed to make preparations to go back home full time-and soon.

If you knew my friend you would know that this was no small revelation. She is a very strong woman, who joyfully submits to her husband and loves her children, but prides herself on her independence and ability to achieve. Her perspective is actually quite common among women in the church today, among women in general, and especially among African-American women. In fact, my friend is in a management position at her place of employment. She has always respected my role as a full time homemaker, and has always known my perspective on this issue, but never felt any great conviction to come home herself, feeling that each family is free on this matter to follow their own conscience before the Heavenly Father. Do you recall my saying that among black women, very few would even know what you mean when you mention the "mommy wars"?

As she recounted her revelation to me, I was floored because I was having a similar experience on the same day. I was at a local retail outlet, waiting to check out, and the patron ahead of me had a price discrepancy, which meant the manger needed to be called. When the manager approached, I noted the wedding rings on her hand as they were quite beautiful, practically begging to be noticed. I thought to myself that with all of the men looking for work right now, if every married woman was at home serving her family there would be far fewer men without a job. I really don’t know where the thought came from as I am quite used to the realities of women in the workplace, but it occurred to me nonetheless.

I know there are tens, if not hundreds of extenuating circumstances and realities of life that validate the hundreds of thousands of women who wake up every morning and must enter the rat race. I also realize that many men, including my friend’s husband, are quite comfortable with their wives holding a job and financial realities are such that most families wouldn’t even know where to begin to streamline their finances and reduce their debt load enough to live on one income. If a husband desires that his wife work, I believe that she is to submit to her husband as unto the Lord and honor his wishes. However, as my friend rightly pointed out, believers are called to come out from among the world’s systems and do things God’s way. In addition, she added that it’s our disobedience, individually, and as the church corporately, that has created this twisted mess we have now. Unsupervised children. Families not taking care of their own. Churches not defending and providing for the widow and the orphan.

I am particularly sensitive to this issue as it relates to the black community. I have written about it before, and will refrain from belaboring the point too much again, but the staggering illegitimacy and incarceration rates that have crippled these communities and our children in them are directly related to numbers of absent fathers and the resulting high numbers of mothers with their attention divided between parenting and providing. This same lack of focus is often present when married mothers are preoccupied with both parenting and providing. Problems that could be addressed and halted early on in the lives of children often go unnoticed until they’ve reached a crisis point.

I am thrilled in ways I can hardly begin to express when an African-American, believing wife and mother, along with her husband, answers the call to live the Titus 2 mandate. It takes us one step closer to a day when the words “traditional black family” don’t sound like an oxymoron. I realize that this is an issue that transcends ethnic considerations, since some would say that we are in living in an era that is "post-family", where the nuclear family is largely becoming obsolete. Given that the family is the God-given foundation for societal stability, I find this line of thinking to be very problematic.

The truth hurts, but someone needs to tell it. The reason that delinquency and illegitimacy rates are no smaller within the church than without is because our lives are no different than that of the world. We live the exact same lifestyles. Is it any wonder that in our families we would get the exact same results? We have deluded ourselves long enough. Albert Eintein said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome. Why do we think that dragging our madness to church with us obligates God to bless it?


By the way, there are ways for a wife to be a financial blessing to her family without abdicating her post to do it. But I’ll have to take that thought up another day. Stay tuned!