One of the things we should garden in our homes is delight for the Lord’s Day. The Lord’s Day is our one true holiday. It’s a celebration!

Once upon a time, women were warned about how they might destroy their homes. We were put on our guard by wise men and women. We were given cautionary tales to guide us. We were aware of the dangers we might inflict on people due to our gullibility, foolishness, indiscretion, and laziness. This used to be a part of our lives. In our current storytelling, women are often raised up as almost infallible.

Porches should truly be considered rooms in our homes. They’re one more place we can gather and tend our families. They’re one more place we can help our people rest and regenerate. They’re one more place we can offer to friends and family to enjoy.

Being here, being present, engaged in our homes and our churches is life-giving, life-keeping, hopeful, rebellious, screaming against the night, living by faith not by sight. Being home is true courage.

Sunday becomes the center point around which our homes flow. From that small stream grows a river of being stalwart members of our churches, fellow soldiers who remind others to hold the line no matter what.

Bedrooms can be an interesting element in our homes because they’re utilized as places of privacy. But that privacy or training ground of privacy doesn’t remove them from our overarching responsibilities. We need to make sure we’re not neglecting these spaces, but embracing them!

True safe spaces don’t belong out in the world. They belong in the home, centered around truth, and they’re most often found around the family table sharing a family meal. We all need to take the table and this room seriously. We all need to delight in harnessing the power of this space and clothe it with beauty. 

If we ever need something to elevate what we do, to show us how important what we do is, we should think of ourselves as the gatekeepers.

Routine is loyalty and faithfulness made sight, given firm, given tangible expression, and action.

Let’s not take our laundry rooms for granted, nor disrespect our helpful machines that call that room home. It’s fine that she’s not a glamorous place like the entryway or a cozy place like the living room, but that doesn’t mean the laundry room should be ugly or mismanaged.

Let’s strive to be good stewards of our pantries. Let’s strive to watch our flows, our backstocks, and our decorating so that we bring order and wonder to the little corners of our worlds.

It’s not us who wax eloquent about the ‘magic’ of the kitchen in praise of God’s provision, in praise of daily bread. It’s the pagans. How is that even close to appropriate? We of all people should be profuse in our thanksgiving for all that the kitchen produces for our families.

There are times we have to use our main space in unique and creative ways that move beyond gathering places of rest, recreation, recuperation, and casual conversation with friends and family. I want to open up the discussion to some of the other ways this room does double duty by examining two other options: Libraries and Playrooms.

Our Living Rooms are wonderful tools in our tool chest for gathering our people together, calming everyone down, replenishing and growing imaginations, enjoying stories, fellowshipping, and being together.

The master bedroom is a key room in the house. Often it gets our last gasp of effort when it should get our first, because, single or married, it is the inner sanctuary of the home.

What I’m driving at is to remind you that your ‘paid’ job is one where you can be replaced, while your home, your ‘unpaid’ job, is the one where you are indispensable. It should always have priority. And for you ladies who are solely homemakers, you are not missing out, you are doing the indispensable work!

These two things—doing something to ease tomorrow and a solid, thought-through backstock—can help your home stay in a state of calm functioning even in busy times, sick times, or when chaos abounds.

We, homemakers, are the hearts of our home, and we do spend a fair amount of our time at the kitchen sink and in the kitchen. Make it a place you like to be

Caring for the elderly has long been the realm of women, just as caring for children is. We have the abilities needed to do this. For a generation, our elderly have been handed off, but I think we may see many needs here open up moving into the next generations.

This virtue is how we balance between the chores that need doing and the people that need our attention. Indulging in one or the other will make our homes chaotic. Balancing rest and work, play and chores will raise wise children and honor the responsibilities our husbands have delegated to us.