Resourcefulness vs. Wastefulness – Wise use of that which others would normally overlook or discard (Luke 16:10) – Bill Gothard
by RazingRuth
Six boys in one room and me, sitting like a princess, in my canopy bed. If that’s not a recipe for jealousy, then I don’t know what is.
My parents would often go to little “retreats” put on by the QF/ATI crowd wherein they’d discuss the practical issues of living QF. How do you fit seven children in a house built for five people max? How do you feed your quiver? How do you clothe your brood? In the beginning, the answer usually involved the patriarch finding a way to make more money or the matriarch finding a way to start a home-based craft business.
For my mom, it was sewing up respectable and “delicately modest” nightgowns for “delicately modest” women. This was before the internet days, so it was all word of mouth and internal referrals. This was before the Jim Sammons seminars, so while we lived frugal by necessity, it hadn’t become the mantra that would keep us all in worn out hand-me-downs and ratty shoes,…yet. So, mother also made our clothes. This income provided the reconstruction of the boys room.
Until this point, the five “older” (non-infant) boys shared two double beds that were shoved into the room. They barely fit, which meant that there was essentially one, room-sized bed. Mom appealed to my father to change it because, as it was, she and the boys couldn’t ‘use’ the bedroom to move around in or store anything (like clothes).
To enhance her chances of getting him to do something about the boys’ room, mom offered to fund the endeavor by dedicating one month of her earnings to it. She made $135 (this was back in the day when $135 would go pretty far). Father prayed about it and sought advice from his council of fathers and agreed.
