“I Must Provide for Myself”
Lord, it makes me angry when someone, especially a woman, equates a non-celibate vocation with “I must provide for myself.” Why does this make me angry? What are you trying to reveal, to me, through this? What am I missing?
What is the truth Lord? Do you wish to speak into this?
I do.
I’m glad, because I just don’t know how to explain myself, or explain the life you have called me to live.
It is radical.
I know, Lord. Why?
Because I wish, through your life, to demonstrate that I am not bound to the systems of the world.
I work within systems, and I work outside of them. My children are trying to live inside systems, but they have closed their hearts against their deepest desires…
My daughter, I provide for you. My treasury is vast, and I ask nothing from you but to surrender to it.
“My treasury is vast, and I ask nothing from you but to surrender to it.”
Lord, this causes stress for others. For the husband, in thinking about being the sole provider…
He ought to be the sole provider.
Yes Lord. What do you wish to say about that?
That is all. He is called to be the sole provider. He is a man, and I ask this of my men.
Do you wish to explain what you mean by provider? For Lord, all things come from you, and all things go back to you. You are the sole provider, are you not?
I am, but I allow and call men to work my fields, and my pastures. Therefore, they are also the providers, just as the butler of a house, who holds the key to all the household goods, is also the provider; although the Lord of the manor ultimately provides and owns everything. Like a good Lord, I have given men, my butlers, the key to my storeroom.
So then, is this different for women? And yet, women work in the world… How am I to understand this?
You know.
Yes Lord. I shall attempt to put words to my understanding.
“Like a good Lord, I have given men, my butlers, the key to my storeroom.“
My Understanding of Women and Work
Jesus, according to my understanding, women are not called to work; for in the garden, they were not given the task to till the earth by the sweat of their brow. Therefore, intense labor, outside of the home, is not their vocation. Rather, they are called to be the heart of the home.
“The heart of her husband trusts in her,
and he will have no lack of gain.
She does him good, and not harm,
all the days of her life.
She seeks wool and flax,
and works with willing hands.…
“She rises while it is yet night
and provides food for her household
and tasks for her maidens.
She considers a field and buys it;
with the fruit of her hands she plants a vineyard.”
In the heart of the home, the woman
“clothes her loins with strength/ and makes her arms strong.”
This is not a mere metaphor, but practical advice, for she is doing heavy work; yet it is not to grapple with the earth, and tame it (as the man is doing), but to take what has been tamed, and bring beauty out of it. To make the things the man produces into not only necessities, but a home.
Lord, I do not know how to say what I mean, for such words sound flowery, and yet without practical application today.
I do not call you to apply the practical advice of the current world.
Then what do you call me to do?
…I hear only silence…
Write more about what it is to be a woman.
Yes Lord.
A woman takes what has been tamed, and brings beauty out of it.
A woman cultivates, nourishes, and supports others. All her labor is directed to this end. When it is thus directed, it is far, far more fruitful than any participation in the systems of the world…
Lord, I am so weary, for I am immersed, now, in the Holy Spirit. I wish to hear your voice, rather than try to stumble through my own understanding. Sleep is hanging heavy over me…
The Deepest Call…
Oh, woman, woman, shall you deny the deepest call of your soul? Does not God invite you into the inner sanctuary of His heart, and there immerse you in His love? Oh man, do not think you know what it is to be a woman… in spirit, but not in life. Receive, oh man, but give.
Receive, receive, oh woman of the Lord, and pursue beauty and truth through what you receive.
“Her husband is known in the gates,”
for he is clothed wonderfully by the clothing he gained and gave to her, and which she, in the overflow of her reception, shaped, and gave back to him.
“Receive, receive, oh woman of the Lord, and pursue beauty and truth through what you receive.”
Oh God, you ask me to receive from you! And you have met all my needs, daily, and with glory. I have chosen poverty, rather than disobedience against you.
Whenever I chose the path of a career, you blessed me. Whenever I chose the path of surrender to your treasury, you blessed me more. And you have, since, blessed me most of all when you deprived me of any motive power at all.
What, then, do you desire of me now?
You have restored me, oh God, and called me into action. Yet, even now, you overshadow me, and movement is almost impossible. If I try to write what you do not want, I am immobilized. How much more will you immobilize me if I attempt to do what you do not want?
“Give her the fruit of her hands.”
Oh yes, the fruit! This is the matter of a woman. What fruit abides in financial prosperity? None but the money of the treasury!
“A Wife Who Provides”
My spirit is disturbed by the language of “a wife who provides.” If I got married and I brought in any income, I would not consider myself the provider. This is not merely a nice, ideal thought, either. Any money I earned would go to my future husband, as the man of the house, who would be the stability of our family structure; even if, ultimately, I was the one spending and managing it: I would still consider it my husband’s treasury. I have no desire to own any money apart from my future husband. Even now, I have no desire to have money, and will probably make my father the executor of my bank account, when I reopen an account.
I admit that sounds drastic. It is. I am not advocating that others behave this way. It is not how I have behaved in the past, nor is it how my sisters behave. And it’s possible I won’t behave this way, when it comes down to putting into practice the fine details. But this is my ideal.
Back to the wife as provider…
No wife is the true provider of a household, unless she suspend some aspect of her femininity. Again, these words are drastic, but they are deeply, deeply true, and most women in our world (even good, Catholic women) have had to do this. It is a tragedy beyond words.
I wish I had words to describe it. And this is why I am frustrated with the Lord, that He is not speaking. I wish Him to shed light on this. But He wishes me to use my reason first - my weak, and poor understanding - and I shall arrive, eventually, to an exhaustion of my knowledge on this topic, and then He shall, hopefully, enumerate further.
“Give not your strength to women”
“What, son of my vows?
Give not your strength to women,
your ways to those who destroy kings.”
Give not your strength to women… men who rely on the woman as the provider give away their strength.
“Her husband is known in the gates
when he sits among the elders of the land…”
Lord, can you explain this? I feel I can only touch, out of the corner of my mind, what I mean here. What do you want to say about this? How is it that a woman may bring in income, and yet not be the provider?
You have said it. She brings in income. Providing is not her realm.
What do you mean by provide, Lord?
A roof overhead, and food on the table. The taming of the elements, and the struggle to acquire all the connections, resources, and support his wife needs in the accomplishment of her day to day activities: the most basic of which are feeding and clothing her family, and maintaining the home in cleanliness.
If she lacks any of these things, the man must set aside his own pursuits, and gain them for her. No woman is called to live alone, without the support of a man, in obtaining these things. If her pursuits allow her to place food on the table, it is only because her husband has provided her with the stability and overflow to do it. His work, and his providence, is the foundation upon which she builds.
Ok, Lord, thank you. This seems, to me, to be the point of it all. The words ‘foundation,’ ‘stability,’ and ‘overflow’ are jumping out to me.
“This seems, to me, to be the point of it all. The words ‘foundation,’ ‘stability,’ and ‘overflow’ are jumping out to me.”
A woman works out of overflow, a man works out of necessity. Is this correct?
It is.
When Life Forces Women to Obtain Basic Necessities
Then, Lord, what about when a woman lacks the assistance of a man, or he is ill, or some other hardship, and she finds herself in necessity? How does that apply? Is she, then, called to be idle?
This reality angers me.
Why Lord?
It is not how I intend men and women to live. If a woman lacks support from the man who is called to be her stability (through no fault of his own), she ought to have other men to fall back on, who support her and him in their mutual dire necessity. This is the point of community.
I work in the exceptions. I make exceptions by working within the systems. But the problem today is that these systems are viewed as the normal way of mankind. Men and women think I provide for them because they live and work in the current systems…. This is not the truth! I provide for them in spite of it, because this is the way the world is structured today, and I do not desire my children to go without.
No system, no matter how disordered or corrupt, can prevent me from providing for my beloveds. My children are amply provided for, and I ask them to live in the system, but this is not my perfect will. I am making exceptions.
Elizabeth, you are an exception because you live outside the system, in my treasury. But all the world is also an exception, because my children live outside my treasury, in the system.
I am recalling them to my treasury. I am restoring and redeeming the earth. The systems I put in place shall be glorious, and shall uphold the dignity of men and women. For too long, now, my children have suffered indignities.
“A woman works out of overflow, a man works out of necessity.”
Lord, I feel like we have come to the heart of the issue, and my paralysis is lifting. Do you desire to say anything more, or have me say anything more, into this?
Condense what we have said. Make it easily understood.
Yes Lord.
The Order of Providence for Men and Women
The way the Lord created men and women to live is radically different from the current systems of the world. Because it is so radical, He does not call everyone to live in it, all at once, immediately eschewing the paths of the world. This would lead to overwhelm and collapse.
Rather, He desires to shift the world into a fuller and richer system, doing so gently, even as He guided the early Christians into the establishment of Christianity. That shift was both radical, and a natural process, with stages and steps.
Nevertheless, He calls some to step into systems ahead of others, and this is what He is calling me to do. What He is asking of me is radical, and it is difficult to sift through what I am already meant to walk away from, and what systems He still asks me to participate in.
Women, for much of history, have had to depend on the condescension of men who may or may not provide them the financial resources to accomplish beauty in the home. Even less often were wives allowed the chance to manage the household so well that they brought in greater prosperity. But this is exactly what the Proverbs 31 woman does.
Men are called to provide the necessities of life - not merely with money (for the money could come from the fruit of the woman’s hands), but by taking upon themselves the responsibility to establish the household. In this way, by forming himself into the stability and backbone of the home (someone the woman always knows she can depend on), he paradoxically earns himself freedom to live a life more free from labor. He finds himself ‘sitting in the city gates,’ mingling with the intellectuals, theologians, and thinkers of his day. He finds himself free to participate in the polis of the larger community, because he has provided so well for his intimate community.
By forming himself into the stability of the home, the man paradoxically earns himself freedom to live a life more free from labor.
The woman, also, finds herself living a paradox. Because her husband has shown himself eager to provide for her, and grant stability, she finds herself free to labor. Her heart overflows with confidence and nurturing love, and everything to which she puts her hand prospers. She knows she can turn to him in any necessity, and this knowledge actually decreases her need to go to him about the mundane affairs of running the household. Her activity increases, when he provides stability; and his interior life expands, when she proves herself worthy of holding his heart.
The woman’s heart overflows with confidence and nurturing love, and everything to which she puts her hand prospers.
There is a reason Proverbs 31 begins with an exhortation to men, on how to behave. When a man is righteous, his wife trusts in him, and places her confidence in him. Then, he is able to entrust his heart to her. After that, she is able to work, which causes him to be known in the gates, which causes him and their children to praise her, and in the end, everything she has created praises her.
“Let her works praise her in the gates.”
Her husband and her children are her greatest works.
The man holds the key to the treasury of the Lord, and the woman is the wise distributor and arranger of the goods.
The Lord is restoring this order. There is nothing wrong with a woman bringing in money. But as soon as she considers herself the provider (or possibly worse, her husband considers her the provider), her femininity is no longer protected. She is left vulnerable, outside the treasury of the Lord, trying to gather the leftover sheaves which the reapers leave behind (The Book of Ruth).
The treasury of the Lord is not only abundance of resources, but an actual hierarchical system. A system by which the Lord chooses to make manifest the reality of His providence in the daily lives of his sons and daughters.
The man holds the key to the treasury of the Lord, and the woman is the wise distributor and arranger of the goods.