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Posted by christy

I know what you mean about 100 acers and other single mom families. I would like that too.

as to the question of when someone asked what I needed and then met that, never. One familiy asked, but then when I told I was asked if I had tried one thing or another. Just last summer, just before the new school year started God told a friend from another church (not the one I regularly attend) to ask some of the men in her church to meet that need. I didn't ask and it had been 2-3 months (or more) that I had even said anything to anyone about that need. Unfortunatly only one came through, though that was a help. (she had asked three). I have too many animals, refuse to work (well, refuse to work 40 + hours a week), insist I am to teach my daughter myself.

If I got rid of my animal except 1 or 2, put my daughter in public school, and worked 40+ hours a week, I wouldn't need help. Since I end up in the same place, I'll stick with what I have. If anyone wants me to have more (out to eat, amusement parks etc.) they can provide it themselves without complaint.

OK. Your blog :) I understand where you are comming from and I get encouragement from you here to continue doing what I believe God wants me to do.

PS. If enough of us single moms/dads and likeminded couples got together, we might beable to get that 100 acers

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Posted by momofsix

What a wonderful post of encouragement. It sounds like a ministry could spring forth from this. I watched a friend go through a divorce (not something that was avoidable due to her situation) and hang in there for homeschooling. I was amazed at her conviction that was to stay the coarse. I then saw God reward her so mightily that everyone around her couldn't believe the blessings that came her way. How much easier it was for her children to keep with what they were accustomed and familiar with rather than just fly the flag of giving up (she provided a strong emotional home). I am amazed at her faith, and I praise God for her and her children's wonderful recovery. It is as if she and her children didn't miss a beat (God gave them the grace to get through it and come out in a rainbow of beauty). It was a hard road for her. I walked with her through it. However, she and her children are so happy and full of excitement and hope with the future. Encouragement for all the single moms.

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Posted by Lizzie

I don't know what the answer is either! It gets frustrating that men who want THEIR wives home with their children, think the best answer for me is to dump my child in public school and get a job. When they don't want that for their children, and they think mine should be there, it makes me very sad!

Lizzie
www.adustyframe.com

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Posted by Shannon (singleparenthome)

I guess that it is not enough that we want to raise happy, healthy children. That we are doing what is best for them.

I do work, hard, but from home. Right now, I am not making enough money. People's answer is to give up childcare and get a job. I tried that during the summer but was unable to find another job. I guess that pwople don't take what I do seriously, though.

We just have to stay strong. Do what we do best. Maybe it is a greed thing with some, because we are single and need at least a little help financially. It's fine for married women to stay home with their children because their husbands can take care of them. But single women don't have anyone to pay the bills.

When my children were young, I read a submission in the newspapers editorial section from a man who was quite rudely putting down women who worked outside of the home.

Not long after that, the same man made another submission that I also read, complaining about welfare mothers who would not go out and get a job so that taxpayers like himself didn't have to pay for them to be home.

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Posted by Syndi

Apparently there are a lot of folks who think the kids should come last and their idealistic view of "family" is in the christian mind set. God sets things on their axis and I was not meant to stay with my daughters' father...for their sake. I homeschool but I do so myself with two college degrees and my kids will have the benefits from this too. Too many people think backwards...maybe you need to set them straight. Single moms who homeschool do it for their children's benefit, not society's.

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Posted by Charissa

I know exactly how you feel as you and I have discussed this subject with you before. As a single mom I am not looking for handouts or someone to take the place of my children's missing father, or a sugar daddy or any such thing. I am struggling to pay the bills and have decided to go back to school in order to do something I love and something that has the potential of me working in my home, bringing home more than enough to pay the bills.

It is an endless frustration for me that the church leadership and people in the church tell women who have lost their husbands and support for one reason or another, to abandon their families to the public school system, to other people raising them, for the mom to get a job where she will daily face hardships, gossip, office politics, sexual harassment, and more, to give up even being able to make the kids school parties and field trips, to be too tired to help their kids with homework, too worn out to play with them, and too worried about bills to even notice them. When I hear people in the church say, "Have you tried DHS or the foodbank?" I just want to be sick. Are we really saying, "Be warm, be fed, be gone with you" as James warned us about? Are we really that callous?

I know that the church itself cannot meet the needs of every single mother. But the church and its members have some major responsibilities to take hold of and quickly. If the church is supposed to be reproducing themselves and reaching out to save more lives from destruction several things need to take place.

First, the church needs to be teaching marriage bonding, togetherness, support marriage ministries and have serious marriage counseling. Their needs to be serious men's ministries where the men are taught responsibility and leadership and discipled to take it to an all new level. The women do need to be taught their proper roles and discipled, but there is a lot of focus on this and not enough on the men. They need to be taught how to properly raise their children for Christ. I cannot emphasize these things enough, but we cannot leave it there.

Second, we must attempt to prevent divorce and abandonment at all costs, but realize it will happen. We must teach our children to prevent early pregnancies, but realize these things happen all because we are sinful human beings. Knowing this, we must strive to protect the women and the children. Remember women and children first? I know many people who feel that way and yet would count a single woman among the men because she has to typically take on these roles. Wrong!

We need to have funds set up for assisting these women, we need to teach proper money stewardship to the church as a whole so that those who are blessed to have money are not constantly striving for the newest and latest gameboy, but looking around themselves to see how they can help. I guarantee you most people (not all as I am fortunate enough to know some who don't) will look in their community to help at a shelter (which we should) before looking in their own church for those in need. We need to teach these women how to best handle what they have, go through their budget with them and come up with ideas, know their strain and struggle and be willing to get messy with them. We need to come up with housing ideas and ways to support them staying home. There should be a job network with Christian bosses, and those willing to have people bring children along to work or do work from home, or teach valuable skills, anything that will help. We need to have women who can help with childcare, meals, housecleaning as a ministry. We need to not relegate these women to the government systems, to feminist agendas in programs like Planned Parenthood and Women Work and Community. They can help, but they will hurt at the same time. Many women who've been abandoned are not savvy enough to know how to use these resources without being harmed.

We need to teach women about purity, how to live this life to the fullest, how to not feel alone and focus on that, how to serve others when you don't think you can serve your own family, how to be focused on God when the world and your children claim your attention 24/7.

The church needs to be willing to be the protection for these women and their children. That is my biggest disappointment. The same men who would fight for their families would throw these women and helpless children to the wolves. What is that? Certainly not Christian manhood.

I realize that one person can only handle so much. This is why those men who are doing the right thing are so overburdened. They feel the responsibility keenly and realize they can only be a drop in a bucket. It's too true, but if more worked together and the church supported this, the result could only be a resounding Wow!

There's so much more I could write, but I'm obviously overburdening some with this amount so I'll stop here. My friend and I are starting a single women's ministry in our church and homes in the midcoast Maine area. If you are interested, I'm sure we can hook up through this post.

May your New Year look completely different this year due to your devotion to God!
Charissa McCarver

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