Healing begins in the home and rests in the hands of the homemaker.

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.

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.

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!

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.

You have poured all this labor into this glorious food. Enjoy it! Let the tastes and textures thrill you. Rehearse those well-trod paths of old stories and memories. Get loud. Sit for five minutes. Observe your happy, content people and be thrilled, oh tenders, at the feast, all the feast. From start to end, planning, cooking, consuming. Enjoy the feast!

Ladies, attitude is everything as homemakers. We can make poverty an adventure, water into broth, cold nights cozy, husbands into courageous warriors, and children into men and women. We do this. Us. The homemakers. But we can’t do this if we’re not thankful.

Our culture is in love with the idea of the “found” family. Do you know why that is? We told homemakers their job was worthless and they should go do something more important. Women did that and now we have the loneliest and most lost generation of people.

I want everyone to get as much out of this group as possible. I want every woman here to be engaged with tending to her people be they husband, children, family, extended family, church family, or friends.

With my fists slowly opening, I find myself saying yes! Use it! So what if it breaks, or wears out? Better that than not enjoying it at all!

This too is part of delighting in our homes with a heart of merry durability.

I get to be here for the long haul, not just the weekend. I get to pour myself out without frantic adrenaline, dog-eat-dog, stay relevant, exhausting passion. I get to pour slowly, learn, test, and take my time as an eternal being, not a one-shot life.

Cultivating a simple and quiet life has taken a lot of mental and emotional work. Some of it has been by choice and some of it is due to God’s providence. But the delight of calm living has enthralled me. The simple life lends itself to observation and thought. It allows you to open your eyes and heart to little things.

You active, driven social women have a great gift, one that many of us envy. We’d all love to manage our homes, tangibly love our husbands, homeschool our kids, manage a business, and serve our church while having a robust social life. If you have even half of that, be thankful. Use that gift as long as you are given it within the appropriate bounds of rest, recreation, thoughtful awareness of others, and appropriate priorities.

To be effective managers we need to be aware of ourselves. We need to see what we’re good at and use that, and we need to see where we’re weak and go to work.

Being feminine requires great courage and wisdom and love. Stay in the fight, sisters. We must not allow the world to tell us motherhood is only changing diapers and thus boring, unimportant, and something we can do without. Motherhood is who and what we are down to our very bones. We must not allow the world to take true femininity away from us.

Our homes enjoy couches, lighting, house plants, and good food, but they need a center of merry durability. We HearthKeepers provided that. That is our vast work.

We still want to fill our homes with coziness, but we long to throw off winter, to feel bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. We want to stretch and laugh with delight. We don’t want heavy any more. What are some things we can do to stay cozy but take advantage of spring’s budding out?

Conversation is when we express our hopes and dreams, fears and struggles, tears and laughter to others for them to be examined, calmed, trained, or corrected. Conversation is the intimate sharing of our minds and thoughts. Conversation builds comradery, both in its silly, pointless sides and its deeper, more intense sides. Conversation builds friendships.