Tougher Than The Rest

8/23/09 - The Lord's Day - Morning. Back in February, I blogged about my daughter Jennifer. Today I am going to introduce you to Tracy. Tracy is 16 years old, and has her own blog here: The Mellow Rose of Texas:

Tracy is definitely her Daddy's girl, that's why she stays in trouble all the time. But she is a hard worker and she is very creative and has a lot of initiative. Frankly, running this ranch would be almost impossible without her (but don't tell her that or she'll get more prideful). Tracy loves this life, and really throws herself into learning and practicing homesteading skills. I was telling her the other day that it was going to be hard for me to find her a husband, for two huge reasons:

1.) He will have to be someone I approve of, which might be difficult.

2.) And this is the big one. We will have to find her a man who isn't intimidated easily.

You see, when I was 16, I was intimidated by girls, but for a lot of really dumb reasons. I had been conned by their falsity; their makeup, their coiffed hair, their clothing, etc. (all clowns are liars). Men had, for generations, been taught to value things in a woman that have no lasting value, and to neglect things that have real value. Woman were elevated and "worshiped" for things over which they had absolutely no control (their looks and physical attributes - which they were also taught to amplify artificially), and men were taught to walk blindly and haphazardly into traps their forefathers and ancestors tried to protect them from and warn them about.

No surprise, having grown up in the world and according to the ways of the world, girls were somewhat of a mystery to me when I was 16, even though I had grown up with a couple of sisters. The girls that intimidated me, I learned later, really had absolutely nothing to offer other than a mirage created by subterfuge and magic. They had no real skills, no real training, and nothing whatsoever of any eternal value. They had vanity (bucket loads) and arrogance. They had tons of manipulation, and they knew how to use trickery, smoke-and-mirrors, emotions, chemicals, masks and magic to get what they want. And we fellas were way too colonized to know any better. Our fathers should have trained us better, but they didn't.

Anyway, my point was that when I was 16 I was hoodwinked and intimidated by useless girls with nothing lasting to offer any man but trouble and heartache. If you don't know what I'm talking about, go read the Proverbs and get back with me.

So, can you imagine how difficult it might be to find a man who isn't intimidated by a beautiful girl with actual skills, training, common sense, and feminine Christian character? The Lord would have to bring us such a man, I am certain about that.

I hear women bluster a lot. There is a reason that, in the homesteading and agrarian genre, there are 9 blogs written by women for every blog written by a man. A lot of women, especially in our unique field of endeavor (Christian Agrarianism), want to come off as experts and teachers. If you listen to them, you would think they could walk into the wilderness, survive on berries and roots, grab a yak or a lioness and milk it, and bake tollhouse cookies from scratch in the hollow of a walnut tree, and then teach men how to survive while they eat cookies and drink lion's milk. But when I look at their lives, I see one continuous disaster without the humility that such a wrecked life ought to engender. Of course it is rarely their fault (!), they are awash in the results of disastrous choices. Divorces aplenty, unequal marriages, children walking like the world walks (or even worse)... I, for one, am not shocked to see such women yap continuously whether anyone is listening or not.

So, I see women with no skills or value at all, yet who walk around like Queens or prophetesses; and I see a few women with a few skills, but with no humility or feminine Christian graces. Again, we have had several generations where women were never trained, and they've been taught "self-esteem" when there is really very little they should esteem about themselves. And God help you if you love women enough to tell them the truth about themselves. Hell hath no fury... I could write a book.

Back to the story... Tracy, as opposed to the women I have been talking about, is a very skilled young lady. She can do (or will try) almost anything I ask her to do. She has been butchering animals and livestock since she was a little girl. She carries 50 lb. sacks of feed and 80 lb. sacks of concrete like they are nothing, and she can cook just about anything. She can prepare and preserve food, and she likes to engage in almost all of the feminine agrarian skills and practices. I can see where she would be intimidating to anyone but the most mature young man.

Tracy is NOT a Tom-Boy. She doesn't feel like she has to act like a man or hang around with the men in order to get attention. She can probably beat you arm-wrestling, but she doesn't feel like she has to prove anything to anyone. She's no sell-out, and she's no con artist. She is learning not to be a complainer, and not to spend every day focused on herself. She definitely has learned not to operate (and manipulate others) by her feelings, which is the greatest and most criminal fault of women today.

Probably the scariest thing about Tracy is that she is developing a sense of humor much like mine. That will only get her into trouble, and I've warned her, but it does lead to a lot of laughter between us. I am enjoying seeing her turn into a competent, valuable Christian woman. She is always learning and trying new things, and she is tough as a bag of nails. She is comfortable in her skin, isn't wooed by the shallow ways of women of the world, and sees nothing in "modern" women that is praiseworthy or worthy of emulation. She can be kind and friendly to friends and family whose way of life she does not share or appreciate. She would have been the ideal pioneer woman, and that, to me, is the ultimate praise. She is also very attentive to her spiritual condition. She studies and is learning right doctrine, and is very eager to be an active part of our fellowship. I taught her when she was very young that, if the Lord allowed her to grow up, she would grow up to be a Proverbs 31 woman, or she would be the "other" woman in Proverbs. There is no middle ground. If she will not be diligent in her duties and in learning how to be a servant, a help-meet,a glory to her husband (a women endowed with Christian graces) - then she might as well put on a tight skirt and high heels and join the rest of the divorced, unhappy harlots and barkers in the modern Church.

Tracy knows of and has been trained about the wiles of the devil. She knows that the world will try to entice her, and that con-men will try to corrupt her. She knows that the world has temporal things to offer her, and that, for a time, those things can be fun and nice. The Bible tells us that if we train up our children in the way they should go, when they are old they will not depart from it. Tracy was trained to follow God and obey His Word. She was not trained up to follow the wicked and fallen world, and it is a blessing to see her choosing the narrow way. I am looking forward to being her friend as she grows older (Lord willing) and I always pray for the Lord to bless her and grow her in grace and wisdom.

I like to pick on Tracy because she has a great sense of humor. She loves to challenge me in a battle of wittiness, though she is always soon vanquished. But I do have to stay on my toes, because if she ever wins, she'll be difficult to be around. I have a 26 year advantage in gathering obscure allusions, so hopefully she will never defeat me.

I hope y'all enjoyed meeting Tracy, and stop by her blog when you get the opportunity.

Your servant in Christ Jesus,

Michael Bunker