Too many of us lack vision today. We lack vision of our calling as women, mothers, and wives. We lack vision for our homemaking, child training, and home building. We become disgruntled with our roles at home when we think there is no end to cooking and cleaning and that anyone could do those tasks - why does it need to be us? Our husbands could make their own meals and do laundry, we could hire a housecleaner to free us up to do things that make money or so we would have more time for other pursuits we dream more important. But this thinking exposes a lack of vision of our role as a woman in the home. Our role is not merely a housecleaner, babysitter, and cook. Somewhere along the way we lost the vision for our homes. At some point it became either just a crash pad of chaos as we shuttle here and there to events and work and sports and activities, or we think it should be a perfect minimalist aesthetic or look like a magazine clipping of a perfect oasis. Upon closer inspection, none of these are the picture of a life giving, functioning, real life place to be sheltered and nourished.
What is your vision of home? When you close your eyes and imagine how you want your home to be and feel - what is it? Grab a piece of paper and write down what you envision. Be careful that it is not reliant on a certain place or ideal becoming a reality (i.e. building a dream home, buying land, starting a homestead, moving to a different area, etc.) If our vision of home is reliant on external things then we've missed the point. There is nothing so inspirational as a woman who makes a life giving home wherever she is, regardless of the four walls (or financial constraints) that make up her domain. Making a home is something that comes out of the depths of our beings and a healthy home should have order, peace, laughter, creativity, strong love and bonds, and care. A home that is well managed and run with vision should "FEEL." It should elicit a feeling in both yourself and those that live in the home, and in those who enter. What does our home say about us? What do we want others to feel when they step foot in our home?
This place should be a place of rest both for her, her family, and those who find their way through the door. This place should be a place of nourishment for mind, body, and spirit. Simple, nutritious food for the body, books, conversation and activities to feed the mind, and spiritual practices - scripture and prayer, meditating on verses, training our thoughts to things above. A place to work with our hands and look well to the ways of our household. A place to grow up into mature persons - ourselves, our children, our spouses.
The investment in building a home is, as with marriage, lifelong. It is something that is built - created, not bought, and certainly not something that happens without considerable thought and intention. Our home is the personification of our inward workings as women. It is our personality and the intimate feelings of our hearts that are displayed for others in this sanctuary of home. I believe this is partly why hospitality is so important - it is this most intimate and vulnerable act of relationships. We offer an intimate view of who we are to others when we open our homes to them, and get to view theirs when we step foot in their homes. This is why it is so important to act with care in other's homes as they are intimately welcoming you in to who they are. I can tell more about a person and their priorities, their struggles and personality in 15 minutes in their home than what years of phone conversations or letters will reveal. Words, pictures, interactions out and about, only reveal how they view themselves or how they want to be viewed. Their homes reveal who they really are - for our homes are a true mirror of our inner workings.
So ... what do our homes say about us? Are we overwhelmed? Are we stressed? Does our home reveal a lack of care and priority? While some women are naturally talented in areas of decoration and creativity, some women use that as an excuse for the state of their homes since that does not come as easily for them. Making a home has little to do with decor or artistic ability though. Making a home is something that all women must grow in. It is a skill that is learned and cultivated and coaxed into bloom by investment and persistent growth and vision.
I didn't grow up knowing this or even knowing what it looked like necessarily. I grew up in a happy, purpose filled home with lots of love, yes, but one that was so very practical that it was almost sterile - not warm. I remember my mother often being stressed and our home did not have the warmth of a woman's touch and care. Most of our home's running was determined by my dad whose training was from the military so serviceability, utility, and practicality were the gauges for what we did and had. It was cleaned, food was serviceable, clothes were in order, and we were loved and had what we needed. However, I longed for those touches of warmth, those elements of home, traditions, routines and rhythms of home and seasons. I believe this was why the Little House books had such a huge impact on me growing up. It was in the pages of those books that I caught my first glimpse for both practicality and warmth - a vision of home. A place that FELT.
Since those early years of pouring over those books and learning, learning, learning, my vision for home has grown and developed, gained more depth and meaning. I have been very privileged to step foot in homes that personified what I was looking for and you FELT it as soon as you walked in the door. However, no matter how much I knew what I wanted my home to be, it has taken years of practice and growth. It is not something that came naturally and I found myself (like most homemaker women these days) swimming against the tide and grasping for how and what home looked and felt like. In those times of flailing against popular culture and opinion, I clung to those visions of HOME than I had seen. More importantly, I remembered how they had FELT, and I knew that what I was cultivating was possible.
As a young girl, the first impression of home that I remember was an older mennonite couple that I went with my Dad to visit. He and the man went outside to do some things and the little old lady and I were left in the house alone. I had never met them before that day but she chatted easily about life and home with me, who at the time was probably 12 or 13. Her home was older and dated but very clean and orderly and all around were things she had made, books to read, things to look at, a small collection of toys for grandchildren. She had baked goods cooling on the counter and talked of her activities with church and the small farm they had. I remember being drawn to her and her home for reasons unknown to me. I couldn't describe it. I just FELT something. It pulled me in. I was comfortable with this total stranger in a strange home because she had captured what HOME meant and FELT like.
At 17, as a newly engaged young woman, I remember stepping into a small 2 bed 1 bath 750 sq ft apartment of a family of 5 that I had just met. Their home was so small, especially given the amount of people in it, and yet it was both orderly and full of life. Not orderly as in sterile or even everything in its place, but orderly in that it was well run. It was full of warmth and the bustle of a family. Little children, school books, book shelves, a functioning (albeit tiny) kitchen where life was lived. There were touches of femininity and warmth. The decor was simple, the couches mismatched, pillows and throw blankets didn't match, the wooden table was worn and well loved, but the feel! - the feel of that home is something I cannot fully put into words, but it deeply impacted and shaped me. I had eyes that were searching for vision for this new journey as a wife and homemaker I was about to embark on, and the experience of this home was one that gave poignant meaning to the vision I had in my mind and heart.
At 21, in my first year of motherhood, I was dealing with debilitating grief over the loss of my Dad, when I stepped into the home of an older woman that gave me renewed vision for home, family, motherhood, and being a wife. She was an older lady that I had never met before but had spoken to over the phone and she invited me to her home. I drove an hour and a half to where she lived and showed up with my little 1 year old daughter in my arms. I had an aching heart, I was disillusioned with God, life had not turned out anything like I thought it would, and I felt desperately alone. When I became a mother I felt the full force of the cultural tide that I was swimming against more than I had ever felt before. I was weary. However, just as the Lord is so faithful to do, He put this woman in my life and thankfully I had eyes to see the gift that was in front of me. I stepped into this home of a stranger and FELT. There was peace. There was order. There were the undeniable imprints of a woman given to her home and family. There was a fostered atmosphere of hospitality. Again, it was not a show home or even all put together. It was the well loved kitchen table where meals were a priority. It was the books to thumb through in the bookshelf. It was the feminine touches throughout the home. It was the care with which the household was run and managed. I returned often over the next couple years and every time I left with renewed vigor that this HOME I was building was truly possible.
I have visited many homes over the years and learned many things. However, it is rare that you come across a home that has the feel of a woman given wholeheartedly to her role as a homemaker. A woman who has vision for her home. A woman whose heart is turned to her home - not wandering the streets of the internet, or entangled in the cares of things she cannot change, or giving her best hours and attention of the day to other pursuits. But a woman who knows the incredible responsibility she has been given to shape nations, raise generations, and be the picture of Christ and the church through her marriage - these things that are rooted and grounded in a place called HOME. Let's renew our vision of HOME. Let's meditate on the FEEL we want it to have. And then let's tie on our aprons and get to work cultivating it.
Happy Homemaking! - Grace