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I quit giving cash years ago. It disappoints all I've encountered. But it's opened up a whole new world to me of real help. Here's what I do sometimes but only too rarely.

Take them out for a meal, take them shopping for food or critical items. Take time to talk with them, listen to them. It's okay to explain why you refuse certain requests.

If you do this a few times, you may soon find out which businesses are more hospitable. Find a few restaurants that have healthy food, a casual atmosphere, accepting staff, and single-person lockable bathrooms. Once, it wasn't the meal but the large private bathroom that a homeless man got the most use of. It was nearly closing time and the place was almost empty, so he felt comfortable taking his time in the bathroom and was very happy to get done whatever he needed in there. During good weather seasons, I've found that many tend to avoid shelters and so also have little access to a variety of indoor facilities we take for granted: mirrors, a clean place to repack a bag, real if only brief privacy.

Since we can't always feel able or willing, have backup plans. See if you have friends who can pitch in when you don't have time but come across an appropriate, pressing need. When a homeless man began visiting an urban church I once attended, he found a diverse group of people and a support network that he could rely on because he was not overly encumbering any one of us. Not everyone felt comfortable hugging him or giving him their phone number, not everyone could afford to take him to dinner, not everyone had cars to drive him places. But, for a while, he got regular, loving care and attention from individuals once or twice each week.

It's certainly not always all possible. But in an urban environment, while walking down the street, it's often very easy to pop in a store and help a person with a specific need.

People need to be careful about safety and getting in over their head. Stay in populated areas. I'd imagine most churches and shelters can offer advice or training in this area for those who feel inclined to get more involved. Even the occasional, irregular helper should have an emergency plan for weird or scary situations. I've had someone ask me to drive them to a place I didn't feel comfortable going; I asked for a busy intersection or subway stop to drop him off at instead. He understood and appreciated the still-helpful compromise.

Any personal and direct involvement, no matter how small, even just talking to them more politely than you do telemarketers, can be mutually beneficial.

>>> never will our heart be pure and produce bad fruit

Joseph, on your Dad's blog I saw your question, something like "So people can't do bad things from good motives?" And here it looks like you got your answer, but I wonder how you got to it. If I do something for somebody that I think will be good for them and I was mistaken, does that mean my motives were bad? That doesn't seem right.

Or maybe trying and failing is different than bad fruit? I think there's something I'm not understanding.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it wasn't Augustine. He only had one child, the son of his first lover, whom he never married. (In fact, he didn't ever marry, so far as I know.) I can't imagine him being able to speak of his ex-lover and himself as "one tree, not two" to his son, even though he did love her dearly.

I've changed the citation accordingly.

The understanding of my office (and that of those above me below me and beside me) has been a help to me many times. Thanks for this reminder.

Hi Sue,

I think we're finally on the same page now. :)

I will try to answer briefly, since we could talk for hours about each of these questions you raise.

1. I never claimed that no women should go to medical school, for example. My concern is with girls whose parents and churches have never bothered to instill in them a desire to marry and have children, because they view marriage and raising children as a waste of that girl's tremendous gifts and potential. "Think about what she could have done as a missionary to Russia! Or how many more children she could have helped if she had been a pediatrician! Or how many babies she could have saved if she had gotten a good career as a doctor and given money to stop AIDS in Africa!" Those are all potentially good things for a woman to do. My sister thought she was called to be a missionary in Russia as a high-schooler. How do you help her evaluate that call? Well, for starters, you help her to see that if she gets married, her first calling will be as a wife, and Lord-willing, a mother, and subordinate to the calling of her husband. In other words, if she marries a financial planner living Nashville, her "calling" to be a missionary doesn't trump his to be a financial planner. (If she doesn't get married, it's worth pointing out that she's often going to be a lot better able to fulfill these callings you described if she doesn't have a huge amount of debt, but that's not the point.)

2. You are describing my wife and I. Heidi worked full-time outside the home for quite a few years while we waited for the Lord to give us children. Eventually we adopted from Ethiopia. Today, 8 years after we got married, she is pregnant yet again, and we are hopeful that this baby will live. The lack of children in our marriage was a source of sadness for years, just as it was to Sarah, Hannah, Rachel and Elizabeth in the Bible. It was God's will, and so we trusted Him with it, but that doesn't mean that it isn't sad. Death and sickness, in all their incarnations, are the effect of the fall. This doesn't make my wife, or others who can never have children at all, less godly or holy, less of a woman, or necessarily outside of God's will for their life. But we ought not to try to convince ourselves (or them) that there is nothing missing in their life.

The same goes for your last question. God has called some men and women to singleness. But women are not to be put on the list of permanently single (and devoted to God rather than marriage) until they are old, in case they are able to get married. In fact, they are to seek to do so, according to 1 Timothy 5:14 and numerous other places. If God's plan for a particular woman is that she should *not* get married and/or have children, that doesn't mean that we should stop talking to women (both young and old) about the normative plan that God has for women to do so. This will obviously require comforting those who begin to grow in this desire but aren't able for one reason or another.

My father is fond of saying that we are not to sacrifice the normal on the alter to the abnormal. Everybody needs to be taught these things, and the majority of people will be called/able to do them. It's the same with any number of things. Think about people in any kind of special circumstance, and you'll realize that we don't just decide not to teach them certain things, because we're afraid they will be hurt or feel left out. For example, prisoners need to be taught of the requirement to serve the body of Christ, even though they are unable to do much from prison. They might be there because of their sin, or they might be there because of obedience to Christ. The end-game is the same--they can't serve the church body the way normal people would. So they can either sit there and feel sorry for themselves when they hear about that command, or they can realize that they are limited by their situation, whether sin or obedience put them in that situation. I hope this helps make sense of why these things still need to be taught.

I'll also add as a last comment for the record that it's not good, in my opinion, for single men or women to adopt. Actually, this is another great example! Children need a mother and a father. This is normative. Many children don't get that benefit, because of sin or death. That doesn't mean we should start pretending that it doesn't matter whether a father is around.

Now, there are arguments to be made for why it might make sense for singles to adopt orphans, but what really needs to be taught on is that children are a blessing from the Lord, and that we are to care for the orphan as Christians. Then married couples will become convicted and act. Too often, single women adopt because they are *not* willing to accept God's plan for their life as one of singleness. In other words, it's possible to fall off both sides of this fence, if you get my meaning.

In Christ,
-Joseph

The Bible says to count the cost (although I don't remember chapter and verse), as well as plain old common sense, and I agree that should be true for women when they choose a career, but it should be true for men, too.

Maybe a woman who counted the cost who initially decided to be a physician may change her career choice to a physician assistant. She would have some of the same responsibilities as a physician, the # of years to prepare for her career would be greatly reduced, and she would still earn a high salary (I'm looking for a job in an allied health care profession &/or health IT now and I see job postings in hospitals for PAs with salary ranges from $75-$110K/annually for a FT position).

Or decide to become a paralegal rather than an attorney and consider part-time law school while being a SAHM, putting off law school until her children are older, or deciding that being a paralegal is a rewarding profession in itself that she'll return to it when her children are older. Perhaps her employer may even give her a PT job she can do from home.

But even if a woman (or a man) decides to pursue a career that requires professional school, a master's degree (many health care professions do this now), or a Ph.D., there are many ways to keep costs down, although unless your parents are wealthy you probably won't get out debt-free.

1) Obviously, whether or not you know what career you want, start working summers or other times as soon as you can and vow to put 75% away (10% for tithe, 15% for yourself). It can add up.

2) Your parents have to do this, but if your state has a good pre-paid tuition plan and they invest in it when you are young, this can pay a lot of your undergrad tuition.

3) Go to a community college and/or university branch campus and live at home. Community colleges are dirt cheap, usually offer online classes, and make it easy to transfer to our 4-year universities (at least they do in Ohio, where I live). Once you transfer to a four-year school your B.S./B.A. degree will be from there and that's what really matters in terms of a job and/or further education. If possible, major in something that will transfer to a 4-year university and give you a better opportunity to earn in $ during your last 2 years of college than a "would you like fries that with job". For example, if you know you want to go to med school, become a medical laboratory technician, where jobs usually start around $15/hr.

4) If your parents are able, they may pay for much of finishing your 4-year degree, especially since your community college education was so inexpensive, preventing you from much debt on your 4-year degree.

5) If you've earned an associate's degree that gave you a marketable skill in community college, consider working for a year or so before furthering your education after your B.A./B.S., living at home if possible, or with several roomies, saving up as much as possible.

6) If possible (and I'm still using the med school example), try to get accepted into a med school in a public university in your own state, provided it's high quality. I'd guess that the tuition is lower than an out-of-state school or a private one (obviously this won't work out for everyone).

7) Work between the summer of your 1st and 2nd year of med school and 2nd and 3rd year until your start clinical rotations in July.

None of these solutions will work for everyone and many people will have thought of them anyway, but these are ways to minimize debt in medical school. There are no doubt creative ways to do this for other advanced degrees as well.

Finally, I apologize if all I've done is repeat what most everyone knows already.

The Bible is clear that a good wife is beneficial financially, and this can happen in various ways. Do not imagine that I claim a godly marriage is defined by the wife not making money or ever working outside the home. Far from it.

But it is time for us to admit that there are many careers that militate against being able to get married and have children, at least any time soon. Too many girls have been taught to pursue their "potential" and have never been taught that their highest potential is in bearing children. They get out of 8 years of school with 100k of debt, and many men who could have married them and provided for them no longer can. They've been set on a path, and nobody warned them what the long term outcome was going to require them to give up.

Now they have to marry only a doctor or lawyer, or be willing to work for 5-10 more years, just to pay off their loans. Add children to the mix and either they have to switch part time or pay for childcare, both of which will extend the amount of time required to pay off the debt.

Is anybody cautioning these girls to remember that they very well may not be called to singleness, and therefore need to be careful what they commit themselves to?

You wrote:

//My take on the women concerned, is that a good marriage & family would trump a career, any day, but a good career would trump a bad marriage. Does this view need challenging as well?//

That would be my opinion, but why are they mutually exclusive? Who says a woman can't work part-time or start a part-time business when she has young children if they need the money and/or she enjoys it (like a friend of mine with a kindergartner and a 4th grader who works two 4-hr shifts/wk as a dental hygienist to keep her skills sharp and enjoy adult company). Or maybe a woman puts her profession/trade/job on hold until her children are older? OTOH, I think it's great for a woman to be a 100% SAHM if that's what she and her husband want and they can swing it financially.

BTW, the friend I mentioned was able to increase her hours temporarily to about 50% time after her husband lost his job, but both she and her husband were thrilled when he found another job and they could go back to their normal routine.

Dear Sue,

Much that I agree with in what you wrote. Realize that my purpose in this post was not to argue that everybody needs to get married and early. I am opposing "Christian" parents who are trying to prevent their children from doing so.

In Christ,
-Joseph

Dear Joseph,

You have given me much food for thought in your post and its links. I think I may have come across as though I have the answer for every individual woman, which is ridiculous -- only God knows that! And while you may disagree, I believe the verses you cited are Biblical principles that each woman must ask God to tell her how to apply to her own situation. For example, even if a woman works outside the home to one degree or another or is a SAHM and hires a part-time housekeeper she is still a "keeper of the home". And a woman doesn't need to be a SAHM or SAHW to love her husband or even be married to be pure. Shouldn't these things be God's will for every "young" woman?

And I realize that you were correct that in pointing out that I didn't differentiate between having a career and excessive careerism -- something that affects both women and men -- even though you didn't exactly put it that way. I also agree with your sister -- a 4-year college education isn't necessary for every woman, but it's not always necessary for every man either, although both women and men must be well-educated and you can gain that education outside a traditional brick-and-mortar 4-year college or university.

The Atlantic Monthly article did break my heart. Most of the young women of this current generation I know personally or indirectly (I know their parents but just have a nodding acquaintance with them at best) who were/are marriage-minded knew this pretty early on. This didn't always mean that they didn't pursue the education and careers the wanted, but it did mean that they might have to go out of their way to meet marriage-minded men, such as changing churches to one with a vibrant single adult group or becoming involved in activities that they enjoyed where they might be able to meet more single men. But some did make career or job choices that would give them more less demanding workloads, less travel, or less post-bachelor's education, or community college degrees, like radiology technician. One example: one friend's daughter originally considered medical school (and probably had the qualifications to get in) but chose pharmacy school instead -- less post-B.S. education, less debt, regular hours, great job demand so easy to get PT job if she wanted to after becoming a mother.

This doesn't mean that they wanted to marry at 22-23, but I think most were/are shooting for the average age for marriage for U.S. women, around 26-27 or so, and some have or are planning to do so, like one of my nieces (and goddaughter) who recently married at age 26. Maybe this is a reaction to what they see in the women in their late 30's/early 40's; I can't say. I certainly hope they were/are not engaging in pre-marital sex; I doubt there was promiscuity. Either way, they are adults and mostly raised in Christian homes and they will answer to God about their sex lives. Children are also in their future, and AFAIK, they are savvy enough to not put off trying to have children until their mid-30's.

Something that I think you haven't addressed is that some women (and men) do not marry in their early/mid 20s isn't that because they don't want to; it's just that God hasn't brought the right person into their lives right yet. I am not talking about someone who is so fixated on finding Mr. or Ms. Right that they don't see a suitable potential spouse right around the corner; rather, I mean people who don't have opportunity to meet other marriageable single adults or need a few more years than most to be suitable spouses themselves. Personally, my husband and I married when he was 30 and I was 32 fir the former reason above.

I lived in a medium-sized city (~200,000) after I finished college. I met single people in their late 20's who lived in small towns up to 40 mi. away who were practically the only single young adult in their communities -- a carpenter, a teacher, an attorney, a nurse practitioner -- who came to social events in the city in the hope of meeting other single adults.

More than enough said; I learned something from your post and its links. I hope I've given you some things to think about, too.

Possibly your loyal opposition but your sister in Christ,

Sue

"I'm in touch with my feelings enough to know that I'm very angry now. This author and interviewer were attempting to vaccinate Christians against God's truth."

Right on. Thank you for your work Joseph!