The Simple Wife

The simple life . . . that is what we are living now. Gone are the crazy stressful days of traffic, fighting long lines at Wal-Mart, working until all hours of the night, and getting into more debt than we could ever imagine just in order to make a decent living and keep a certain status. No more of that for us. It’s a simple, separate, and more deliberate way to live for us. We will never go back to the other way of living!

The “simple wife” . . . hmmm, the very description would have most women infuriated. Well, to me the title is honorable. Does it mean I have to be barefoot and pregnant, and a slave to housework? Not at all. It doesn’t mean that I no longer take care of myself, that I don’t wear makeup anymore, or paint my nails, or wear nice clothing. Living as a simple wife means: No stress! It means taking pride in my home and taking notice that I have very strong influence in it. My mood really does set the tone of our household, and things don’t go smoothly if my mood is stressed from not seeing my husband, and worrying about what my children are learning in school, or how the next meal is going to get on the table. Forget all that!

Our lives were so filled with worry and strife! The more money we made, the more enslaved to debt we became, and the more we both worked outside our home. A decision was made . . . a realization that the “rat race” kind of living did not honor God, and was not what God had called us to do. There is a Proverb that says “Better a dry crust of bread than strife in the home”. Once we began this journey of a more simple life, we experienced right away what that dry crust of bread tasted like . . . it tasted divine! It tasted like simplicity, and like a blessing. We went from upper-middle-class city living to a small town way of life. My husband works harder than he ever has for quite a bit less money, but we don’t care. We are not worried. We are not stressed. We sold things that we don’t need, we have bought things that we do need from rummage sales, and what we can’t afford to buy right now, we either don’t buy or we make it. I have made more homemade breads, salsas, baked goods, and soups than you can imagine, and I LOVE it! My family loves it.

People around here give you fresh home grown veggies and fruits, and expect nothing in return. They sit on their front porch with their neighbors and share a cold drink with one another and laugh and have good conversations. Back in Colorado Springs, people sat on their back decks—their private back decks—and didn’t share with anyone. Even at church, we saw one another on Sundays, and after church, we’d go our separate ways and not see each other until the following Sunday. But now that we are at the Anglican church in Omaha, it’s not that way anymore.  After church now, we have potluck every Sunday, and we visit and socialize and let each others’ kids play.  We share each others’ burdens and we share each others’ recipes! It’s wonderful, and is the way that it should be.

Being a simple wife means being supportive of all of the above and being content with everything I have. All of my needs are met, and I do not want for anything. I love my home because of who is in it, not because of what is in it. I take care of our home and love doing it because that is what God has called me to do. I take care of my Dad even though he wasn’t the nicest person when I was growing up, because that is what the Bible tells me to do. I’m home schooling my son, because we don’t want the state to raise our child and teach him values that we don’t approve of. And, at 2 1/2 years old he knows his full Alphabet, 7 shapes, all the primary colors plus 4 additional colors, he knows all the words to several songs, sings the Doxology and Gloria Patri, and can answer 27 questions from his children’s catechism book. Aside from the values issue, he will simply learn more from us than he would in school, and in a more relaxing atmosphere. He socializes at church where he can learn how to act in a community with other children who are taught the same way he is being taught. The children are not being raised by Sunday school teachers and children’s church.  Rather, they sit in church with their parents and hear the same message that their parents do, and take communion along side their parents as well. Our precious little boy will not even go to bed at night if we haven’t sung all our praise and worship songs and read from the Bible.  He LOVES our nightly “debotions” and knows no other way of life.

Our mission here in just the 4 months that we’ve been here is already being accomplished: Live a simple, separate and more deliberate life and build a church and a Godly community. We are doing just that. And we have started with our own family. I love being a simple wife! I love waking in the morning happier than we have ever been! The simple life . . . I highly recommend it!