Walk Like a Lady

Many of my readers know that I consider myself a follower of Christ, and as such, I want to reflect that belief in my style of life. I don't want to cast a dim view on that which I hold to be divine and holy, and so I am careful - circumspect, to use the old fashioned word - in my walk. Sometimes I stumble, as we all do, but we press on.

A lady is known by so many things in her life. Not merely white gloves and high tea - if known by this at all! Consider the following motherly poem:

You tell on yourself by the friends you seek,
By the very manner in which you speak,
By the way you employ your leisure time,
By the use you make of dollar and dime.

You tell what you are by the things you wear,
By the spirit in which you burdens bear,
By the kind of things at which you laugh,
By the records you play on the phonograph.

You tell what you are by the way you walk,
By the things of which you delight to talk,
By the manner in which you bear defeat,
By so simple a thing as how you eat.

By the books you choose from the well-filled shelf:
In these ways and more, you tell on yourself.

--- Author Unknown

Proverb 4:23 instructs:
Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.

What is in a lady's heart, is what is seen in her life. You can neither pretend to be a lady if your heart and mind are filled with unlady-like things, nor hide the fact that you are a daughter of the King of kings if your heart and mind are filled with the knowledge that you indeed are a "princess".

Choose ye this day whom ye will serve... whether your husband, or your boss; your children, or everyone else's children; your self, or your God. Then put your heart into it. People will know what you have chosen, whether you like it or not, for man sees the outward appearance.

Guard your heart, and your footsteps. Walk like a lady.

photo above taken from the book by Kenichi Kawakatsu, "Kimono" of 1936

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see also the WikiHow on How to Act Like a Lady
and a devotional article called, "Ladybug, Ladybug," from the CreativeLadiesMinistry

A Lady Is Aware of Her Words

I advise my gentle readers to please travel to this link and read a most refreshing article on the subject of the words we use: Christian Cussing is for the Foolish (from Desiring to Be a Godly Woman's blog).

For a Christian Lady, it is imperative that we set a watch over our lips, for our speech proclaims to the world who we are in our hearts, and we are to be reflecting the light of Jesus Christ. Should we suppose that someone who cannot see our hearts can truly make out the truth of love for God, His will, and for one another, when our words show disrespect, callousness, or even hate?

For any Lady, our words proclaim who we are. Yes, it did used to be true, that men would watch their language "when ladies were present". Some things were not talked about in the presence of children or the elderly, for various reasons. In fact, only 20 years ago, when I was attending speech and communication classes in university, we were told that to use foul, disrespectful, cuss-words or slang was to lower others' estimation of you, and diminish your credibility. Not from some overbearing Judeo-Christian perception did the professors point this out, but from common knowledge that a person with something to say, with dignity, self control and self respect will attempt to use the proper words for the proper things at the proper times. Using slang shows your ignorance and the fact that you just don't care - really!

How much more important then for a Lady or Gentleman who wants to present the love and peace of the Almighty God to the world to choose their words carefully? Why would a lady want to try to act like - not just any man, for there are still gentlemen among us, but - a disrespectful man with no understanding of common courtesy? Christian Ladies, please read the article referenced above.

(And if you think that watching your mouth is just a "Christian thing", check out this article that I came across yesterday: Social Responses to Swearing, in HowStuffWorks, which includes this helpful bit of observation: Western society generally views swearing as more appropriate for men than for women. Women who swear appear to violate more societal taboos than men who swear. People also tend to judge women more harshly than men for their use of obscenities.)

The way we speak is so important, and shows who we really are just as loudly as what we wear. Why Can't the English Learn to Speak? (-click for the clip from My Fair Lady)(image below: Audry Hepburn as Eliza Doolittle in "My Fair Lady")

Ladies, please: it is worth it to learn to watch your phraseology!

For another old-fashioned side of this, see also Emily Post's chapter on Words, Phrases and Pronunciation, 1922.

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Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be. - James 3:10

Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification that it may impart grace to the hearers. - Ephesians 4:29

Remember Who You Are...

You tell on yourself by the friends you seek,
By the very manner in which you speak,
By the way you employ your leisure time,
By the use you make of dollar and dime.

You tell what you are by the things you wear,
By the spirit in which you burdens bear,
By the kind of things at which you laugh,
By the records you play on the phonograph.

You tell what you are by the way you walk,
By the things of which you delight to talk,
By the manner in which you bear defeat,
By so simple a thing as how you eat.

By the books you choose from the well-filled shelf:
In these ways and more, you tell on yourself.

--- Author Unknown

Figurine pictured, from Lladro Porcelain Figurines : "Someone to Look Up To"

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Do all things without grumbling or questioning, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world. Philippians 2:14-15

A Model of Ladyship

I never knew Elisabeth Elliot, nor have I read much of her writings, or listened to her old radio broadcasts: "Gateway to Joy." But I was directed to something that she wrote recently, and found a webpage full of her wise words and gentle council. She wrote and edited a newsletter, called "The Elisabeth Elliot Newsletter", in which are many thoughtful essays and poems, and I encourage you to seek out some of the articles from this older woman of experience.

One of them I will reproduce here, on this occasion of Mother's Day, for all women, be they mothers, adoptive mothers, foster mothers, room mothers, house mothers, den mothers, or those who mother anyone who needs mothering. May all of us be blessed, and be such a blessing to others.

A Call to Older Women

by Elizabeth Elliot

In 1948 when I had been at Prairie Bible Institute (a very stark set of wooden buildings on a very bleak prairie in Alberta) for only a few weeks, I was feeling a bit displaced and lonesome one afternoon when there came a knock on my door. I opened it to find a beautiful rosy-cheeked face framed by white hair. She spoke with a charming Scottish burr.
"You don't know me, but I know you. I've been prraying for you, Betty dearr. I'm Mrs. Cunningham. If everr you'd like a cup of tea and a Scottish scone, just pop down to my little aparrtment."
She told me where she lived and went on to say that my name had been mentioned in a staff meeting (she never said how--was I thought of as a misfit at PBI? I wonder) and the Lord had given her a burden for me. Many were the wintry afternoons when I availed myself of her gracious offer and we sat together in her tiny but very cozy basement apartment while she poured tea for me and I poured my soul out to her. Her radiant face was full of sympathy, love, and understanding as she listened. She would be quiet for a little, then she would pray and, looking up, cheer and strengthen me with words from God. During and after my missionary years she wrote to me until she died. Only God knows what I owe to "the four Katharines"- -Katharine Cunningham, Katharine Gillingham Howard (my own mother), Katherine Cumming (my house mother when I was in college), and Katherine Morgan. These and several others have not only shown me what godliness looks like (many have done that), but have significantly graced my life by obeying God's special call to older women.
The apostle Paul tells Titus that older women ought to "school the younger women to be loving wives and mothers, temperate, chaste, and kind, busy at home, respecting the authority of their own husbands" (Titus 2:4-5, NEB). My dear "Mom Cunningham" schooled me--not in a class or seminar, or even primarily by her words. It was what she was that taught me. It was her availability to God when He sent her to my door. It was the surrender of her time, an offering to Him for my sake. It was her readiness to "get involved," to lay down her life for one anxious Bible school girl. Above all, she herself, a simple Scottish woman, was the message.
I think of the vast number of older women today. The Statistical Abstract of the United States for 1980 says that 19.5 percent of the population was between ages 45-65, but by 2000 it will be 22.9 percent. Assuming that half of those people are women, what a pool of energy and power for God they might be. We live longer now than we did forty years ago (the same volume says that the over-sixty-fives will increase from 11.3 percent to 13 percent). There is more mobility, more money around, more leisure, more health and strength--resources which, if put at God's disposal, might bless younger women. But there are also many more ways to spend those resources, so we find it very easy to occupy ourselves selfishly. Where are the women, single or married, willing to hear God's call to spiritual motherhood, taking spiritual daughters under their wings to school them as Mom Cunningham did me? She had no training the world would recognize. She had no thought of such. She simply
loved God and was willing to be broken bread and poured-out wine for His sake. Retirement never crossed her mind.

If some of my readers are willing to hear this call but hardly know how to begin, may I suggest to you:
1. Pray about it. Ask God to show you whom, what, how.
2. Consider writing notes to or telephoning some younger woman who needs encouragement in the areas Paul mentioned.
3. Ask a young mother if you may do her ironing, take the children out, babysit so she can go out, make a cake or a casserole for her.
4. Do what Mom C. did for me--invite somebody to tea, find out what she'd like you to pray for (I asked her to pray that God would bring Jim Elliot and me together!)-- and pray with her.
5. Start a little prayer group of two or three whom you can cheer and help. You'll be cheered and helped too!
6. Organize a volunteer housecleaning pool to go out every other week or once a month to somebody who needs you.
7. Have a lending library of books of real spiritual food.
8. Be the first of a group in your church to be known as the WOTT's (Women of Titus Two), and see what happens (something will).

"Say not you cannot gladden, elevate, and set free; that you have nothing of the grace of influence; that all you have to give is at the most only common bread and water. Give yourself to your Lord for the service of men with what you have. Cannot He change water into wine? Cannot He make stammering words to be instinct [imbued, filled, charged] with saving power? Cannot He change trembling efforts to help into deeds of strength? Cannot He still, as of old, enable you in all your personal poverty 'to make many rich?' God has need of thee for the service of thy fellow men. He has a work for thee to do. To find out what it is, and then to do it, is at once thy supremist duty and thy highest wisdom. 'Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it.'" (Canon George Body, b. 1840).

(Sept. 1989)