The Art of Buying Used Books

Posted in Keystone Magazine Articles

by Barbara Smith

It is 11:30am and I am surrounded by a lot of people, some are home educators others just love reading. The sale doesn’t begin until 12 noon. We are discussing where the best place to start will be. Yes, it is our annual Red Cross Book Fair. There will be 60,000 books for sale – some very good books too. We go every year and come home with boxes full of books.

I like to begin at the Classics table. I might be able to pick up some Henty books for $2.00. Last year we were looking for Wilkie Collin’s books, a new author Genevieve (21) is interested in. I pick up all the books with RTS (Religious Track Society of London) on the spine. I then go to the children’s section and pick out books according to the publisher. If I already have the book at home, well, there are lots of home educators or families in our Church who would like the book. The publishers I am interested in, at the moment, are:

Victory Press

R.T.S. (Religious Tract Society)

Pickering and Inglis

Epworth Press

Lutterworth Press

Lamplighter Publishing

Landmark Books

for they have some good biographies and history books.

My impulse is to buy every biography or auto biography I come across in the whole place. These bring history alive like virtually no other kind of book. They are really “living books”, for you get to see into the lives of real people. Even the lives of unbelievers can be incredibly challenging when you read about their exploits and accomplishments as well as the conditions under which they lived and worked.

If I am not sure if a book I’m looking at is a good one, I put it through this check list:

1. Does it have a page inside the front cover showing it to have been given as a Sunday School prize?

2. Glance over the dust cover to get an idea about the book.

3. Read the dedication and notes about the author to learn something of his worldview.

4. Scan the last couple of pages of the book to see if they mention God and how He is men- tioned.

Sometimes you do end up bringing a dud book home, but at 25cents to a dollar you can afford to chuck out a couple of books.

I also look for books by the Author:

Elsie Loche – NZ author

G A Henty – Historial novels

E S Ellis – Usually about the Ameriacn Indians and the early settlers

Captain Marryat

R M Ballantyne

James Fenimore Cooper

Louise Andrews Kent

Wilkie Collins

Louisa May Alcott

Jane Austen

Capt W T Johns

Pansy Books

Elizabeth Prentiss

Johann Wyss

Daniel Defoe

RG Le Tourneau

There are lots of other good authors. These are just the ones that I am on the look out for at the moment or have just finished collecting. (We have to our knowledge every book published by Ballantyne, MacLean, Alcott and Austen.) We would love to hear about your favourite Authors and Publishsers.

Gladys Hunt’s book Honey for a Child’s Heart lists good books for your younger children to read. She also wrote with Barbara Hampton Read for Your Life – Turning Teens into Readers. The first part of this second book contains:

A Warning to parents

Introduction

1. Three Cheers for a Good Book

2. Is Imagination Going Down the Tube

3. How to Read a Good Book

4. What Makes a Good Book

5. What is Happening to Books

6. Fantasy in a Real World

7. Read for Your Life

8. Feed Your Heart

9. A Word For the College Bound

The second part is divided into the following categories: Adventure, Animals, Contemporary, Fantasy, Historical, Mystery, Non-fiction, Science Fiction, and Tried and True, Glossary and Index. Each title has a description plus a recommendation, followed by age-group indicators: books for early teens, mid teens, late teens and good family read-aloud books.

The back cover of Read for Your Life says:

“Gladys Hunt discusses how to read a book, what makes a good book, what questions to ask, and how to discern between good, better and best. She has a way of making you want to read, while helping you to make the most of the opportunity.

“To help you choose what to read, Barbara Hampton has reviewed more than 300 books. Recommendations run the gamut from classics like A Tale of Two Cities to contemporary fiction like a Ring of Endless Light; from literary greats like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Alan Paton to moderns like Katherine Paterson and Chaim Potok.”

The book contains:

– Pointers on becoming a more perceptive reader

– Tips on how to enjoy poetry, fantasy and fiction

– An annotated list of over 300 book recommendations

– Hundreds of plot synopses

– A complete index to authors and titles

(This book is available from Geneva Books, 199B Richardsons Line, R D 8, Palmerston North, Phone (06) 357-8826, email: genevabooks@clear.net.nz.)

These books by Gladys Hunt and others like them plus several internet book lists also give you ideas of what books to buy. My favourite email book lists are:

1000 Good Books – for all levels:

http://www.classicalhomeschoolers.org/celoop/1000.html

100 Great Books – for secondary level:

http://www.classicalhomeschooling.org/celoop/100.html

Also the Diana Waring – History Alive books have lists of books in each chapter with recommendations on each book. URL

http://www.dianawaring.com/

And Lives in Print-—Good Biographies and Autobiographies

Hand that Rocks the Cradle—Good books to read aloud to children

These books and lists will keep you hunting for good second hand books for many hours at whatever Book Fair you may have locally. I will often go back several times to these big book sales as it is easy to miss a good book. The price often goes down as the sale progresses, and they’ve often got a lot of free books as well. It is an activity even home educating dads enjoy, if only because it gives them an opportunity to build another bookshelf for you!

——————————

Thanks to Wietske de Vries for her notes on Read For Your Life – Turning Teens Into Readers.

From Keystone MagazineMarch 2001, Vol. VII No. 2

Editor: Craig Smith

PO Box 9064

Palmerston North

Phone: (06) 357-4399

Fax: (06) 357-4389

Email: hedf@xtra.co.nz <mailto:hedf@xtra.co.nz>

Webpage:

https://hef.org.nz

Reading Aloud

Posted in Keystone Magazine Articles

by Barbara Smith

There is no greater pleasure for a family than to all be huddled around the fire on a cold, wet and miserable winter’s night, milo in hand, listening to Dad reading aloud a good book.

I read on an email list once that we should be reading aloud to our children at least two hours a day. Yes, you read that correctly — two hours a day.

I took up the challenge on this and have been able to find all sorts of time for reading aloud to the children. I read to them while they are doing the dishes (less arguments), doing their handwriting, playing with lego, colouring in or doing art projects. Genevieve (20) loves Craig to read to her while she is sorting the washing. Genevieve gets Charmagne (13) to read to her while she is sewing. Genevieve reads to Charmagne while Charmagne plaits her hair. I read as we travel in the van.

We find we achieve the goal of at least two hours a day if we follow these helpful tips:

1. I find that if we are reading a series of books, they just flow on from each other. It is also good to have a pile of books that we just need to get through. If I do not have another book lined up when I finish the current one, there are a lot of other things that demand my attention, and I am likely to tell the children to go on with the dishes for just this one time. However this “one time” usually stretches into several times.

2. Some books are hard to read aloud because of difficult names in them. One book in particular we struggled through until we realised the problem. There were two characters with names very similar, although one was the good guy and the other was the bad guy. Charmagne thought that I was just mispronouncing the one name so was gettting very confused. Craig then suggested that we write up the names on card and write the characteristics under each name. This is great for a book with a lot of characters and for books with difficult names. We even managed to find a book doing this for us for JRR Tolkien’s books called The Complete Guide to Middle-Earth: From the Hobbit to the Silmarillion by Robert Foster. It is a detailed glossary of peoples, places and things arranged for convenient reference.

3. Have several books on the go at one time. I read to Charmagne and Jeremiah (8) as they do the dishes, to Genevieve and Charmagne as they are playing cards and to Jeremiah and Jedediah (3) as they play with the Lego or are sitting on my knee. Zach (19) and Alanson (16) join us when Craig is reading in the evenings. During that time hand crafts come out: Genevieve will sew, Zach will be doing is model air planes, Alanson polishing his Air Training Corps (ATC) shoes until they are shining, Charmagne does embroidery and Jeremaih and Jedediah draw until they need to go to bed.

4. Read books of varying difficulty. Read books at the child’s level. But also lift them up and read books that they find challenging to follow. When I am reading to Charmagne and Jeremiah (13 and 8), I’ll first read one book that is easy for Jeremiah. Next I’ll read one that is at Charmagne’s level, challenging Jeremiah. The three-year-old listens to the lot, possibly enjoying my voice more than the meaning, but enjoying hearing the words and getting used to a varied vocabulary at the same time.

I am really enjoying the variety of books. Some of the books the children choose and some I choose because they are books that I would like to read. We are avid book hunters. We can’t walk past a second hand book shop without checking it out. We look for books at the flea market, garage sales, Red Cross Book Sales and Church fairs. The best books in the library can sometimes be found in their “for sale” pile. We make bee-lines to friends’ bookshelves. Dayspring Resource Centre in Palmerston North now has a good number of books which can be borrowed by home educators from anywhere in New Zealand. Until recently we had book shelves wherever we could fit them in our home and lots of books still in boxes. Over the holidays Genevieve has set up a library for us in a former junk/storage room at the end of the garage. We finally have a library of our own (and a whole lot less junk!!) with no books in boxes. We even have space for… more books! The children still have all their own books in their own rooms. With all these books we still get lots of books out of the city library and the National library.

The way to give your children a love of reading is to read to them. So are you ready to take up the challenge to read to your children at least two hours a day?:

 From Keystone Magazine         

January 2001, Vol. VII No. 1 

Editor: Craig Smith     

PO Box 9064      

Palmerston North   

Phone: (06) 357-4399                      

Fax  (06) 357-4389          

Email:  hedf@xtra.co.nz 

www.hef.org.nz

CHomeS Round Up
Older Women Training Younger Women — Titus 2:3-5 Part 2
by Barbara Smith
[In Part 1 Barbara introduced the idea that these older
women just don’t seem to be around….well, they’re
around, but not available or willing or qualified to teach
the younger ones….and there is so much a young
Christian home educating mum needs and wants to
know! It is at first surprising to see that Titus 2:4 bids
the older women to train the younger ones how to love
their husbands (maybe not so surprising) and their
children!! Apparently God knows that mums need to
be taught how to Biblically love their husbands and
children. Much instruction is found in Proverbs 31, and
Part 2 picks up as Barbara continues to review ideas
from this passage.]
V13 She works with willing hands.
V14 She is like merchant ships which were fetchers and
carriers.
As an example, we see in Genesis 24:18-21 that
Rebekah worked hard for the servant of Abraham. She
worked “quickly”. She said, “I will draw for your
camels also, until they have done drinking”. “So she
quickly emptied her jar into the trough and ran again to
the well to draw, and she drew for all his camels. The
man gazed at her in silence to learn whether the Lord
had prospered his journey or not”. Do you know how
long that servant (and the men who were with him V54)
gazed at her in silence? Verse 10 says that there were
10 camels. They had just come on a long journey. One
camel drinks 20 gallons, so 10 camels would drink 200
gallons. In those days they used water jars that held 5
gallons of water. So that would have taken 40 trips
from well to trough. If it took Rebekah 3 minutes to fill
the water jar, run to the trough, empty the water jar and
run back, it would have taken her 2 hours to have
watered the camels until they had “done drinking”.
Rebekah must have been strong. She worked hard, and
she was willing and she worked quickly.
Children Are Our Holy Things
V15 She is quick to get out of bed in the morning, and
knows that she is the heart of the home, the one in
charge. She personally makes the meals, and oversees
everything regarding her family. Ezra 44:6 says God
gave the charge to the Priests not to the uncircumcised.
Are we keeping the charge of the holy things God has
given into our care, or have we handed them over to the
uncircumcised? What holy things has God given to us?
Our children! Our seed! Children are a blessing from
God. When we interfere in this process our objective is
to render the seed within our bodies ineffective, to
purposefully make them non-productive, rather than
letting God’s perfect will take place. The Bible is not
saying we must have lots of children, 15 or so at least.
The Bible is about being available to God, being in the
center of God’s will. It is about being obedient to God.
God is about Life, promoting, protecting, defending
life; He is not about killing life or our seed. It is about
letting God decide the size of our family, about letting
God bless us with His blessings. God will supply all
our needs – so we can have more babies. Are we
willing for God to choose the size of our families? Are
we willing to face work and do work like a Rebekah?
Our Babies and Toddlers. I let my children move
away from me; I don’t move away from them. I
believe that the beginning of peer pressure is when the
children are still very young and we leave them in
creches, daycare or with babysitters that they are not
intimate with. Let your children tell you when they are
ready to move away from you. When Jedediah was
just little, we were invited to a 50th birthday party (yes,
we are nearly that age). I said that I couldn’t come
unless my baby came with me. (There are not many
people that age with babies). When babies and
toddlers are left to be with lots of other children, they
learn to depend on other children rather than depend on
the parents God assigned to them to be dependent
upon.
School Age Children. The peer pressure increases
into school age whether at a Christian school or a State
school, for with whom do they spend the bulk of each
day?
Youth. This is where peer pressure really takes over.
More and more I keep hearing from people who say
that their children were great until they went to
secondary school: then they went astray. But be sure of
this: it didn’t begin in secondary school. Teenagers
don’t just suddenly become peer dependent when they
become teenagers. In many cases it is that we have
been training them since babies to be peer dependent.
It only manifests itself in the teenage years. The
foundations for parents losing their children begins in
day care and primary school.
So How Do We Keep From Losing Our Children?
How do we look after the Holy things God has given
us? How do we keep our children pure? Proverbs 22:6
may say, “Train up a child in the way he should go,
and when he is old he will not depart from it,” but what
does it mean to “train up a child” and what is “the way
he should go”?
The who, what, why, when, where and how of it are all
found in Deuteronomy 6:1-9 (and many other places as
well….look some up yourself!): “Now this is the
commandment, and these are the statutes and
judgments which the Lord your God has commanded
me to teach you (the WHAT), that you may observe
them in the land which you are crossing over to possess
(the WHY); that you may fear the Lord your God
(another WHY) to keep all His statutes and His
commandments which I command you (another
WHY), you and your son and your grandson (the
Keystone Vol. VI No. 6 P a g e 2 4 N o v e m b e r 2 0 0 0
WHO; and note, we don’t stop with our children), all
the days of your life (the HOW LONG), and that your
days may be prolonged (another WHY). Therefore
hear, O Israel, and be careful to observe it (the HOW),
that it may be well with you (yet another WHY), and
that you may multiply greatly (note most of these
WHYs are for our blessing, including this one about
multiplying greatly) as the Lord God of your fathers
has promised you — ‘a land flowing with milk and
honey’. Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is
one! You shall love the Lord your God with all your
heart, with all your soul and with all your strength. (the
WHAT — love God — and the HOW — with
everything we’ve got. This should be our number one
goal for home educating our children). And these words
which I command you today shall be in your heart. You
shall teach them (the WHAT) diligently (the HOW) to
your children (the WHO), and shall talk of them (the
WHAT) when you sit in you house, when you walk by
the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up (the
WHEN & WHERE — everywhere, all the time).
The Fear of the Lord
Proverbs 1:7-9 says, “The fear of the Lord is the
beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and
instruction. Hear, my son, your father’s instruction,
and reject not your mother’s teaching; for they are a fair
garland for you head, and pendants for your
neck.” (RSV)
Psalm 111:10 – 112:2 says, “The fear of the Lord is the
beginning of wisdom; a good understanding have all
those who practice it. His praise endures for ever!
Praise the Lord. Blessed is the man who fears the Lord,
who greatly delights in his commandments! His
descendants will be mighty in the land; the generation
of the upright will be blessed.” (RSV)
From these two passages we are told that the fear of the
Lord is the beginning of wisdom and knowledge. How
can our children learn anything when they are in the
State schools where the fear of the Lord is forbidden by
Section 77 of the Education Act (the “secular” clause)?
If the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and
knowledge, and the State primary schools are forbidden
to teach this, exactly what does that leave the schools to
pass on to the children? How can our children be
taught “diligently” the commandments, statutes and
judgements of God, unless we do it ourselves?
Proverbs 6:20-22 says, “My son, keep your father’s
commandment, and forsake not your mother’s teaching.
Bind them upon your heart always; tie them about your
neck. When you walk they will lead you; when you lie
down, they will watch over you; and when you awake,
they will talk with you.” (RSV) Combining this with
Deuteronomy 6 and Proverbs 1 above, we find the
parents are commanded to diligently teach their
children, and that the children are to look back on his
fathers instructions and commandments and to reject
not their mother’s teaching. If we teach our chldren
“diligently” for half an hour a day, then that will be
reflected in how long our children will remember it
when they are old. However, if we diligently teach our
children the commandments, statutes and judgemnts of
God and to love the Lord their God with all their heart,
with all their soul and with all their strength as they sit
in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie
down, and when you rise up…..then when they are old
they will know that God’s Word is for all of life and for
all of time. It is under this scenario that the Scripture is
fulfilled: our “descendants will be mighty in the land;
the generation of the upright will be blessed.”
Then too we will have children who are Holy and Pure.
Genevieve our 20 year old is like other children who
have been home educated, she is holy and pure. She
has not been on a date, she has not been kissed. Her
desire is that her first kiss be on her wedding day. What
a contrast to children who have been to school and been
influenced by wordly standards, and unfortunately this
includes Christian schools.
(Now back to Proverbs 31):
V16 She is not impulsive or compulsive.
V17 She is strong and eager to get started. In Genesis
24:51-61 we see that Rebekah’s mother had trained her
daughter for life. Both Rebekah and her parents were
willing for her to leave the next day, even though they
at first asked for 10 days. Her mother was confident
that she had trained her daughter in all that she needed
to know, and Rebekah was sure in the training.
V26 “She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the
teaching of kindness is on her tongue.” This ties us
back to just what Titus 2 says we older women need to
be doing in regard to our younger Sisters. Younger
women, seek out older Godly women who are
Biblically qualified and encourage them to share their
Godly wisdom with you…..you will both benefit.
V28 She has invested her time into her children. She
has looked well to the needs of her husband and
glorified God in all her doings. Well, this isn’t most of
us older ones today….we messed up. As pioneers in HE
and as stay-at-home mums, we had to learn things the
hard way. Our older children absorbed our mistakes,
our younger ones are benefitting, and we now want to
pass on what we’ve learned to our younger Sisters. We
trust that the Lord will impress His life-long calling on
you younger women and on our daughters, as in:
V30-31 It is the work of her hands that will bring her
praise. Investing in others rather than in self will bring
praise from others. I want to be willing to be willing.
How about you?
Above Rubies latest free magazine available from: PO Box
4232, Mount Maunganui 3030, New Zealand
Phone (07) 575-2232, Fax (07) 575-2246
email:- rubies@enternet.co.nz http://www.aboverubies.org

From Keystone Magazine
November 2000 , Vol. VI No. 6

P O Box 9064
Palmerston North
Phone: (06) 357-4399
Fax: (06) 357-4389
email: craig@hef.org.nz

CHomeS Round Up
Older Women Training Younger Women — Titus 2:3-5 Part I
by Barbara Smith
[I travelled with the Above Rubies team from Gore to
Kaitaia, speaking at five camps and 11 meetings during
August and the first part of September.
The five camps were at Christchurch, Gore, Hastings,
Ngaruawahia and Coopers Beach (Kaitaia) while the
eleven meetings were held at Oamaru, Dunedin, Te
Anau, Wanaka, Hokitika, Nelson, Blenheim,
Wellington, Mt Maunganui, Dargaville and Moerewa.
Val Stares, the Australian Director of Above Rubies
(whose messages inspired the following article), and
Heather Jones, the New Zealand Director of Above
Rubies, said to me that the people most ready to listen
to their message were Home Educators. It seems they
already think outside the box.
The interesting thing for me travelling with the Above
Rubies team was the opportunity to speak to a whole
new group of people about Home Education. A lot of
Home Educating mothers came to the camps, and it was
great to catch up with them and to be mutually
encouraging to each other. Then there were those who
came to the camp who had never thought about the
Home Education option. They wouldn’t be at my
“Getting Started” workshop, but as the camp
progressed, they would be challenged by the speakers’
messages and by discussion with others during break
times and often seek me out for as much information on
Home Education as possible in the short time left, even
necessitating an extra impromptu workshop!]
Willing Hands
Proverbs 14:1: Wisdom builds her house, but folly with
her own hands tears it down.
Every wise woman builds her home. The foolish
woman pulls it down again. What does it take to build
a house? Plans? Foundations? Materials? Yes, and
Motivated, Willing hands!
Genesis 2:8: And the Lord God planted a garden in
Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he
had formed.
Man was made outside the Garden, woman was made
inside the Garden. So the man goes out to work to
provide for his family while the woman stays at home
to build her home with willing hands. We think of
ourselves as mothers, teachers, nurses and so on, but
God says that we are also builders. We usually relegate
this role to the men, but we are building with something
far greater than brick and timber.
The word “build” is the Hebrew word BANAH, which
means:
1. To make, to set up surely, to build.
2. To repair. It is not enough to build. We must
constantly keep our lives, our marriages and our homes
and families in repair.
3. To obtain children or bring about an increase in
offspring.
This is how the Titus 2 woman builds her home. We
too are to build God’s way: build to last. New Zealand
is a heathen country — Christians are not a silent
majority anymore. We need to build so much back
again into this nation. Let us pray that the hearts of all
women in New Zealand will turn back to their homes.
It will take work. We have to change our attitudes.
Jeremiah 6:16: Thus says the Lord: “Stand by the
roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where
the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your
souls. But they said, ‘We will not walk in it’.”
God told them the way to go, but they said that they
would not listen. Let us not be like that!
We all Mother
Even those without children will mother a cat or dog or
become foster parents. Let us be like the mother bird
mentioned in a National Geographic magazine. After
a forest fire the ranger was assessing the damage. As
he walked around the park, he found a charred bird
sitting upright under a tree. As he passed it he kicked
it and it fell over and three little birds ran out. This
mother bird could have saved herself and flown away,
but she chose to stay and protect her babies. She took
them from their nest to the floor of the forest where
they would not be smothered by the smoke. Then she
stood fast, totally committed to her calling to protect
them from the pain of the fire and death.
Are we willing to mother as this bird mothered? Are
we willing to build as this mother built?
Paul introduces Titus Chapter 2 by telling Timothy to
“teach what befits sound doctrine”. And part of that is
Titus 2:3-5: Bid the older women likewise, to be
reverent in behavior, not to be slanderers or slaves to
drink; they are to teach what is good, and so train the
young women to love their husbands and children, to
be sensible, chaste, domestic, kind, submissive to their
husbands, that the word of God may not be discredited.
(RSV)
Note: the main reason we need to be Titus 2 women is
so that the Word of God may not be discredited (RSV)
or blasphemed (NKJV). It is sound doctrine for older
women to teach these things….it tends to blasphemy
not to do so.
Further, Psalm 138:2b says, “for thou hast exalted
above everything thy name and thy word”. The RSV
says in its footnotes, “Thou hast exalted thy word
above all thy name.” The King James and New King
Keystone Vol. VI No. 5 P a g e 2 4 S e p t e m b e r 2 0 0 0
James say, “Thou has exalted thy word above all thy
name.” God’s Word is higher than His Name.
Therefore, we as older women are blaspheming God
and are teaching younger women to blaspheme God by
our inaction: by not doing what His Word says.
Why are the older women not where they should
be?
1 Tim 2:14-15 says, and Adam was not deceived, but
the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.
Yet woman will be saved through bearing children, if
she continues in faith and love and holiness, with
modesty.
Women are more easily deceived than men (see
Genesis 3 with Eve in the garden). However, John 8:32
promises, “and you will know the truth, and the truth
will make you free.” The truth will set us free from this
tendency to deception.
The mother is the binder of the home, the binder of the
relationships in the home. We bind each relationship to
each other and to ourselves and God. Grandmothers
have an even greater number of relationships to bind
together. I have 72 relationships to bind together in my
home with six children. Val has 272 relationships with
three children, two son-in-laws and ten grandchildren
when they are all gathered around the table in her
home.
Employers entice mothers out of the home because they
know that women are good with relationships and often
put women in positions to keep the relationships
working well in large firms. Yet these mothers should
be using these skills for the younger women about
them: in their own families, in the church, in the
community…..all within the “Garden” setting.
The older women need to teach the younger women to
love and love being with their husbands and their
children. However, they must be careful to love the
mothers and not the babies, which are usually easier to
love. No, give the babies back to the mothers, and
older women, teach by example and Biblical
instruction.
Teach by example
Some of us older women have messed up badly
because we did not have older Godly women to train us
as in Titus 2. We need to learn the lessons then teach
them. That’s me. I need to learn to be reverent in
behaviour, not a slanderer, not given to much wine, and
to be a teacher of good things. Not only that, I need to
really love my husband, and children. I need to be
above reproach in being discreet, chaste, a homemaker,
good and obedient to my own husband. I am needing
to be learning these things as I teach younger women,
especially my daughters and their friends.
Biblical instruction
I need to be training (RSV) or admonishing (NKJV)
younger women to love their husbands, to love their
children, to be discreet, chaste (i.e., not chased)
homemakers, good to and obedient to their
“own” (NKJV) husbands and nobody else’s husband.
We need to train the younger women in the truths of the
Bible.
Let’s look at Proverbs 31:10-31.
Verses 11-12 say, The heart of her husband trusts in
her, and he will have no lack of gain. She does him
good, and not harm, all the days of her life.
How are we doing on this? Again, how I long to have
had a Godly older woman to have trained me here. Last
year Craig and I read two books on marriage that are
really helping us. In Reforming Marriage Douglas
Wilson says that all the problems in the marriage,
anything that is going wrong in the marriage, is the
husband’s fault. That sounds good to us women,
doesn’t it? The reason he says this is that the husband
should be nurturing his wife all the time. If he is doing
this, he would know the problem areas in the marriage
and be able to deal with them. On the other hand
Nancy Wilson says in Fruit of Her Hands that wives
should be doing everything they do for the Glory of
God. We all get into hard places in our marriages at
times and find it hard to do what we know we should be
doing. Then that is the time that we wives should
respond to do it for the glory of God, and in doing it for
God we please our husbands.
What a hard lesson this has been for me to learn! So
often we find we are reacting against each other.
Something happens, the husband acts or reacts, then the
wife will react which in turn continues the spiraling
outwards of the marriage relationship as the husband
reacts to the wife, and wife reacts to husband. This has
a negative effect on the children and on our home
education. But when the wife gets into a hard place and
she doesn’t react but looks to God to Glorify Him, this
in turn pleases the husband who will begin nurturing his
wife. This causes the spiraling inwards to bring the
husband and wife closer together. This also has a
positive effect on the children and our disciplining, and
home educating becomes a much easier job.
The husband is the head of the home, but I am learning
at the moment that the wife is the binder of the
relationships, and this creates the atmospere of the
home. When the wife is not walking in her role, the
family can fall apart. When the wife is walking as God
intended her to, then it is easier for the husband to be
the head of the home and the nurturer of the home. So
wives, when you are in a hard place in your marriage,
look to God to help you out and carry you through.

(to be continued.)

From Keystone Magazine
September 2000 , Vol. VI No. 5
P O Box 9064
Palmerston North
Phone: (06) 357-4399
Fax: (06) 357-4389
email: craig@hef.org.nz