Walking on Golden Pillars

Ok, I don't know how to make my legs look like golden pillars, but that's not the point.  What I do want to share is this scripture passage that completely floored me last night as I was preparing to begin this blog.  This is it.  This is what I want.  This is who I want to be:

The Blessing of a Good Wife

A wife’s charm delights her husband,
    and her skill puts flesh on his bones.

A silent wife is a gift from the Lord,
    and nothing is so precious as her self-discipline. 

 A modest wife adds charm to charm,
    and no scales can weigh the value of her chastity.

Like the sun rising in the heights of the Lord,
    so is the beauty of a good wife in her well-ordered home.

Like the shining lamp on the holy lampstand,
    so is a beautiful face on a stately figure. 

 Like golden pillars on silver bases,    so are shapely legs and steadfast feet.                                                                     ~Sirach 26:13-18

I have been struggling lately with my identity as a stay at home mom recently, not because I don't enjoy it immensely (it has its bad days of course), but because I wrestle with the question...if my friend Sally Joe works and is still a great and holy mom, then how can I be doing enough?  Doesn't that make me somehow LESS than her?

First of all, comparison is a huge anti-step of the above passage.  We will not be charming and delightful to our husband when occupying our thoughts with what we are NOT (and who we are not designed to be).  We will be like the sun rising in the heights of the Lord; we will have a beautiful face on a stately figure, when we are exactly who we are, who Christ designed us to be.  Maybe it takes me all day to try to be a shining lamp, and maybe it only takes my friend Susie Q. an evening after work to be a domestic goddess and to delight her husband.  I don't know why who is called where and what God's doing in that family and that woman's life all of the time.  What I do know is what He is doing in mine.

I am called to be home, and Heaven will come to me through my obedience to that call, not through questioning everyone else's.  

I love my life, and I know that the correct response for me is not to question God's gifts, but to thank Him for the opportunity and the vocation that He has given me here, now, to love and serve my husband and my daughter, and to carry my son in my womb, all with joy.  I am a far cry from the above passage, but somehow instead of pulling my hair out in despair (which is what I sometimes want to do!), it gave me hope.  This is my purpose.  This is God's plan for me.  I want to run after it as fast as my golden pillars with silver bases can carry me!  

Also, have to include the delightful humor of my vocation.  Usually, I am the one spending prayer time being enlisted by our toddler daughter to safeguard her toys and whatever she finds around the house while she plays with something else.  Today, I walked into the living room to my husband's prayer time: