Two things have been rattling around in my head—training and faithfulness. Since I just read a book that addressed both—SEAL Team Six by Howard E. Wasdin and Stephen Templin—I thought I’d try to bring them into a cohesive whole. Yes, I’m aware that I’m finding inspiration and interconnectedness in my homemaking while reading about elite special forces. Welcome to my brain.

The subject for Season 6 of our podcast was self-care. While we were discussing the good, bad, and ugly of this concept, I had a “click” moment. Real self-care should be profitable. It should have a goal. Personally, and the one we adopted for the podcast, my self-care objective is to train myself, help myself be sturdier, steadier, and softer instead of spoiled, pampered, and self-focused. With this intention, I’ve gained more respect for the term “self-care.” I better understand its usefulness.

Side Note: We included the softer because we believe women are prone to hardening themselves. This makes us cold and destroys our nervous system. I want to be steady enough to do hard things and soft enough to welcome in babies, flowers, animals, and broken people – things that need calm, sure, and gentle hands and hearts.

In the book, there’s this line: “The more you train in peace, the less you bleed in war.” I read that and whispered, “Hooah!” to myself. I know it seems a bit off for someone attempting to be a soft homemaker, right? But it is exactly the same concept as our view of self-care. We do appropriate self-care every day so that in times of need we can give, support, and help. We eat nutritious food and work out so that we can move, lift, and engage in the lives of those around us. We read hard books to strengthen our minds so when we’re called on to make decisions, engage in conversation, and train little ones, we’re ready. We rest today because we don’t know what tomorrow will hold. We train. Self-care is training so that when the trouble comes, and it is coming, we bleed less. We tend our health and our minds, we play and rest because hard times are always on the horizon and we want to be prepared mentally, physically, and emotionally for them. If we’re not, we’re going to be liabilities to our homes and our communities, not assets.

If you have any level of peace in your heart and home right now, train. Rest, work out, read, play, and eat knowing tomorrow, or even the next hour, you might face the horrors. We don’t persist through the horrors by wishing they didn’t happen or by pretending they aren’t happening. Persisting happens through training. In a way, this is the whole point of HearthKeepers. We’re training so we can persist. We’re seeking to understand homemaking so that we can be better homemakers, especially when everything is wrong. Real self-care should fortify us against troubled times, whether that is with a well-stocked pantry, mending skills, stories we can pull from to bolster our courage, an extra, reserved slot in our energy budget, or habits of thankfulness, prayer, and reaching out already in place. Self-care is training and supporting our hearts, minds, and bodies so that we can be faithful! (That second thing rattling around in my head.)

“Do the right thing even if it means dying like a dog when no one’s there to see you do it.” – Vice Admiral James Stockdale, Navy Pilot, Seal Team Six by Howard E. Wasdin and Stephen Templin.

It seems like sometimes the Lord repeatedly brings certain ideas to mind, things that I need to work on or I’m slipping up on. Over the years, the Lord has consistently brought up his goodness. Once that was sunk deep into my heart and mind, his beauty became a drumbeat in my life. Recently, it’s been the idea of faithfulness. What I’m reading, watching, and listening to, in the preaching, and in conversations all seem to reverberate with the theme of faithfulness. Not so much God’s faithfulness to me—though that is the cornerstone of all faithfulness—but my faithfulness where I am. Where I am in my phase, with family, friends, marriage, church, homemaking, all of life. Am I being faithful?

We eagerly look for excitement. We look for bright and shiny things. New things, fresh feelings, the wow! We mistake hard for wrong, boring for wrong. Faithfulness is dull. But faithfulness is what we’re called to! Faithfulness in our work. Faithfulness in our hearts. Faithfulness when no one sees. Faithfulness, even, like the above quote, if we die like dogs, unseen. Part of true self-care is training to be faithful so that when our husbands work long hours, our children just don’t seem to be learning and growing, dishes are piling up, and we’re doing exactly the same thing we did yesterday, last week, and last year, we are sturdy enough to continue. When the glamour is gone and all we have is duty, this is the testing ground of faithfulness. When the glamour is gone and everything out there seems so much more valuable than what is going on in here, this is the testing ground for faithfulness. When the glamour is gone and no one sees any of our labor, this is the testing ground for faithfulness.

What will we do?

Will we be faithful or will we flee?

Remember, fleeing doesn’t always mean physically running away. It can be withdrawing emotionally or mentally. It can be discontentment and envy growing in our heart gardens. It can be ingratitude and taking things for granted. It can be a failure to see the abundance in our lives. It can be believing that whisper of “if only. If only I had done this or done that or not done this or not done that.” This is unfaithfulness. These are weeds. Is our self-care pulling up those weeds or is it sowing more? If we’re unseen, can we carry on with the right things?

Blood, death, training, violence – if this is my inspiration, how do I retain the soft? I turn. I do an about face. I look at these SEALs, taking in their training, devotion, brotherhood, and yes, violence, and I turn back to my life. I turn back to flowers, slow mornings, dresses, warm drinks in favorite mugs, soft blankets, nourishing stews, laughter and tears, children big and small, hugs, and the cooking, cleaning, and laundry. I don’t stay in the masculine world. I turn back to femininity, motherhood, and homemaking. I allow myself to be challenged and inspired, not inspired to go be a SEAL, but inspired in my own work, and just like that we’re back at faithfulness.

Sturdiness, steadiness, and softness won’t happen just because we know they’re good. They won’t spring up overnight in our hearts and habits. No one is handing out magical pills that make us perfect homemakers overnight. We will make mistakes, but hard and even boring doesn’t mean we’re doing the wrong thing. We must roll up our sleeves and get our hands in the dough. We must look at pantries, linens, nutrition, and décor and take responsibility for them. We must get off the frantic merry-go-round and say no. We must train. We must train ourselves to love. To love our people, our work, and our days even if our sacrifices are unseen. How do we do this? Look at your self-care and ask yourself what is the goal? Why am I eating steak instead of cake? Why am I getting dressed in the morning instead of wearing pajamas? Why am I reading military books (history, philosophy, theology, art) instead of romance novels? Why am I lifting these weights? Why am I here instead of out there? Why am I studying sourdough or chicken raising when I could be traveling the world in glamourous clothes? Because we are seeking to be faithful where we are.

Sturdy, steady, and soft.

This is homemaking. This is being a woman. This is so much bigger and broader, deeper and higher than doing the dishes even while it is doing the dishes. This is being a homemaker. It’s both, always.

Training and Faithfulness

The Single Homemaker, Part 1: The Struggle

The Art of Stuff