A good reminder for me:
"When people begin to talk about this domestic duty as not merely difficult but trivial and dreary, I simply give up the question. For I cannot with the utmost energy of imagination conceive what they mean. When domesticity, for instance, is called drudgery, all the difficulty arises from a double meaning in the word. If drudgery only means dreadfully hard work, I admit the woman drudges in the home, as a man might drudge [at his work]. But if it means that the hard work is more heavy because it is trifling, colorless and of small import to the soul, then as I say, I give it up; I do not know what the words mean… I can understand how this might exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it. How can it be a large career to tell other people's children [arithmetic], and a small career to tell one's own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No; a woman's function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute. I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its smallness."
--G.K. Chesterton (bold mine)
I really loved that, Erin...we can forget the importance of our work, and then it does feel like drudgery....changing diaper after diaper and getting spit up on countless times a day...but it is for a good we cannot now see! Everything to someone---that is so poignant. Thanks for all the hard work you do with your three! and the encouragement. I think I am going to post that quote if you don't mind!
ReplyDeleteLiz,
ReplyDeleteI'm glad that it encouraged you. I need TRUTH like that in my daily, mundane life.
Love that quote. So true.
ReplyDeleteI found your blog! :) I thought I read this before...then I saw Liz's comment -- yes, she stole it :)
ReplyDeleteFriend, hello! just found your blog! LOVE it. dont quit! love hearing your thoughts. hug!
ReplyDelete