The Lifegiving Home: Creating a Place of Belonging and Becoming

by Sally Clarkson

“God has put you on my heart.

Words of affirmation should be said. Words should be planted in people’s souls. Words not said can leave a vacuum.

I can trust Him to transform all my efforts into the stuff of eternity.

I was freshly aware of the fact that life can be very hard, not in dramatic ways, but in small, daily realities.

The ripening of first adulthood had stolen that blessed innocence that is the gift of childhood, and I was aware of myself as confronting something, responsible for grappling with it in a way I never had been before.

I mean the breathtaking loveliness that comes when ordinary moments are filled and formed by hospitality, ritual, and relationship:

glimmers of what life was meant to be, echoes from the shattered gladness of original Creation.

The remnants of Eden reach out to me in the very stuff of the everyday, slivered shards of ideal beauty glittering through the daily muck.

This is the atmosphere I want those who come into my sphere to taste—the goodness of God made tangible in food, in pictures, in music, in the way they are served. I want my home to reflect the deepest affirmation of my heart that God is with me, that He has given me every good thing. I want my home and life to be an invitation to feast, to touch, to savor, and to know the goodness of my beautiful God.

Beauty is about picturing God’s unchanging goodness and daring to bring it into my own small, dusty days.

discover God’s creative presence in the stuff of the messy everyday.

God literally “with us” in the humblest corners of home.

Wonder is a state of mind in which the sight and senses are wholly engaged in what is before them.

Wonder helps us to notice with quiet, focused attention that helps us perceive the inherent, unique beauty of the people and the world around us.

will they have learned to look, to love, to hold the world around them as holy?

Will they see others as mere extra bodies that stand in their way or as treasures, each one a masterpiece of beauty to be met with love?

language is teaching them what to pay attention to, how to perceive it, and what value to place upon

This is why literature is such a powerful force in shaping the consciousness and cultivating the wonder of young children, directing them to gaze upon the good, true, and beautiful.

every encounter shapes the heart.

you want your children to grow up loving what is true, beautiful, and good, your whole home should reflect that wholeness.

The charm of a little formality and a good dose of friendship is a significant gift in a hurried, impersonal age.

The point is not a perfectly laid table but one that delights the heart of those who gather.

geniuses are often born out of boredom.