Jeni Gets It

Sometimes I struggle with putting my more serious thoughts into coherent prose, and then I find I don’t need to.  Go, Calvin.

The Lord bids each of us in all life’s actions to look to his calling. For he knows with what great restlessness human nature flames, with what fickleness it is borne hither and thither, how its ambition longs to embrace various things at once. Therefore, lest through our stupidity and rashness everything be turned topsy-turvy, he has appointed duties for every man in his particular way of life. And that no one may thoughtlessly transgress his limits, he has named these various kinds of living “callings.” Therefore each individual has his own kind of living assigned to him by the Lord as a sort of sentry post so that he may not heedlessly wander about throughout life. …
It is enough if we know that the Lord’s calling is in everything the beginning and foundation of well-doing. And if there is anyone who will not direct himself to it, he will never hold to the straight path in his duties. Perhaps, sometimes, he could contrive something laudable in appearance; but whatever it may be in the eyes of men, it will be rejected before God’s throne. … From this will arise also a singular consolation: that no task will be so sordid and base, provided you obey your calling in it, that it will not shine and be reckoned very precious in God’s sight.

— from Calvin’s Institutes Book III Chap. X

The bolding is my own doing.  Although I work in the very limited sphere of my home, I can still find enough to “bear me hither and thither” and my ambition, small as it really is, can cause me “to embrace various things at once.”  Yes, I can get so caught up in my various occupations that I forget the most important aspects of my calling. 

For whatever reason, and probably the prayers of God’s people in general and my husband in particular on my behalf, I’m out of a two-month long funk.  The underlying cause?  Bad housekeeping.  Seriously.  Like, Not a Joke.  And another quote, from a book I have ordered and look forward to reading:

To the contemporary mind, the idea that happiness depends on good housekeeping might seem quaint or odd. A century or two ago, and in fact until the past few decades, it was taken for granted, and the quality of housekeeping was not beneath the attention of such great novelists as Jane Austen and Leo Tolstoy.

Much housework is discretionary, but not all housework is. Minimum standards of cleanliness and order are inescapable necessities for health and happiness. It is up to each of us how to choose the dimensions of “necessary” in our own case. If this means that we can jettison without guilt a mother’s or grandmother’s idea of adequate dusting, it also means, on the other hand, that we still have to figure out just how much dusting represents the rational compromise between health and comfort and available time and resources. It is as true as ever that a dusty home is unpleasant and unhealthy to live in.

--introduction to Home Comforts, by Cheryl Mendelson

This morning, I again embraced my calling rather than checking out, and I cheerfully did the sordid and base tasks associated with it.  As a result, my girls are actually in day clothes rather than pajamas.  The bedrooms look lived-in but otherwise presentable, and the laundry is not only finished but put away.  And this small step, this obedience on my part to follow my calling, is reckoned precious in God’s sight.  If that doesn’t warm you on a cold winter’s day, nothing will. 

Now I’m off to my sentry duty to make sure my children are doing their Spanish lesson and not playing.