Wasted Potential

Here is a post from a blog I follow. I CANNOT WAIT until I can go back to "wasting my potential!"

A series of encounters this week have led to this post. Please bear with me. In former days if I were this bothered I would have to be unscrewed from the ceiling and I am really wanting the "former days" to remain former.

But here's what I wonder, said as nicely as I know how:

Why is it wasted potential if I invest my life in teaching my own children instead of someone else's? To endeavor to teach someone else's child for pay is considered noble. To teach my own for no pay is considered antiquated and odd. Maybe downright weird.

Why is it wasted potential if I keep my own home instead of someone else's? Were I to be employed for monetary gain as a maid in someone else's abode, that would be called honest work. If I spend my full-time efforts in my home, it's called laziness and self-limiting.

Why is it wasted potential if I seek to be a counselor and support for my friends as we encourage one another in our lives? If I had some initials behind my name and a paycheck to attest to my credentials I would likely be called an expert. But today, I am just a friend, just a Christian sister. Nice to have, but certainly not as valuable as the expert who is paid to listen to a problem and offer advice.

Why is it wasted potential if I serve my husband and my children in ways that make our house into a home, creating a haven where they long to come? Were I to open a hotel or a restaurant and do this for strangers on a temporary basis for money, you would call me a successful businesswoman. However, doing it for free for our families is demeaning, or so I am told.

Why is it wasted potential if I write things that folks don't like to read sometimes? Of course, I am not paid for my missives, so I suppose that could be why some consider my efforts wasteful. But I am reminded of some great men who wrote 66 books that not many want to read nowadays either. While I certainly can't compare my trivial writing with theirs by any stretch of the imagination, it does make one wonder, if financial renumeration is the measure of success, how each of those writers of the books of the Bible would be viewed today.

Why is it wasted potential to create things with my hands that my family can use and enjoy, that I can gift to those who might appreciate them? Were I to create items for sale and spend my time outside my home selling or creating, say working in a sewing plant or a knitting mill, no one would find that wasteful. It would be a woman working hard in honest work for monetary gain. And you would call me a strong woman for doing that type work.

Tell me again why it's wasted potential. Tell my why everything outside my home is more important than what's inside. Tell me. Perhaps it's my wasted intellect, but I fail to see "my wasted potential." Maybe that's proof that my brain's turned to mush from my mundane days caring for my spit-shined house and my expressionless little children who lack social skills due to their being deprived of the daycare experience. Yes, I am sure that's probably it.

Oh, my! My dear, wasted potential.