Homemaking: Life or Mindset?

Welcome to the post I wish I had when I first began intentionally seeking out a homemaking mindset as a teenager. That’s actually where this came from, to share the things I have learned, and continue to learn, and encourage other girls to embrace and lead a life of homemaking.

 “But, Liz,” you may say,” How can I be a homemaker when I’m not married or even have my own house?”

 Because it was what God made you to be.

 Every girl has a desire, even if it is well-hidden, to make things beautiful and to nurture life.

  That desire can be channeled, molded, and influenced, as a young girl grows up, into things besides a home.

But the original design of God was for women to be homemakers and home keepers.

 Not all of the content of this post is going to apply to you or your situation, but some of it I’m sure you can take “home.”

This passion, and this blog, began with God’s Word, specifically Titus 2:3-5.

“Older women likewise are to exhibit behavior fitting for those who are holy, not slandering, not slaves to excessive drinking, but teaching what is good. In this way, they will train the younger women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be self-controlled, pure, fulfilling their duties at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the message of God may not be discredited.”

 When I first read this passage when I was in my early teens, it made me think. About HOW to be this kind of woman, as a younger and an older one (we are all both to someone).

 Being a homemaker is about more than what I want. The reason given here for being a homemaker is “so that the message of God may not be discredited.”

 It starts and ends with God. If anything in this life doesn’t, then it isn’t of God.

 So I started digging into what “fulfilling… duties at home” means?

 It seemed like all the resources I came across were about the spiritual side or the mindset of being a woman of God. Don’t get me wrong, those things are extremely important! But what am I supposed to do with that? Sit around and read my Bible all day?

 That didn’t seem like the right idea, because elsewhere in Scripture it talks about DOING the word of God. So off to the hunt again.

 This time I searched, “Practical Ways to Become a Homemaker.”

 I thought that surely there’s more to being a homemaker than having a homestead, half a dozen babies, and a husband that comes home from work to eat supper.

 I mean, that does sound like a lot. But from the things I had seen and heard and noted about these women who were doing just that, they wished they had known a bit more than this vague idea in their minds of what they wanted to be.

 If I suddenly found myself in their situation (unlikely but stay with me for a minute) would I know how and be able to bake, sew, keep the children alive (let alone well-fed), clean house, cook, do self-care, help a husband, garden, tend chickens, do laundry, mow grass, make herbal teas, or any of the other things I envision doing in a loving graceful way when I’m 30-something and in that season of life?

 The answer stared me in the face.

Maybe some of it I have a faint recollection about, but the steps between here and there seem far between.

 Now I’m not saying that that particular life will come your way, or my way for that matter, but everything I mentioned is an aspect of homemaking. And homemaking is not exclusive to wives and mothers. It applies to all women.

 You have permission to be interested in and to desire to learn these skills. You also don’t have to feel guilty either if you ARE in that season of life and feeling like you should just KNOW how to do it all, and do it well.

 Homemaking doesn’t just happen. Homemaking is a skill set that takes cultivation, perseverance, and time.

 So it’s ok if you haven’t had the opportunity to try it.

 It’s often assumed that the basic stuff homemakers have done for millennia just gets done, or it doesn’t take very long, and thus it’s demoted to the level of the doghouse. Our society simply doesn’t value homemaking in modern day.

 That matters because it shows us women and girls, who desire to get back to our original design, why we can often feel stressed or strange in wanting this.

 But beyond that? It just does not matter what people think about it, because they weren’t the ones who made us this way. They can say that we’ve grown beyond needing homes, or past women being nurturing.

 But ultimately the One who created us, and knows us better than we will ever know ourselves, is the only One who has authority to tell us who, and what, and why, and how, we are who we are.

 Stop listening to the world and allowing it to tell you who you are. God is the One who made you and knows who you are. Ask Him and He will tell you, and show you, your identity and calling.

 Even if you are single the rest of your life or never even have your own room, you can still cultivate a heart that is planted in God and that overflows with the aroma of “home.” In joy, peace, patience, love, kindness, purity, grace, thoughtfulness, your life can be a beacon to someone who is lost that God in Heaven is our ultimate home.

 That is why homemaking is SO important. Because it creates an environment where people can just be people and where God can show up in unassuming, marvelous ways.

 I often have the most profound revelations when I’m just mopping the kitchen floor or cleaning the bathroom. God shows up when we slow down and humble ourselves before Him. Is there anything quite so humbling as scrubbing a toilet?

 It also reminds us that as we go about normal life, we’re looking for God’s approval, not other humans. He is the reason these so-called ordinary moments and skills are special and important.

 Here’s to God’s purpose and design.

-Liz-