A beautiful quote from Little Women

I was reading Little Women yesterday to get a refreshing break from my studies and the busyness of getting ready for christmas and cleaning up from thanksgiving and I came across this wonderful quote.

Meg and John finally find meaning in their home after conflict with each other. Meg finds her place and John also does. They both work togeather to parent their twins instead of working against each other. The last sentence inparticular I love and think is so beautiful!

"This household happiness did not come all at once, but John and Meg found the key to it, and each year of married life taught them how to use it, and unlocking the treasuries of real home love and mutual helpfulness, which the poorest may possess, and the richest cannot buy. This is the sort of shelf on which young wives and mothers may consent to be laid, safe from the restless fret and fever of the world, finding loyal lovers in the little sons and daughtars who cling to them, undaunted by sorrow, poverty, or age; walking side by side, through fair and stormy weather, with a faithful friend, who is, in the true sense of the good old Saxon word, the "house-band," and learning, as Meg learned, that a woman's happiest kingdom is home, her highest honor the art of ruling it not as a queen, but as a wise wife and mother."
- from "Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott the 38th chapter entitled On the Shelf

This is so encouraging to me, I think Louisa put is quite eloquently the role of a wife and mother is not be belittled and unimportant, but a high calling worthy of glorifying our Lord with. I pray that God will keep molding me and showing me how to encourage younger girls while I am at home. Lord willing I will be able to minister to my children someday in a loving way as this quote describes.

In Christ,
Rebecca