In the book, The Life Giving Home, Sally and Sarah Clarkson want home to be a place where our spirits are filled. A life giving haven of warmth, rest, and joy that will encourage all who enter it. They want to create an environment for friends and family to feel welcome.
Thinking About Home
Vanderbuilt provided artists with a place to stay to find rest, renewal and continuing work on their art. He dreamed of a place that would be a haven for all who entered and a resource for the community. Uniquely decorated with a library for curious minds. How can we do this in our own homes?
What way can we make room for a place to be creative?
How can we group furniture to encourage people to spend time together?
How can we use our kitchen or the rest of our home to meet physical and emotional needs of family and friends?
What events can we dream up that help us celebrate life and make memories?
Intentional home making can be a holding place for all that is beautiful, good, holy and foundational. A place where those we love always feel like they belong. A place of freedom and grace. All people need a place where their roots can grow deep and they always feel like they belong and have a loving refuge. A place to nurture dreams and possibilities.
Serve all who enter, reflect our tastes and values, meet our family beauty and creativities and an atmosphere where traditions and celebrations give life to hearts, minds and souls.
What Makes a House a Home?
Cultivating the life of home requires intentionality, planning and design. Someone must craft the life, beauty, love and inspiration that overflows. Home is a place where the whispers of God’s love are heard throughout the day and shape the dreams of the souls who live there. God’s love is offered to all who come in and there are resources to cope with the demands of life.
Our choices reflect the values of our home. It isn’t just the walls, art or decor inside the home. It is invisible threads that tie our hearts together so that wherever in the world we are we are united by the choices and experiences that knit us together as a family. I see the lives of our adult children and see the life we celebrate together. No matter how small the place, how different the dwelling, the spirit of home is alive. Home should be the very best place ever to be. It says, “Welcome! You will be cared for here!”
We were made for community, made to delight and ground ourselves in the goodness of creation; to tend, cultivate, and keep a specific place on earth. We were made for home. Homemaking, the creation of home, is not a retreat from the fallen world or a retrenchment from culture. It is a profound engagement for creativity. It is not merely a dwelling. It is a story, a day to day story, reflecting the reality of wherever we dwell. We don’t have to be perfect or live in one place. We don’t have to own a mansion or even a house. Making of a home is a heart that loves God.
Rhythms and Routines
Home is your garden of life, so to speak, and you are free to order it and plant it as you wish. But great works must be planned in order to make them productive, useful and flourishing. They must be imagined, planned and worked on before they become reality. Making plans for a home doesn’t mean that they will go perfectly and may feel like they aren’t making a difference at all. Selfish moments and daily messes challenge our confidence. But the rhythms we practice day after day will become values that all of us embrace as a family.
There is no one right way to live life in a home. No one size routine or rules to fit all. Homes with young children are different than a single adult or empty nester home. The more carefully we plan our days, the better our homes will provide us with freedom and enjoyment as well as purpose and accomplishment. I live within the limitations and strengths of my own personality and make plans that suit my particular circumstances.
Rhythms and routines give structure that provides leadership and personal care to all who live in our home. Morning, noon and night have their own demands and practices. A good plan will make meals, devotions, cleanup, and bedtime routines easier. Chores need to be done each day. Housework, cleaning, paying bills, yard work, shopping, washing dishes…so much to be done. Establishing routines for handling these things builds expectations of a constant stream of order.
Are you doing something now that doesn’t need to be done? How can we simplify our work to provide more time to do what we value? I want to avoid the “inch deep” commitments and commit to a few activities that are central to my values. Celebrating life on a regular basis keeps me happier and more energized in the midst of caring for my family. I have learned to provide life rituals that bring energy back to my heart, mind and soul - evening porch sitting with a glass of wine, having dinner with my family, enjoying our granddaughter together. Life becomes more centered.
- Declutter the Soul
- Plan for Fun
- Establish a Devotional Routine
- Mealtime Routines
- Morning Blessings
- Household Routines
- Reading Time
- Closing Day Routine
These are a few ideas to help provide you with rhythms and routines in your life. They can be difficult to establish and may need to change through the seasons of life, but when cultivated carefully they promote life, love, regularity and security amidst the constantly changing stresses of life.
Years of tradition, hard work and love will fall away in your home as seasons change, but to come home, to be home and to belong will last a lifetime with family.
Gratefully,
Stephanie
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