A Fruitful Halloween
Another area we can lose our fruitfulness is by going it alone. Being fruitful is sharing abundance. Holidays aren’t meant to be celebrated alone. Sure, parts of them can be solo, like everyone’s different levels of horror tolerance may lead one person to watch their horror alone, or their cheese alone, or read their favorite books alone; but we can’t allow that aspect of the celebration to turn into total disconnection, isolation, only engaging online, or going places where no one knows you so you don’t have to connect. To be fruitful is to engage with your immediate community – family, neighbors, church, etc. – accepting both the joy of this and the accountability.
Production vs. Fruitfulness
Fruitfulness has a garden feel. Gardens are seasonal, and each season is fruitful in a different way. When the garden lies fallow, it is still busy, still working, still being fruitful, just not in the same way it is at the height of harvest. This reminds the homemaker that our lives are filled with different seasons: maid, matron, and crone. And even those three seasons of life have mini seasons built into them, just like how often we look at the agricultural wheel. Life has times of build-up and times of rest, times of plenty and times of want, times of inner focus and outer focus. When we speak of our fruitfulness, we remind ourselves that life changes and each of those changes has different work and different blessings.
Productivity: Using Gifts and Talents
When we invest in our gifts and use them to produce goods, we get a return. Money in an IRA is going to get you more of a return than money hidden in your mattress. Gifts used will yield a higher return than our gifts unacknowledged, untrained, and set aside. What does a return look like? Calmer homes, happy husbands, trained children, healthy churches, and stable communities.
So You Want to be a Homemaker? (Part 3)
It will take a lot of thought and prudence to decide whether to accept or reject promotions, to set boundaries, and to communicate with your boss. Keep in mind that your goal is to be home and make room for your husband to provide and for you to produce.