10. That, if you have children, you accept responsibility with your husband (or alone if necessary) to raise up children who hope in the triumph of God, sharing with him the teaching and discipline of the children, and giving to the children that special nurturing touch and care that you are uniquely fitted to give.
11. That you not assume that secular employment is a greater challenge or a better use of your life than the countless opportunities of service and witness in the home, the neighborhood, the community, the church and the world. That you not only pose the question: career vs. full-time mom? But that you ask, just as seriously: full-time career vs. freedom for ministry? That you ask: Which would be greater for the kingdom, to be the employee of someone telling you what to do to make his business prosper, or to be God’s free agent dreaming your own dream about how your time and your home and your creativity could make God’s business prosper? And that you make your choices not on the basis of secular trends or up-to-date lifestyle expectations, but on the basis of what will strengthen the family and advance the cause of Christ.
12. That you step back and (with your husband, if you are married) plan the various forms of your life’s ministry in chapters. Chapters are divided by various factors: age, strength, singleness, marriage, employment choices, children at home, children in college, grandchildren, post-employment, etc. No chapter has all the joys. Finite life is a series of tradeoffs. Finding God’s will and living for the glory of Christ to the full in every chapter is what makes it a success, not whether it reads like somebody else’s chapter or whether it has what a later chapter will have.
13. That you develop a wartime mentality and lifestyle. That you never forget that life is short, that billions of people hang in the balance of heaven and hell every day, that the love of money is spiritual suicide, that the goals of upward mobility (nicer clothes, cars, houses, vacations, food, hobbies) are a poor and dangerous substitute for the goals of living for Christ with all your might and maximizing your joy in ministry for people’s needs.
14. That in all your relationships with men you seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit in applying the biblical vision of manhood and womanhood. That you develop a style and demeanor that does justice to the unique role God has given to men to feel responsible for gracious leadership in relation to women—a leadership that involves elements of protection and care and initiative. That you think creatively and with cultural sensitivity (just as he must do) in shaping the manner and setting the tone of your interaction with men.
15. That you see biblical guidelines for what is appropriate and inappropriate for men and women in relation to each other, not as arbitrary constraints on freedom, but as wise and gracious prescriptions for how to discover the true freedom of God’s ideal of complementarity. That you not measure your potential by the few roles withheld, but by the countless roles offered.
