Making a house a home
Yesterday, I had a very interesting conversation with my daughter, Grace. She wanted to talked to me about what it takes to be a full time homemaker. Let me say this, she is well on her way in knowing how to run a household. She has missed out on taking care of little ones although she did a bit of that before we left Massachusetts. Our discussion contained not only the practical but also the philosophy and flavor of homemaking.
In some ways, it was hard to be open and vulnerable even though we have always been that way with our children. I guess because the first things that came to my mind were the places where I fall short.
See our home is not so much in the physical place where we live but the way we live together wherever that may be. Our hearts are knit together, we love one another, forgive each other and we are pulling for one another. We laugh and cry together. Living by faith is not just a spiritual saying but we are actually living by faith. One of our loves is the written word. Some would say, "with all those library cards what are you doing packing all those books and lugging them everywhere?" A number of our books are treasures. We had read books together or one of us reads a book and then we pass it around the family. This is probably an aspect of homemaking that might not come to your mind but when I pack or unpack books it touches a place in my heart and my family is right there with me.

The legacy we leave will not be what kind of car we drove, what kind of houses (or apartments) we lived in, which cell phone service or Internet provider we used. It will be about the memories, stories and love we shared. It will be the type character we ourselves possessed and helped to cultivate in our kids. It will be whether we served others or expected others to serve us or whether all our striving was for God's glory or to make a name for ourselves. Home is where the heart is and when our hearts are in the Hands of the King, our nests down here large or small are just little campsites on the way to the Celestial City, our Eternal home.
Pax,
CM