A Model Marriage

"Sometimes we have seen a model marriage, founded on pure love, and cemented in mutual esteem. Therein, the husband acts as a tender head; and the wife, as a true spouse, realizes the model marriage-relation, and sets forth what our oneness with the Lord ought to be. She delights in her husband, in his person, his character, his affection; to her, he is not only the chief and foremost of mankind, but in her eyes he is all-in-all; her heart's love belongs to him, and to him only. She finds sweetest content and solace in his company, his fellowship, his fondness; he is her little world, her Paradise, her choice treasure. At any time, she would gladly lay aside her own pleasure to find it doubled in gratifying him. She is glad to sink her individuality in his. She seeks no renown for herself; his honour is reflected upon her, and she rejoices in it. She would defend his name with her dying breath; safe enough is he where she can speak for him. The domestic circle is her kingdom; that she may there create happiness and comfort, is her life-work; and his smiling gratitude is all the reward she seeks. Even in her dress, she thinks of him; without constraint she consults his taste, and considers nothing beautiful which is distasteful to him. A tear from his eye, because of any unkindness on her part, would grievously torment her. She asks not how her behaviour may please a stranger, or how another's judgment may approve her conduct; let her beloved be content, and she is glad. He has many objects in life, some of which she does not quite understand ; but she believes in them all, and anything that she can do to promote them, she delights to perform. He lavishes love on her, and, in, return, she lavishes love on him. Their object in life is common. There are points where their affections so intimately unite that none could tell which is first and which is second. To watch their children growing up in health and strength, to see them holding posts of usefulness and honour, is their mutual concern; in this and other matters, they are fully one. Their wishes blend, their hearts are indivisible. By degrees, they come to think very much the same thoughts. Intimate association creates conformity; I have known this to become so complete that, at the same moment, the same utterance has leaped to both their lips.

Happy woman and happy man! If Heaven be found on earth, they have it! At last, the two are so blended, so engrafted on one stem, that their old age presents a lovely attachment, a common sympathy, by which its infirmities are greatly alleviated, and its burdens are transformed into fresh bonds of love. So happy a union of will, sentiment, thought, and heart exists between them, that the two streams of their life have washed away the dividing bank, and run on as one broad current of united existence till their common joy falls into the ocean of eternal felicity. — C. H. S. "

From The Autobiography of Charles H. Spurgeon

15.5 weeks

This is 15 weeks & 5 days I think... yay for a little bump & still being able to wear normal clothes! Tomorrow is 16 weeks!

Boring Blog

So, when I made this thing, my intention was to put pictures up and make it exciting... but I haven't put any up and its really unexciting.  Maybe that will change now... especially since I'm starting to show!!  Yeah!  16 weeks!  We find out the sex on the Dec. 9th.  So, I took a good picture of my tummy today, I need to put it up... later :)

Feminism vs. Feminity

The Second Sex, 1949 by Simone de Beauvoir  “A parasite sucking out the living strength of another organism...the housewife's labor does not even tend toward the creation of anything durable.... Woman's work within the home is not directly useful to society, produces nothing. The housewife is subordinate, secondary, and parasitic. It is for their common welfare that the situation must be altered by prohibiting marriage as a 'career' for woman.”

Isaiah 3:11-13 Woe unto the wicked! it shall be ill with him: for the reward of his hands shall be given him.  As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths.  The LORD standeth up to plead, and standeth to judge the people.

“[The] housewife is a nobody, and [housework] is a dead-end job. It may actually have a deteriorating effect on her mind...rendering her incapable of prolonged concentration on any single task. [She] comes to seem dumb as well as dull. [B]eing a housewife makes women sick.” — Sociologist Jessie Bernard in The Future of Marriage, 1982.

Proverbs 31:27  "She watches over the affairs of her household and does not eat of the bread of idleness."

“[As long as the woman] is the primary caretaker of childhood, she is prevented from being a free human being.” — Kate Millett, Sexual Politics, 1969.

“[Housewives] are mindless and thing-hungry...not people. [Housework] is peculiarly suited to the capacities of feeble-minded girls. [It] arrests their development at an infantile level, short of personal identity with an inevitably weak core of self.... [Housewives] are in as much danger as the millions who walked to their own death in the concentration camps. [The] conditions which destroyed the human identity of so many prisoners were not the torture and brutality, but conditions similar to those which destroy the identity of the American housewife.” — Betty Frieden, The Feminine Mystique, 1963.

Proverbs 31:28 "Her children arise and call her blessed..."

“[Housewives] are dependent creatures who are still children...parasites.” — Gloria Steinham, “What It Would Be Like If Women Win,” Time, August 31, 1970.

Psalm 127: 3-5  Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward.  As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.

“[A]s long as the family and the myth of the family and the myth of maternity and the maternal instinct are not destroyed, women will still be oppressed.... No woman should be authorized to stay at home and raise her children. Society should be totally different. Women should not have that choice, precisely because if there is such a choice, too many women will make that one. It is a way of forcing women in a certain direction.” — Simone de Beauvoir, “Sex, Society, and the Female Dilemma,” Saturday Review, June 14, 1975

Titus 2:4-5 "That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children. To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed."

[I]f even 10 percent of American women remain full-time homemakers, this will reinforce traditional views of what women ought to do and encourage other women to become full-time homemakers at least while their children are very young.... If women disproportionately take time off from their careers to have children, or if they work less hard than men at their careers while their children are young, this will put them at a competitive disadvantage vis-a-vis men, particularly men whose wives do all the homemaking and child care.... This means that no matter how any individual feminist might feel about child care and housework, the movement as a whole had reasons to discourage full-time homemaking.” — Jane J. Mansbridge, Why We Lost the ERA, 1986.

1 Timothy 5:14 I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully.

Proverbs 12:15 The way of a fool is right in his own eyes

2nd Trimester

So, I'm 14 weeks pregnant now.  Yea!!!  I'm having trouble gaining weight and weigh about 2 lbs less than before I got pregnant and the scale doesn't budge.   Its frustrating.  And I'm not showing yet.  I have my next prenatal appointment next week.  And the next appointment after that, we will be able to find out the sex!!!  I really like my midwife, but I wish she did homebirths.  She only delivers at a hospital near our house, but she is very pro-natural birth & is the only place approved by military insurance (meaning we don't hardly have to pay anything)... all the midwives around here that do homebirths aren't covered by most insurance and cost a few thousand dollars.

Michael and I also found this really awesome church just a few miles off base.  Its a family-integrated church, so they don't have sunday school or childrens church or youth groups.  And they have a time during the service when the husbands lead their families in prayer & give them communion.  Then after they have a meal every sunday.  Everyone is super nice & friendly.   I think all the families homeschool.  Its so nice to be in fellowship with people of like-minds.