Thou shalt not make thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the waters beneath the earth...(Deut.5:8)
OK, may be sinning is not exactly the word I should use, considering that I'm not trying to substitute a Sunday sermon with my blog posts, but our recent discussion prompted me to write this.
When we read the 2nd Commandment we probably get a mental image of a barbarian-looking guy bowing in front of a crudely made idol and then we congratule ourselves that we have progressed past this point, but of course, the commandment has also a deeper meaning.
You have probably read your share of articles on the net which tell you that an idol is anything that separates us from God. Some Christians are constantly busy disputing what could be properly called an idol. Some say that if you are too much concentrating on your desire to marry and get frustrated because you are unable to find a husband/wife, than you have made marriage your idol. Conservatives have been accused of making traditional family their idol and so on and so forth, but that's not what I'm going to talk about today.
You see, I'm not convinced that a desire to marry, or to restore the traditional family could be called an idol. Idol is someone or something that we worship. People used to be obsessed about movie stars, just watch some I Love Lucy episodes and you'll see how far it went. Nowadays we have internet and on the net there are blogs and people who will give you advice on all aspects of your life, including homemaking and herein lies the danger.
Unfortunately we all seem to have a tendency to idolise people to some degree and it's very easy when dealing with blog personalities since we don't meet those people in real life and can't observe their drawbacks and negative qualities. Of course, an obnoxious person will have diificulty concealing it in his writing and so on, but you do get my point.
I guess we all have come across the homemaking blogs whose owners have it all together and when we start comparing ourselves to them, we feel that we fall short of the ideal. It often leads to frustration because we are trying to recreate the lifestyle of someone else in our own household, under totally different circumstances.
Reading homemaking blogs can be great fun and it's a good way to connect with other like-minded ladies and share some useful information. I believe that as housewives we should all support one another, but as one commenter pointed out in the previous discussion, sometimes we spend entirely too much time reading about how other ladies run their houses, and in the meantime nothing gets done in our own.
Housewives nowadays often feel as if they have to prove to the whole world that what they are doing is worthwhile and as a result of this hardly allow themselves some time to rest and relax. As a woman at home, you are made to feel guilty if you so much as sit half an hour in the garden with a book while children are at school. No, you should be up and going from early morning till late in the evening, and then you go on the net and read about some great lady who homeschools 10 children, cooks delicious meals and has a profitable home business and start feeling yourself like a total loser.
Also a married woman has her husband as the head of the family. If he is satisfied with how things are in their home, why should she feel inferior to some lady on the net? My rule is, when in doubt, ask your husband. Most husbands are sympathetic and don't expect their wives to be the models of perfection as long as the house is reasonably clean, the children are taken care of and the meals are on time. All the rest is just icing on the cake.
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