Latest / The Christian Homemaking Podcast: Simply Convivial with Mystie Winckler / Victim Mindset vs Proverbs 31 Woman: Who Runs Your Home?

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Victim Mindset vs Proverbs 31 Woman: Who Runs Your Home? · The Christian Homemaking Podcast: Simply Convivial with Mystie Winckler

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  One of my favorite little sayings is that the only kind of control
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  that we're supposed to have is self-control organizing our
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  attitudes requires self-control.
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  It is the recognition that we are responsible and able to take charge
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  of our thoughts and our feelings and straighten them out according to truth.
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  Hold up truth to ourselves and align ourselves to that truth
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  that exists outside of us.
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  We don't have our own truth.
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  We don't create our own selves, our own meaning
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  And definitely not our own truth.
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  Instead, we align ourselves to the objective actual truth
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  that we find in God's word
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  I'm Misty Winkler, author of the book Simplified Organization: Learn
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  to Love What Must be Done, and you found the Christian Homemaking
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  Podcast during Organize October
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  so during Organize October, I put out a short, meaty episode every weekday.
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  But also inside my community, Convivial Circle, which is all about helping
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  women to excel at homemaking and do life cheerfully, we are getting into
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  the nitty-gritty of applying these ideas and helping one another put them into
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  practice, notice the small wins, and have organized attitudes that really stick
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  I'm gonna give you a little taste of what it's like by sharing an excerpt
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  from one of our weekly seminars.
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  I was talking about being responsible instead of being a victim
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  Grab a basket of laundry to fold, and let's organize those attitudes together
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  you-are-responsible-for-your-attitude-convivial-circle-1790702856: but as we've identified our excuses
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  this last month, .. and before we are going to be able to organize our
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  attitude, we have to recognize that we're responsible for our attitude.
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  Excuse-making is very similar to thinking of yourself as the victim,
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  and victim thinking is so prevalent today that we often don't recognize it.
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  We don't recognize that being a victim and being responsible are opposites, and
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  you're choosing one path or the other.
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  You can't straddle those two things.
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  And almost all underdog or heroic-type tales and biographies that really
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  inspire us have people who were victims of things they had no control over.
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  Bad things happened to them due to no fault of their own.
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  They were victims.
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  But the triumph story is that even though that was true, that didn't
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  define them for the rest of their life.
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  They took responsibility, used their personal agency, and moved forward anyway.
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  Most hero stories are stories of people who refused to be defined by
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  whatever they were a victim of And that's not just special people, that
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  is ev- available to all human beings.
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  We are all able to be responsible and have agency and move f- forward.
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  So we don't even have to ask necessarily.
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  We don't have to start by deciding whether or not our excuse is
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  legitimate, whether or not we are a victim of our circumstances.
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  For a lot of us are in a happy family.
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  M- I mean, a lot of us here have exactly what we wanted.
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  It just turns out to be actual work and harder than we thought.
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  So when we're making excuses and acting like the victim, it's just a total
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  lie, and it's just self-pity, and it's very tempting, and it's very easy
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  to fall into because of the cultural milieu, the air that we are breathing
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  And so we don't realize that's what we're doing, and it's a total lie.
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  But even if it wasn't, even if, you know, there's illnesses or other people
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  completely sinned against you and your life is legitimately harder than you
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  thought it would be due to no fault of your own, due to actual difficulty and
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  maybe actual oppression in some kind of way That doesn't change the fact that
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  you're responsible for yourself and your responses and that you still have agency
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  So even if you don't want to confront or think about or question whether or not
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  the thing that's making you feel sorry for yourself is true or not, you say,
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  "Well, whether it is or isn't, what's the responsible thing for me to do next?"
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  Because there is always a path of faithfulness to move forward in
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  God has provided a way of escape from every temptation
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  that we may be able to endure.
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  Like, there is a path of good works that God has prepared before for us to walk in.
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  There is a path forward out of temptation into good works that God has laid out,
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  and we need to pray and ask for the clarity and the insight to see it.
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  But we also need to repent of lies and ingratitude and a lack of faith that
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  are our intentional blinders that we put on that-- preventing us from seeing
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  what's actually right in front of us, which is the path forward of faithfulness
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  So no matter what your excuses are, n- whether they're legitimate or not, we
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  don't even h- I don't even have to know.
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  We don't have to figure that out
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  In faith, you can move forward because God has a path in front of you, and His
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  Word is a light to your path So if you can't see it, are you reading the Bible?
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  Have you prayed and asked God to light your path and reveal it?
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  Or maybe you know what that path is and you just don't like it,
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  and you want a different one.
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  You're not really praying for insight into what the path forward is,
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  you're praying for a different path.
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  And, I mean, Jesus prayed that prayer and God answered, "No."
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  If there's any other way.
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  Sometimes we pray that prayer as well, and generally the answer is no.
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  Like, you have to go through the thing, you have to go down this path,
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  whatever it is that you're avoiding or not wanting to do, but it's the
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  faithful right next thing we can rely on God and move forward down that path.
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  Whether we feel like it or not, we can move forward being equipped and called
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  Yes, that's true.
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  Sarah says, "The world frames this message as really unsympathetic,
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  but it's actually very empowering.
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  I'm not a slave to my situation."
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  Exactly.
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  You're not a slave to your passions.
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  You're not a slave to your circumstances.
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  You're not a slave to your sin if you're in Christ.
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  There, you can be free and you can move forward freely in faithfulness,
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  which will be a path of joy.
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  And that's why we say repent, rejoice, repeat
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  Yes.
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  Allegra says, "Many times I want to be helpless and holler for my husband to come
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  rescue me when he's working from home, but really it's like the boy who cried wolf.
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  Eventually my husband ignores the noise, and I keep feeling like a victim until
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  I stop myself short and get a grip.
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  I'm an adult.
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  I set the tone for my household, and I don't get to be rescued because
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  this is where God wants me to be."
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  And our husbands do like to help us, and we can receive that gratefully.
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  But also, we were created to be helps for them.
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  We weren't created to be damsels in distress.
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  And generally, men don't want to marry damsels in distress
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  and have that in perpetuity.
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  You wanna be a queen with capabilities, allowing your husband to do his work.
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  You can do your work, which enables him to do his work.
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  Mm, Naomi says, "It's so hard not to feel like a slave."
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  Bingo.
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  And sometimes that's the bad story that we're telling ourselves, right?
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  Sometimes it's our little psalm story where we, in our imaginations, imagine
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  ourselves as a slave to the housework, to the dishes, to the laundry, and
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  like, "Woe is me that I'm doing this slave menial work," when it's not really
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  actually the kind of work that it is.
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  It is attending, gardening, cultivating, home-building work that's valuable,
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  and every job has grunt work
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  And so sure, there's some grunt work in this very meaningful role
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  that we've been given that is high agency and high responsibility.
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  And we do need to be a slave In some sense.
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  Because scripture says when you are no longer a slave to
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  sin, you're a slave to God.
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  Who are you going to obey?
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  Who is going to lead you?
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  Who is directing your steps?
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  Who are you following?
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  Whose household do you live in?
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  You can't have two masters.
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  You're gonna be a slave to unrighteousness or you're gonna
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  be a slave to righteousness
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  Yeah, it's Tiffany.
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  So it's both daunting and empowering to realize that we can control
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  ourselves and our attitudes.
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  We want to be the Proverbs 31 woman above the incessantly dripping wife.
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  So your choices, who do we wanna be?
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  The Proverbs 31 woman is out there doing things.
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  She has high agency, high responsibility, not a victim to difficulty,
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  laughing at the times to come.
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  She's not worried.
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  She's doing her thing.
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  That's what we wanna be like, and we can.
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  That's what God calls us to be like, and that's why we can Because we're
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  moving forward in the joy of the Lord
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  So when we're responsible for our own thoughts, we are exercising the
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  only kind of control we're supposed to have, which is self-control
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  And we are taking our thoughts captive, directing our thoughts, putting truth
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  in, and letting that align us, right?
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  We're gonna be working on alignment cards for the whole month of October, which
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  is external, outside, objective truth that then we match our thoughts up to.
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  We match ourselves up to this external objective standard
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  and get straightened out.
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  We straighten out our thoughts, make them line up with God's word
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  Stop trying to, get ourselves crooked by trying to get around truth
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  Oh, that's a good example, Naomi.
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  Naomi says, "Sometimes my husband will be in a hurry and
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  forget to kiss me or something.
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  I can spin such a story about how mean he was and probably doesn't love me anymore.
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  I literally lose a whole day like a spider spinning all these tales,
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  tying myself up in a string."
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  I- there's probably not a wife out there who hasn't found herself doing
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  something like that at some point.
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  You take one little thing which actually there is a perfectly understandable
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  reason that's not a big deal, and we make these stories happen It's so tempting
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  And it's so hard once you've got yourself spun up in one of those stories.
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  Like, it'd be like being tangled up in your own spider web that you made
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  It's so hard to then have that moment of humility and
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  repentance to say, "I was wrong.
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  I was making all of that up.
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  There was actually nothing valid in any of that."
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  Man, that's humbling.
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  And it's better to do it when it's all still just in your head and
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  you haven't let any of it out yet.
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  Repent quickly.
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  Ask God to show you when you're telling stories That are spinning
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  you up and making you stuck and actually have no basis in reality.
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  This is a thing that we do, and we don't have to.
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  We can stop it
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  And it's not like, well, once it happens, then you lose.
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  F.
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  You failed.
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  Repentance is the next step forward in faithfulness.
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  There's always a step forward in faithfulness.
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  It is true, the holidays are coming, and the real thing that makes our homes
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  festive and enjoyable for Thanksgiving and Christmas and any other family
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  gathering is mom being cheerful, loving her people, and happily putting together
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  a convivial feast for her family.
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  A feast not only of food, but also of fellowship
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  of any time of year This is the time of year That moms need to be convivial.
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  That we need to have our attitudes under control and set the tone
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  for everyone as a gift to them
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  We need to build our home, not tear it down
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  If you've been struggling with that, then Personal conversations and
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  mentoring might be exactly what you need to get over that hump and start
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  living and walking with Christian joy
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  I would love to have you come in to Convivial Circle and be a part of
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  our community We have weekly seminars
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  Chat spaces and conversations, courses, masterclasses, challenges
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  All there ready to help you organize your attitude and be the
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  convivial atmosphere in your home
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  We even have a holiday planning course.
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  And all of November we're talking about gifts as our theme and how we
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  can be a gift to our family in our homes as we prepare for the holidays.
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  It's a great time to join.
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  Go to convivialcircle.com
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  and enroll today
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  Together we will repent, rejoice, repeat