FW 7.5 Toppling Off Your Pedestal

 Hello, Beautiful Homemakers!

  

We are in the middle of Chapter XV Arousing Worship, Adoration, and Love, of Pamphlet 7 of the original 1922 Fascinating Womanhood pamphlets. 

This video starts with "The Story of a Stenographer" and her date taking her to supper at the Roof Garden. As she is looking around with interest at the crowd that was drinking, "the man naturally thought that she was wavering, that the contagious irresponsibility had affected her, and proceeded to wobble her pedestal; he was intensely interested, to tell the truth, in learning if she was the refined and idealistic woman she seemed."

I got halfway through the subsection "How She Won Out" before I started telling stories of how I fell off my pedestal at work, on my first date with my now husband, and other stories, and I ran out of time, so we will finish this subsection in FW 7.6.

I tell what my husband thought of me not drinking alcohol, and how he came to stop imbibing as well.

People are always using the Bible to justify their drinking and remind us that the Bible doesn't forbid drinking alcohol.  Their favorite verse is 1 Timothy 5:23.

They continue to satisfy their whetted appetites and they become functioning alcoholics.  They hold onto their jobs, but they can no longer feel peace if they don’t have a glass of wine when they come home from work, or with their dinner. 

Drinking wine is not a sin, but drunkenness is, and drunkenness is a process that begins within the very first minute of your first drink.  It doesn’t begin “after drink two.”  Any alcohol consumed begins effecting your body and brain immediately.  Your inhibitions and your judgment are degraded. 

Let’s look at what 1 Timothy 5:23 actually says: “Don’t drink only water. You ought to drink a little wine for the sake of your stomach because you are sick so often.”  This is clearly for medicinal purposes. Remember that their water was impure, and the wine purified the water, making it safe to drink.

These same people will never bring up these verses from Proverbs 23:29-35:

Who has anguish? Who has sorrow? Who is always fighting? Who is always complaining? Who has unnecessary bruises? Who has bloodshot eyes?
It is the one who spends long hours in the taverns, trying out new drinks.
Don’t gaze at the wine, seeing how red it is, how it sparkles in the cup, how smoothly it goes down.
For in the end it bites like a poisonous snake; it stings like a viper.
You will see hallucinations, and you will say crazy things.
You will stagger like a sailor tossed at sea, clinging to a swaying mast.
And you will say, “They hit me, but I didn’t feel it. I didn’t even know it when they beat me up.
When will I wake up so I can look for another drink?”

Or Proverbs 20:1 which says, “Wine produces mockers; alcohol leads to brawls.  Those led astray by drink cannot be wise.”

Romans 13:13 says, “Because we belong to the day, we must live decent lives for all to see. Don’t participate in the darkness of wild parties and drunkenness, or in sexual promiscuity and immoral living, or in quarreling and jealousy.” 

“Watch out! Don’t let your hearts be dulled by carousing and drunkenness, and by the worries of this life….” (Luke 21:34a)

“You won’t spend the rest of your lives chasing your own desires, but you will be anxious to do the will of God. You have had enough in the past of the evil things that godless people enjoy—their immorality and lust, their feasting and drunkenness and wild parties, and their terrible worship of idols.  Of course, your former friends are surprised when you no longer plunge into the flood of wild and destructive things they do. So they slander you. But remember that they will have to face God, who stands ready to judge everyone, both the living and the dead.”   That’s from 1 Peter 4:2-5.

There are many more verses admonishing us to not drink alcohol, but I will end with this exhortation from Ephesians 5:3-20 (NLT):

 ³ Let there be no sexual immorality, impurity, or greed among you. Such sins have no place among God’s people. ⁴ Obscene stories, foolish talk, and coarse jokes—these are not for you. Instead, let there be thankfulness to God. ⁵ You can be sure that no immoral, impure, or greedy person will inherit the Kingdom of Christ and of God. For a greedy person is an idolater, worshiping the things of this world.

⁶ Don’t be fooled by those who try to excuse these sins, for the anger of God will fall on all who disobey him. ⁷ Don’t participate in the things these people do. ⁸ For once you were full of darkness, but now you have light from the Lord. So live as people of light! ⁹ For this light within you produces only what is good and right and true.

¹⁰ Carefully determine what pleases the Lord. ¹¹ Take no part in the worthless deeds of evil and darkness; instead, expose them. ¹² It is shameful even to talk about the things that ungodly people do in secret. ¹³ But their evil intentions will be exposed when the light shines on them, ¹⁴ for the light makes everything visible. This is why it is said,

“Awake, O sleeper, rise up from the dead, and Christ will give you light.”

Living by the Spirit’s Power

¹⁵ So be careful how you live. Don’t live like fools, but like those who are wise. ¹⁶ Make the most of every opportunity in these evil days. ¹⁷ Don’t act thoughtlessly, but understand what the Lord wants you to do. ¹⁸ Don’t be drunk with wine, because that will ruin your life. Instead, be filled with the Holy Spirit, ¹⁹ singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, and making music to the Lord in your hearts. ²⁰ And give thanks for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

That pretty much sums up what these pamphlets teach! 

 

Also remember that alcohol ages your skin.  You can look up on YT a plethora of videos from women who have given up alcohol and how it greatly improved their health and skin.  There are many benefits to not drinking any alcohol.   

Nothing good happens after midnight. You aren't missing out.

I quote this from Charlene Johnson's book Beautiful Homemaking on pages 64-65:

Whatever it is that you want your child to be and say and do tomorrow, you must be and say and do today.  Whatever your child sees and hears you do, that he has every right to do.  It’s not just what we say, it’s how we say it.  Our responsibility is overwhelming.

A father decided to go off to the corner tavern on a cold, wintry Saturday afternoon.  Slipping quietly from his house, he started down the snow-covered street toward his destination.  He hadn’t gone far before he heard a voice behind him.  It was his six-year-old son who said, “Go ahead, Daddy, I’m just following in your footsteps.” 

But daddy didn’t go right ahead.  The child’s innocent remark took on great significance to that father.  He turned to his son and tenderly picked him up in his strong arms and said, “Son, from this day forward, my footsteps will lead you to only the right places.” And they went home together – a father and his son.

 

I’m so thankful that my own father led us well. My dad didn’t drink at all.  I remember him telling me that when he retired they gave him a big retirement dinner.  The waiter came over to him and presented him with the wine to taste.  His friend on his right saw my dad’s hesitation and jumped in, tasting it and giving the waiter the okay. 

Being a teenager, I thought my dad was going to tell me that he was embarrassed that his friend took charge.  But he said, “I’m so glad that I’ve never been tempted to drink.”  Not drinking is certainly no reason to be embarrassed – but teenagers think foolishly.

Skeet Savage, who recently graduated to heaven, wrote in her last article for her magazine An Encouraging Word, “So, consider this: If others follow you along the path you are taking, do you know where you are leading them? If they imitate your life, will they be more like Jesus? If your friends and neighbors are seeking Jesus, will they find Him as they walk along the way with you? Or, will they only be more lost and confused as they trace your misguided footsteps?”

 

If you are a wine imbiber or a beer drinker or drink something harder, your children will most likely follow in your footsteps. 

 

(This is an old ad. There is a reason women aren’t featured in ads. What images does a mother drinking alcohol evoke?)

Questions to ask yourself:

• Will my drinking today encourage my child to drink when of age? (An 8 y.o. told me she couldn’t wait to grow up. “Why?” “So I can drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes, and get a tattoo like my mom!”)

• Will it encourage my grandchild to drink? 

• If you knew that your child, grandchild, or great-grandchild would become a drunk driver and accidentally kill himself or herself, or would land in jail for twenty-five years for killing someone else, would that help you to quit drinking today? 

Because it happens, every day. 

Will you help end the cycle of alcohol in your family line today by becoming a good example? 

 

I come from a long line of teetotalers, on both sides.  However, several generations ago someone married a man who was an alcoholic.  (Was his dad an alcoholic?)  He was a church-goer, but an occasional binge drinker as well.  He ended up losing his first marriage, but went on to marry again, a sweet woman who died when I was very young. 

• He had more children, and they followed in their father’s alcoholic footsteps. 
  • As did their sons and daughters. 
    • As did their grandsons and granddaughters. 

The result in this present generation has been horrendous: 

• The rejection of Christ.  
• The rampant alcoholism.  
• The devastation of marriages.  
• The death. 

Only one of the grandchildren turned to Christ and was able to overcome the addiction. 

Our family has wondered, if we could go back in time and tell that man, that great-grandpa, that his great-grandchildren would die from alcohol, would he have been able to give it up for good? 

Contrast that with my other family lines where the men in the family did not drink:

• The children who decided to not drink raised nondrinkers as well. 
• The children who decided to drink raised both drinkers and nondrinkers. 
• The nondrinkers have healthy marriages.  The imbibers don’t. 

A simplification, yes, but also a tell.  Drunkenness directly contributes to fighting, ill health, and loss of financial stability.

The choices we make today in how we raise our children, and how we talk with them, will directly affect how our grandchildren, and our great-grandchildren, will be raised. 

• What changes do you need to make right now?
• What traditions would you like to hear your great-grandchild tell you about? 
• What would you like them to thank you for starting? (or ending?)
• What would you be grieved to have them tell about you? 

You can begin anew today and become the storybook mother, or grandmother, or wife, you desire to be!

People, especially women younger than you, are watching what you say, how you act, where you go, what you wear, what you do with your time, how you spend your money, if you get a tattoo, and even what you are drinking. 

Unbeknownst to you, whether for good or bad, you are someone’s role model.  Someone is following in your footsteps.  Where are you leading those who follow you?

 

May God bless you as you set a godly example of feminine womanhood, of fascinating womanhood, of biblical womanhood, to others. 

Janine

 

PS - I don't know why MailChimp hasn't stopped sending messages on Saturdays, or if it is going to stop. Perhaps the company changed their mind.  So forgive the fact that you are receiving a notification when I post on FollowIt, and also on Saturdays from MailChimp.  Feel free to unsubscribe from one or the other.  Sorry about that!