“I Have Been At Home.”
That one phrase had been written thousands of times over twenty-seven years in one woman’s diary, documenting her life from 1785-1812. That woman was Martha Ballard, a midwife who lived in Hallowell, Maine.
Martha was called upon to deliver over 800 babies throughout the three decades that she kept a record in her daybook. At a time when our nation was just beginning, most women were illiterate and were not guaranteed a safe, comfortable, and easy delivery—nor a healthy, living baby.
Yet, Martha left her mark on history.
What fascinates me is that she didn’t know that she would be remembered centuries later, or that her life would inspire an author to write a novel about her.*
Martha has left a mark on me, not because of the 800-plus babies she delivered, but because of that one phrase that described the vast majority of her life—
“I have been at home.”
Does that not describe me? I ponder.
Yes, that statement does describe me, and it’s been one of the things that has plagued me for many years, inciting the lie: I’m not doing enough.
I’ve feared that my Father God will not be pleased with me because for the last fifteen years, I have mostly been at home—to this very day, as I write this on my oldest child’s birthday.
I’m not chasing a career, serving at a ministry several hours a week, or anything else that would pull me away. But if anyone skimmed through my daybooks over the last fifteen years, they would find a full life lived…
At home.
It is possible to look over my daybooks as I have kept a written, physical planner since junior high school—all stashed away!
My days at home, most likely similar to Martha’s (with different accommodations, of course), are full of cooking, cleaning, laundering, raising and teaching children, reading, learning, playing, sleeping, and doing it all over again. Over and over, thousands upon thousands of days.
Many women would aspire to be like Martha, having a tremendous impact on the health and survival of her community. The daily notes she kept as an herbalist helped shape medicine during that time. Even more, her niece was Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross, and her great-great-granddaughter, Mary Hobart, became one of the first female U.S. physicians to graduate from the New York Infirmary for Women and Children in 1884. Martha was also a fighter of truth and justice.**
I’m personally more drawn to this woman’s life not only because of her impact on the world at the time she lived, but because of how she managed to use her gifting in the midst of her family life.
God gifted her with skills and knowledge to be a midwife, while also giving her the purpose of supporting her husband in his endeavors (a land surveyor) and raising her nine children (three died during a diphtheria epidemic). It wasn’t one or the other. Yet the phrase she wrote the most often in her twenty-seven year daybook was the place where she was most often:
“I have been at home.”
My heart finds a camaraderie with Martha for I have been at home, supporting my husband’s work, raising my four children, and losing two to miscarriages. Those two main purposes of mine—my husband and children—are the reason I stay home. It’s difficult for me to have a consistent job, since we often travel with Brett. Also, since I homeschool my children, my time and bandwidth for other endeavors are minimal.
The enemy has whispered the lies that I’m not doing enough because of these “limitations.” In fact, I write this not only on my oldest’s fifteenth birthday, but in another country, far from home. Unlike Martha, I cannot be called or relied upon to come to someone’s aid in a particular job or ministry.
Another facet that I’m drawn to with Martha is that no one would have known who she was if she hadn’t kept her daybook, if it hadn’t been passed down through her family, and if it hadn’t eventually been donated to the Maine State Library. She would have been one of the billions of women who went about her life, serving her family at home and those in her community.
Most of us are actually more like Martha and will never be an Amy Carmichael or an Elisabeth Elliot. I love these women’s testimonies and find encouragement and inspiration from their writings. But not every one of us is called by God to do what they did.
Yet, don’t we only focus and remember these women’s great deeds of faith? The Amys and Elisabeths also did the mundane, unseen, and faithful deeds at home. Every day. Over and over.
Only a few days ago, my friend shared with me how her parents were not Christians when they were married. Not until after she was born did they give their lives to Christ. And how did they hear the gospel? The woman who lived next door opened her home and her life to her mom and shared about the hope of Jesus Christ.
That woman—at home—changed the trajectory of my friend’s family for generations and for all eternity.
I even travel with my sourdough starter. And her name is Molly, for those asking. ;)
Our society has lost the purpose of home. The enemy doesn’t want us there because he knows the power that can come from that place.
Home is where my husband comes to rest, be renewed, and strengthen his weapons to go back out and fight the spiritual warfare. My children are becoming arrows to someday be sent out to fight for the victory of God’s kingdom. I find solitude with my Lord in His presence, as He changes and prepares me to fulfill the good works He has prepared me to do—both at home and outside the home.
The enemy is wrong, again—Brett’s career and homeschooling are not limitations. While most days of my life are at home, God can still use my gifts in the midst of my family life—writing, counseling, sharing my life, and loving people wherever I am.
And that includes traveling to a different country, where I’m frazzled and exhausted after a four-day road trip without Brett, stopping to visit family and friends on the way. Brett hugs me tight and encourages me to take deep breaths. I have a stye in my eye, I desperately need sleep, and I just braved the grocery store with four kids in a country with different food items and a different cash system.
Longest road trip without Brett!
Brett tells me that my striving to have it all go smoothly doesn’t matter. He graciously looks at me and says,
“You and the kids are my home. You are here now, and that’s all that I want.”
He confirms in my heart that here—or anywhere—with my husband and kids is home.
Even miles and miles away in another Airbnb—homeschool curriculum piled on a shelf, sourdough starter in the fridge, puzzle pieces strewn across the table, a football being thrown in the yard (or is that inside?)—I’m curled up in my bed writing this.
And I can still write in my daybook—
“I have been at home.”
*The novel inspired by Martha Ballard’s life is The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon. Full disclosure: this novel is not considered Christian fiction, has some cussing, and deals heavily with the topic of rape, with one scene leading up to it. It’s never glorified but could be triggering for some. However, I put the book down better for it, and my heart burning with justice for every person that has ever had to endure the horrific trauma.
**The details of her life are written in A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard based on her diary, 1785-1812 by historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich.
Listen to how we travel as a family in Episodes 3 & 4!