Ethan, Amy and Baby Emelyn

Got a blog update today from a Christian blogger I read often – she is the mother of 6 and a bright, quirky individual.  She is opinionated, but not necessarily in the ways you would think, and surprises me with her originality.  I like her (don’t know her).  So, in the midst of blogging with some friends about Sarah Palin being selected for the Republican ticket, she said some of her friends had been writing that they disapproved of Palin because she is putting her political aspirations ahead of her calling as a wife and mother.  The blogger I like to read (also named Amy), had this to say:

“A woman’s highest calling is to be a wife and mother” – is not what the Bible teaches.  It is right to opine that the role of a wife and mother is one’s personal calling. It is also good to note that the occupation is normative when reading the Bible as a whole. I am a wife and mother. It is what God has called me to do. However, this is not true for all women. All women should NOT aspire to be a wife and mother. Instead, all women should aspire to present their bodies a living sacrifice to the Lord. God is glorified in us when we are satisfied with His will for our lives. This is why some marry, some stay single, some have children, and some are barren. Glorify God in your present circumstance, the one you are in right now, not in a future marriage that may or may not happen.  The Body of Christ is made of many believers. The Church universal is diverse, not entirely made of Western upper class families. As women (and men, but I am not referring to them), we can do God’s will in the middle of China’s one-child communist government and in poverty that requires all members of the family to work for their food. Any other gospel that makes the widow, the abandoned, the orphan, the poor, the single, or the barren unable to attain high favor (or a high calling with God, if you will) because of their circumstance is really no good news at all. The Lord is honored by our love and obedience to His Word, not in our ambition to serve in the “highest calling” as a wife and mother one day.”

I agree with that.  If God gives you a husband and then kids, so be it, but if He doesn’t, you are not LESS.  I didn’t get married until 30 and it was hard not to feel like “less,” because sometimes it is lonely, but loneliness is a human feeling, not a sign that you aren’t cherished by God.

Now all that said, I was very excited when McCain first picked Palin for VP.  But a few things have diminished my excitement a bit:  (1) Her daughter’s pregnancy, and (2) the fact she has a four month old with Down’s.  I do not judge her or her daughter for the pregnancy.  People sin and God’s grace is greater than all our sin.  I respect this young woman for keeping her child in a world of quickie fixes, although I hope she does not plan to marry the father because of the pregnancy alone; don’t get married if that would not have been your intention otherwise (my opinion).  But if I knew that my child was in this position, and accepting the VP nod would expose her situation to the intense scrutiny of the national media, I would pass to protect my child.  Also, isn’t a disabled child a lot of work?  Can you take care of a newborn with significant developmental challenges, be available to your teenage daughter who is in crisis, govern a state, and run for VP?  And to tie in the quote above, if you are a wife and mother, if God has given you those things, what does it look like to put those things first in this situation?  I don’t think there is a black and white answer, by the way, but these are just some of the thoughts I had last night as I was falling asleep.