Is it Boiling?

Toby and I spent most of our dating relationship as a long-distance couple. For part of that time, he was in Pennsylvania for a summer internship. He was working with a sweet church on some video projects, and they lovingly blessed him with groceries for the summer upon his arrival.

He texted me one day to tell me that he was going to use some of their provisions and planned to make spaghetti for himself for dinner that night. I knew he had very little (zero) cooking experience, and being the kind-hearted girlfriend, said I would send him step-by-step instructions on how to prepare the meal. I was very precise on the order of things, and I thought I had done a great job explaining exactly how he could make himself a fantastic meal of spaghetti.

A little later in the evening, I got a text from Toby that said, “Thanks so much for sending the instructions. I’m on step 2. But it says, ‘Wait for the water to boil and then add the noodles the the water.’ How do I know if the water is boiling?” It was at that point that I realized that a list of instructions was not really what he needed to be able to make this spaghetti. He needed someone who knew how to cook to walk into that kitchen and help him figure it out. He needed to be taught How to Boil Water.

It seems to me that often young women are being asked to cook spaghetti without knowing how to boil water. Young women are living on their own with a home to steward, or getting married and making a home with a Godly man, or having children that they are to bring up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and all along the way fighting confusion and frustration and even exasperation because the everyday things all seem to be so difficult, and there has been very little help in preparing for ministry of homemaking.

I don’t have all the answers for the many, many things that could come your way in the course of your homemaking journey. But I do know that God asks me as an older woman to help guide and teach and encourage younger women who are trying to learn. It is my desire that the tools you find here will equip you to steward your home faithfully and seek discipleship from Godly women around you who are faithfully ministering in their homes. So would you learn to boil water with me?