TRAD Wife in this One Life?

"TRAD wife," a title that many women have applied to themselves in recent years and maybe more this year than ever before. It's a new term to refer to the traditional role of an old-fashioned homemaker. Think 50s mom in her dress cleaning the house, so it's spotless when her husband comes home, or a Little House on the Prairie style homestead. It's beautiful. There are pictures all across Pinterest about how to darn your own socks and do floral designs with berries on lemon poppy seed cakes.

Some of us may be encouraged by this trend. Does it mean a return to the biblical idea of being a "keeper at home?" (Titus 2:3-5)

The answer is a little complicated. Sort of...

Being a stay-at-home mom does not automatically mean a dedication to a biblical lifestyle.

In Allie Beth Stuckey's podcast Relatable she reminds us in so many words that there's a bit more to being a godly homemaker than following this trend. This trend is about esthetics. Biblical womanhood and homemaking is about the heart and intention.

It's a deeper calling that goes beyond the floral skirts and lace curtains, a clean house and freshly squeezed lemonade on the porch while the geese honk below the wash line...You get the idea... It's about a state of the heart. In fact, perhaps a woman living in a small apartment in the city who has barely enough time to make herself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich before rushing off to work, the house in disarray, and old sweatshirt thrown on; is following the call of biblical womanhood better. How? Perhaps she shows true servanthood in her work with children or her love for her husband. Perhaps she gives of herself to her church, but also knows her desperate daily dependence on Christ, her Savior.

Perhaps the gal hanging her linens with organic lemonade in hand is cross with her husband, proud of her living situation in her won strength instead of desperate for Christ each moment of the day.

It's true that the Bible does talk favorably about womanhood involving keeping the home and submission to one's husband, all those "traditional roles." But let us not forget that it's not homemaking itself that makes us godly. It's the purpose and intentionality of worship toward God and the carrying out of Christ's love to those He's put in our lives. How beautiful and what a privilege when growing out of a desire to worship God and serve our husbands and children, or whomever He had put in our lives, we can take the time to make our home a beautiful little haven of refuge and beauty amidst a tumultuous world of strife.

Let us never forget the heart by being distracted by the esthetic.

"Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is - His good, pleasing and perfect will." Romans 12:2