Elisabeth Elliot: I can't possibly emphasize strongly enough how important the career-the full-time career-of motherhood is. Mothers are shapers of destiny, nurturers of saints for God. Whether you're a full-time mother or a part-time mother, that is your job.

Lisa Barry: I don't know about you, but when I'm picking up Duplos for the fifth time or when I've just stepped into a small puddle of melted ice cream, I don't feel like I'm shaping any destiny. But someday I'm going to look back on this time and see the potential I had at my fingertips. You will, too. Today Elisabeth Elliot is going to help us harness that potential, so stay tuned for Gateway To Joy next.

Elisabeth Elliot: "You are loved with an everlasting love." That's what the Bible says. "And underneath are the everlasting arms." This is your friend Elisabeth Elliot, talking with you today about a woman's work.

I have a pretty strong hunch that just about every woman that listens to me is a working woman. You've all got work of some sort to do. Maybe some of you are actually driving to work now, and by that I mean the kind of job for which you get a salary or a wage. Maybe some of you are on a lunch break. And then there are the working women who are trying to listen while they are feeding a toddler or answering a phone, or putting clothes in a dryer or talking to the plumber, or cooking dinner.

You've heard me talk about mothers at home, maybe to the point of ad nauseam. You've heard me talk about the importance of motherhood, and you are going to hear me talk about it many more times. I can't possibly emphasize strongly enough how important the career of the full-time mother is. But I also know that there are a good many of you who are not mothers. Some of you who are mothers are not mothers at home, and I want to talk to you as well.

Mothers are shapers of destiny, nurturers of saints for God, and whether you are a full-time mother or a part-time mother, that is your job. That is your responsibility, along with whatever the other job is that you may have. But we all know that motherhood involves availability. And it is pretty tough to be available in two places at once, isn't it? I know the impossibility of that. People would like for me to be in several places at once and there is no way that I can do it.

So what do we do? Are we to feel guilty all the time? Can we find fulfillment in the work that God has given us to do? Well, you mothers who are at work away--singles, widows, divorced, older women whose children are gone, who perhaps have husbands-I hope that the things that I want to talk about for the next few weeks will cheer and encourage all of you women in some way, because it really is my prayer that the Lord will help me to help each one of you, to to love God, to walk with Him, to live with Him, to give Him all the rights to your life, and to find your peace in Him.

I want to give you on this program, Gateway To Joy, eternity. That's really what I want to give you, wherever you are right now-eternity-to raise your sights from the visible things which press so strongly against most of us most of the time, to the invisible things which are really permanent, the things worth dying for. I want to turn your eyes to Jesus.

I've talked to working women, working because of necessity, economics, because of their husband's insistence, and I have talked about what it says in Titus 2. Now Titus 2 is not an epistle of Elisabeth Elliot to the young man Titus. It is the letter of Paul the Apostle to a young man named Titus. Paul the elder was training the younger man for Christian life and teaching him how to train his people. And it says in Titus 2 that the older women are to teach the younger women, among other things, to love their husbands, to love their children, and to be busy at home.

Just the other day I was talking about this in a speaking engagement, and I used that expression "busy at home" or "stay at home." A man came up to me afterwards with his Bible open and he said, "It does not say that the older women are to teach the younger women to stay at home." And I said, "Well, what does it say in your Bible?" And so he started to read, "They must set a high standard and school the younger women to be loving wives and mothers, temperate, chaste and kind-uh oh," he says, "Yeah. You are right. It does say that." Well, it may not say exactly those words in your translation, but stay at home, busy at home, homeworkers, something like that is what it says.

I had a letter (after I had talked about this the last time on my program) from a listener who said, "The working women are going to be devastated by what you are saying to them. You are laying a guilt trip on them." I have heard that phrase before, haven't you?

Now let's think about that phrase for a minute. Just stop and let's try to dissect it a little bit. A guilt trip. How can I lay a guilt trip on somebody? Well, what is the reason for guilt? I am guilty when I have left undone something that I ought to have done. I am guilty when I have done something I ought not to have done. Now it is either true or it is not true. If I am only imagining that I ought not to have done it, and I've done it, then it is only imagined guilt. And that's perfectly possible. We can have imagined guilt.

I remember when I went to the Bible school in Alberta, Canada that you have heard me talk about, Prairie Bible Institute. There were occasions when students would get up in front of the microphone, and instead of giving what was called a testimony and telling how wonderfully the Lord had blessed them that week, they would get up and read us a long list of their sins. And I remember the prayer of the Dean of Women who got up after one of those long confession sessions and she said, "Oh, Lord, deliver us from our guilt, real or imagined." And I thought, "Now that's honesty. That's reality."

But is it possible for me to lay a guilt trip, or is it your conscience or God speaking to you? My intention is always to be faithful to the Word, and in the Book of Jeremiah 23:29 we read, "'Do not My words scorch like fire?' says the Lord. 'Are they not like a hammer that splinters rock?'" That's exactly the way I've found God's Word to be. Sometimes His Word scorches me. It lays a guilt trip on me because it reminds me of something that I have done which I ought not to have done, or something that I ought not to have done which I have done. It is a hammer, it is a fire, and it scorches me.

And in Jeremiah 8:9: "The wives are put to shame. They are dismayed and have lost their wits. They have spurned the word of the Lord, and what sort of wisdom is theirs?" We can't expect to be wise if we spurn the Word of the Lord. It is my job to be faithful to what the Word of the Lord says, and that Word drives its shafts into the depths of my soul. It is living. It is powerful. It is sharper than a two-edged sword, and it pierces to the very marrow.

If it is God that is speaking, your heart will be pierced. He speaks, remember, not for our hurt but always for our freedom and peace. The road sometimes looks impossible to us; impassable, too. The obstacles are tremendous. But He knows the way that we take, and when He has tried us, the Bible says that we shall come forth as gold.

If I speak His Word to you, and you are devastated by it, or angered by it, then it is with Him that you must take up your case. If I lay a trip, a guilt trip, merely by human logic, human persuasion or my own opinions of what should be, then I would hope that you are smart enough to ignore me if it doesn't line up with Scripture.

I remember attending what was called an Evangelical Women's Caucus Meeting one time where a woman gave a seminar on what she called "Same-Sex Relationships." And I went and listened very carefully to what this woman had to say. And the sum and substance of her message is that lesbian relationships between women are a viable Christian alternative.

In the question and answer period, of course, I raised the question about certain passages of Scripture-for example, Romans 1 which clearly denounces homosexuality as sin-and she did some very fancy footwork that got her around that verse theologically. But afterwards, she cornered me. I can still remember the fire in her eyes and the way her lower jaw jutted out when she said to me, "Elisabeth, do you realize how cruel you were being to the lesbians in that audience?"

Well, it wasn't my opinion that I was giving them. It was the Word that is a hammer and a fire. It is going to hurt. It is going to scorch. It is going to pierce to the marrow. But when the surgeon's knife pierces to the marrow of our bones, it is in order to heal. It is in order to free. And so I don't speak about women staying home in order to lay a guilt trip on the rest of you. I hope you will come back and listen tomorrow, because I am going to talk to the working women who work outside the home.

Lisa Barry: As I mentioned earlier on the program, it's hard for me to imagine the magnitude of the influence I'm having on my children right now. The days seem predictable and usually uneventful. But I'm constantly reminding myself of what those older than me have said-that this time goes by much too quickly and to make the most of it. The real challenge is trying to live out what I believe in my heart.

If you're a mother, we have a resource to offer that will get both of us off on the right foot. It's a copy of this tape series called A MOTHER'S WORK. The series is designed to help you make the most of the important job you hold. The cost is $13. You can send that, along with your request, to Gateway To Joy, Box 82500, Lincoln, Nebraska, 68501. Or you can call toll-free at 1-800-759-4JOY. If you'd like to visit our website, you can find it at gatewaytojoy.org. Today's program has been a production of Back to the Bible.

Tomorrow Elisabeth will be talking to those who work outside the home. I hope you can join us then for another Gateway To Joy.