Limits Will Grow You

I was struggling through a book my chiropractor suggested as an alternative hormone support for the fun transition time in a woman’s life. While I appreciated the helpful information, especially about the destructive nature of stress, I struggled with the overall philosophy of the author. She observed that the exhausted, overworked women of our current culture measure their value by their stress level. Been there, done that, and got the t-shirt, mostly in my 20s and early 30s. It took a radical shift in my health and thought life to escape the bonds of chronic franticness and chronic stress. It also took years and two different chiropractors to release me from the cage that the equation stress=value had locked my body in. Good book so far, we agree on the problem.

What we didn’t agree on was the solution.

The author's solution was to add to your already stressed-out life more self-care routines because you deserve it and because you should never find your value in serving others but in taking care of yourself.

I 100% believe we can’t effectively tend our people, homes, communities, and churches if we don’t include ourselves in the tending. We should all practice the basics of hygiene as well as tend to our mental and physical needs. We must rest and recreate. This is called being a good steward of what the Lord has given you – your bodies, hearts, and emotions.

The solution to chronic stress isn’t doing more for yourself because you deserve it, and the big problem in your life isn’t serving those around you.

We must disconnect stress from our sense of our value. Our value comes from being made in the image of God. From that position of security we work, play, and serve others, freely. The concept of self-care needs to be replaced with the concept of stewardship. “I deserve” needs to be replaced with gratitude. We should embrace lives lived in service to others.

All the messed up and messy narcissism-inducing philosophy bothered me, but what confounded me was that the author didn’t even once suggest stepping away from the current cultural ideology that we must do it all and that we can have it all.

No, we don’t.

No, we can’t.

The best way to limit and lessen stress in your life is to say no, stop, practice being still, trust the Lord, and set limits.

Do you know the cool thing about limits? They’re where we grow.

Limits come in two forms: outside limits and chosen limits.

Outside Limits: These are the out-of-our-control, God-provided, limits: gender, physical abilities, gifts, intellect, time, and place in history. All these things are out of our control, and they limit us.

Chosen Limits: These are still under God’s ultimate dominion but come through the secondary means of our choices. Things like marriage, vocation, children, education, hobbies, diet, travel, friendships, and more are all choices we make that limit our options.

This probably doesn’t sound like growth yet, but like the walls of a cage going up. Keep reading.

Every time a limitation arises, an opportunity for growth opens. Let’s take marriage as an example. Deciding to team up with a particular man and face life together, limits you instantly. You are now bound, for good or ill. You’re no longer a free agent and neither is he. This should frighten you a bit so that you face marriage soberly. But!! Look at the garden of growth that just spread out before you. You now have to learn about the opposite sex, you have to learn this specific man, you have to learn to manage conflict, manage expectations, and communicate. You have to learn how ugly you are and you have to learn how to forgive. You have to grow if you want your marriage to last. The limit of marriage will grow you and mature you far more than the unbounded freedom of singleness.

That’s just one example. Having children, church membership, and more are all limits that let us flourish in many ways, as long as we are willing to grow.

What about that chronic stress and how does this all apply to homemaking?

Understanding the vocational calling given to women to be homemakers coupled with the cultural choice to have the bulk of our labors be the management of the home limits us. Ladies, it limits us.

And oh, how we can flourish!

Just in the last few weeks, I’ve grown in leaps and bounds in my cooking by working to understand animal fat. I’ve grown in my understanding of herbs, and I’ve fought hard against a martyr complex and complaining. I’ve worked to grow my inner calmness and I’ve thought deeply about better project management in the Jones home. Growth, growth, growth because I’ve limited myself and refused to say “yes” to doing it all and having it all.

We can’t escape all the stress in this life. That is an impossible goal. But we can grow a sense of calm by accepting our limits and seeing where they allow us to grow.

Our culture is cruel in its standards of beauty and its standards of feminine accomplishment. We need to work on rejecting both. They’re traps that can ruin our lives and our daughters’ lives. At the same time, those of us who have made the limiting choice to be homemakers often fail to grow our skills, our mental fortitude, and our generational connectedness. We’re lazy. We must stop having a victim/martyr complex about our lives and start seeing our abundant opportunities to grow.

So, yes, the book was right. Women are bundles of stress. But the way to handle that isn’t to be more selfish and add more things to our lives. The way to handle the stress is to stop trying to follow the world’s standards of accomplishment and to rescue our daughters from those same cages. This will lower our stress levels better than anything. I’m not buying into a flashy career, a big house that stays perfect, and a massive social life filling the weekends. I promise you, that life is far more hollow than Hollywood and the communists and feminists would have us believe. It’s not glamorous. It’s frantic stress all the time.

Will this limited life cost you? Will the choice to be a homemaker cost you? Absolutely. All limits have a cost. Growth isn’t a walk in the park...or it is a walk in the park filled with monsters trying to kill you. (Stargate Atlantis reference. Sorry.)  Growth is always hard. That’s why we don’t like it. If we’re free and unlimited, we’re generally being lazy. We don’t want to grow and change; we want to stay in our easy familiar space. We want to be accepted for who we are without being forced to grow who we are. But growth is so rich, rewarding, fulfilling, and a blessing to our homes, families, churches, and communities. We as a culture have rejected the growth that comes from struggles and character-building situations because they’re hard and we want to be lazy because we deserve it. We will get our just deserts, we will reap what we sow: a lazy, self-focused, weak culture.

Limit yourself and see the growth it brings. Limit yourself to one income and see the growth of frugal prudence, a cozy home, and a woman in her warm element. Limit yourself to being more productive and less consumptive and watch your skills in the domestic arts shoot to the next level and the next level. Limit yourself to rest and watch calm re-enter your life and home and people. Limit yourself to attending the means of grace and you will flourish in your understanding of the truth and your love of the Lord. Limit yourself on doctor visits and drugs and you will expand into generations of home health.

When I look at my home, I don’t see boredom, monotony, or a cage. I see an entire world of possibility and opportunity large enough to fill a thousand lifetimes without ever plumbing its depths. It’s almost overwhelming in its scope. The things I can learn and engage in as a homemaker to directly profit my home, my people, and my church are mind-blowing. I have to limit them so that I can become an amateur expert in a handful of things, not just dart from one thing to the next without really learning.

Limits are always growth opportunities. We should embrace them with excitement, while denying the world its lifestyle of chronic stress. We should excise the concept of “I deserve” and replace it with gratitude for all that we have. We should stop dancing around with the poisonous ideas of self-care and relish practicing good stewardship. These are all limits we should place on ourselves because they will help us to flourish into gardens of beautiful flowers within our homes.