The Point of Housework

The Point of Housework

Martha Meister Keily

"Let us not be weary in well-doing:

for in due season we shall reap in we faint not."

Galatians 6:9

"Really, Mother, I don't see how you can bear to wash these old dirty dishes day after day," anguished a teen-age daughter who had been enlisted to lend a hand. "But I'm not just doing dishes," replied her mother; "I'm building a home."

Saint-Exupery observed, "It is using a pick ax to no avail that makes a prison." It is washing dishes, scouring pans, and scrubbing floors with no high purpose in view that puts bars across our kitchen windows. Since the monotony of daily chores is the hazard of every housewife, it is good for us to lift our sights above the routine at hand to catch a glimpse of the goal toward which we are striving.

For Martha, "to live" was keeping house. For Mary, "to live was Christ." For the Christian housewife, "to live is to build a home in which Christ lives." To combine the best of Martha and Mary in one individual is not easy, but it is essential.

Today let us so live and work that a compliment paid to the early Christian Church might be said in our day: "What women these men have in their homes!"

READ Titus 2:3-5

PRAYER My, Lord, I dedicated my home to be one of your theological seminaries. I volunteer to be a good housekeeper, teacher and student in the name of Him who has set the example. Amen.

Devotions for Women at Home, Martha Meister Kiely, Abingdon Press ISBN 0-687-10679-6