My recent post on home is a teeny tiny piece of my current rumination on the concept of “home”.
Our eternal home for our spirit, our current home that is earth, these homes in which our spirits reside that we call “bodies”, home as a feeling of being anchored, safe and secure….I can go on and on.
As a Bible-believing Christian, I must always remember that everything in our physical world is temporary and no home here can ever be eternal, BUT I also see a DELIBERATE attack on the concept of home, particularly as it relates to both the nuclear family unit AND bodily autonomy and I am sure that this is the work of the serpent.
One of the first stories of the Bible is about Adam and Eve being ejected from the home that they shared with God because they listened to that reptile.
https://www.faena.com/aleph
The saga continues….
Satan hates home and is always at work to separate us from truth/God himself.
He desires to wreck the sanctuary of home and he will infiltrate it, warp it, devalue it, replace it…he will do it any way he can.
I’m not sure that there ever in history has been a more important time for us to find, cultivate and invest in home and currently with all the distractions and stresses of the culture, it is exceedingly difficult to do exactly that.
So many things pull us away from home.
Many of us never learned to be at home, to be at peace at home and to love that space as a place of worship, rest, health, growth, community-building and even entertainment.
We are often pulled away, fearful we are missing out, constantly seeking others and busyness so we can feel connected instead of cultivating connection at home.
As a mother I see it as the place where my ministry starts, the medium in which I do my most important work.
It is my job to build a home for my children and my husband to find rest, nourishment and to be spiritually and physically fed.
It’s my place to “keep” the home, and I’m not talking about being everyone’s maid. (Titus 2:5)
It’s my job to remind my family how we ALL contribute to home, I’m not the only person that is to be at work here, but it feels that at least in my life, the primary responsibility of “home-making” is on my shoulders. I’m steering this ship.
My husband is the one that goes out into the world to provide.
He hunts and gathers, slays and secures to provide for our home.
He brings me many of the resources I use to build this home, yet the art of turning these resources into beauty, food, simple adornment, storage and support that all work to make our home what it is, is my current job.
I remember when I thought home-making was about “fixing up” a house.
Installing pretty cabinets, buying nice countertops, and painting accent walls were my preoccupation.
In fact, I’ve flipped three residential homes for significant profit, I know my way around an accent wall ;)
My last home was lovely.
It was a sprawling 3000 sq feet of living space. It had beautiful quartz countertops, and brick patio and chimney, a shiplapped hallway, a stunning master bed and bathroom (my design) that was nicer than most hotels I’ve been in, it was everything and yet the homieness I feel in our current houses is significantly greater than it ever was in that pretty house.
Now my family and I live in a trailer.
It’s about 1100 square feet and has been moved to multiple locations before being planted here-it’s seen some things.
It’s crowded, illogically laid out, has multiple plumbing and heating challenges and zero shiplap.
In spite of its many problems, it’s the homiest home I’ve had in a longtime.
In winter we solely heat it via a wood stove which means we huddle around the stove mornings and evenings chatting, listening to music and reading before going straight to bed buried under layers of blankets to stay warm at night.
There are at least 10 pairs of boots piled in front of the door at any given time because there’s no logical place to put coats and shoes when you enter.
The deck is covered in chickens, turkeys, ducks and dogs-and everything they leave behind, most days because there’s no railing around it to prevent our free range fowl and furry friends from coming to visit.
The kitchen table is covered with homeschool books, seedlings, whittling tools, games and whatever other activity we’ve been up to this week because there’s no designated from for crafts, homeschooling or projects.
It’s a hot mess most days and I have to routinely FIGHT embarrassment when people come over and see the mess of us living our lives as I worry that folks would prefer to enter into a Pinterest-perfect, minimalist home and or will think less of me because of the state of the lived-in home.
But God has been showing and teaching me what home truly is.
That it’s not the home organization projects, the clean floors and industrial light fixtures we see as being important.
It’s not matching furniture styles, expensive textiles and throw pillows.
It’s the warmth.
It’s the undeniable presence of Him and His truth being shared, spoken and cherished by a family in a space.
It’s children feeling (relatively free, I can’t let them be totally free, because God help us!) to be children, to explore ideas, play games, set up their toys and leave them around so they can run outside and play in the sun and return to their indoor play later.
It’s warm, simple but heart-filled meals, meaningful conversation around the dented and scratched table.
It’s a husband and wife teaming together to build something beautiful in this world as an outgrowth of their love for one another.
It’s a rejection of the need for constant outside stimulation and entertainment and contentment with simple company, thoughts and ideas.
It’s arguments, debates, children learning to be respectful, but autonomous and independent in the context of family.
It’s not hiding what it looks like to run a home (and a farm in my case) with children, animals and people that value growth over “stuff”.
It’s welcome to friends, neighbors and people in need to come in and be loved and cared for as family.
Its imperfection displayed proudly and covered in God’s grace.
In this day and age when HGTV and Magnolia Network is so popular, I am convinced that people are SEARCHING desperately for home.
But something beautiful happens when we throw out the rules of “decoration’ and begin to truly LIVE for God in our homes and let Him organize each space according to what He knows our family and those that come and visit our home truly need to see and experience.
Home.
Xoxo,
Sarah
The wisest of women builds her house,
but folly with her own hands tears it down.
proverbs 14:1
When I started reading I thought, “Ok, I need to get to Lowes this weekend and start forcing myself to get some of these house projects done.” So, needless to say, what a wonderful read for me. My favorite part - the permission to go off-trend and ask the Lord what would be best for OUR home and OUR family.