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February 8 - March 1, 2025
We see it when we discuss how much a mom would earn if she were paid for her various tasks. Such calculations defend homemaking while falling prey to the assumption that everything ought to have a monetary value attached to it.
Even if a woman has another job—one that earns her money—her most significant contribution to her family and to the good of the nation and world is her homemaking.
When we organize our stuff and ourselves, we are imitating God. God made the world deliberately in an ordered, structured manner.
He makes promises and keeps them. He keeps track of all His purposes and all His people. He wants our corporate worship of Him to be done decently and in good order.
Our plans do not work out as we expect, but God’s plans always work out, and our plans are not His plans.
Instead of knowing our commitments and responsibilities, we have a vague, nebulous sense of what we “ought” to be doing, as well as a sense of guilt and obligation that we can’t nail down.
Our effectiveness in the world at large as women begins when we are effective in our homes, because homes are where people start, land, and connect.
There is no greater privilege than to be given a home to run. We can and should glory in our duty as we learn the ropes of doing it faithfully.
There is always time to do the will of God. If we are too busy to do that, we are too busy.
If you find yourself in a similar place, with multiple responsibilities, each involving many duties—some urgent, some important, some unlisted and possibly even unknown—it’s natural to feel overwhelmed. But take heart. There is hope. You’re not stuck.
There are no perfect routines we can put in place that will enable us to never feel overwhelmed again.
Circumstances sometimes collide and collude to send us into a crazy-making mental spiral.
Being overwhelmed by normal life responsibilities is a personal response, often one that becomes a default, a habit.
When you get all of your thoughts down on paper, you will often discover that the scattered craziness you felt was all in your head. With your thoughts visible in writing, you can analyze them without being overwhelmed by them.
Telling yourself, “I have too much to do!” or “I’m being pulled in a million directions!” are generalizations that make focus and attention impossible. They justify our fretfulness and worry.
on our loving and faithful God. Feeling overwhelmed
ordo amoris, ordering the loves.
Biblical homemaking is not about achieving a certain look in the home. Homemaking is a service of love to those who live in and enter our home.
Homemaking isn’t about decor or style or expressing ourselves.
If homemaking is making a home “particularly as a pleasant place in which to live,” as the dictionary says, then our first duty as homemakers is not to find the perfect schedule for chores, but to be pleasant ourselves.
Women are designed with homes literally built in.
When we are walking in the Spirit, pursuing the good works God is laying out before us, organization has nothing to do with appearing successful or impressive. It is a delight to live with your radar tuned and your hands ready for the opportunities God sends. It is a joy to be organized.
Keeping things simple means keeping things purposeful
Minimal effort gets minimal results, no matter how you cut it. Minimal effort puts you on the fast track to chaos and lethargy.
The only kind of control we’re supposed to have is self-control
Making a decision to plant some seeds won’t slingshot you into harvest. Impatience—like Frog yelling at his seeds to START GROWING—won’t help.
Our children are baby trees of their own, not the fruit on our tree. We’re in the same orchard together, but the fruit we must be looking to increase is the fruit of the Spirit within our own lives.
Often, the time we spend researching or brainstorming new systems is actually time spent trying to find a substitute for doing the work.
I’m sorry to break the news to you: There is no such thing as time management. There’s only self-management.
As mothers, we are caretakers, which means our time is not our own to use at our discretion and arrange as we please. We have to remain flexible and responsive in order to mother well. Because raising our children is our top priority, they are not interruptions. They aren’t getting in the way of our work when they need us. They—and their needs—are the work.
The husband loves his wife sacrificially, as Jesus gave Himself for His bride. Having given Himself, Jesus then gave His bride a mandate to be fruitful. That’s what brides do: They receive and they glorify. They take raw resources and transform them into productive beauty—marital love into children, paychecks into hot meals on the table, land into flowers and tomatoes, houses into homes.
