Heart Reflections Live

It's not the homemaker section at your local department store that makes your house a home. You know, the new season towels, sheets and kitchenware that make you feel like you're keeping up with the Joneses...

"Things" are important in the family home- otherwise we'd be eating off the floor!- but we need to move beyond superficiality to what really matters.

Are designer sheets that important? No, but memories past and preserved,and the living memories happening daily, are part of the culture of family and home that we must embrace.

The traditions we have as a Christian family become the mortar between the Living Stones that bind us together.

We have done , for a long time now, eaten our evening meal together as a family and recently we started to do the same with breakfast. My husband remembered with fond joy,as a child, enjoying a laden table with much to choose from, complete with a china butter dish and toast rack. Through our garage saleing and op-shopping, we recently purchased a china butter dish and a toast rack of our own- complete with little jam trays- and now these have become part and parcel of our family's traditions.

I set the table nicely, put out a selection of breakfast cereals, toppings for toast, make the cuppas, and sometimes an omelette for my husband if he requests one. We all pray together, as we do at our evening meal, and enjoy family time together. A quick bowl of cereal on my own, with a teabag dangling in a mug, doesn't compare anymore. I thought I was saving time, but our new method doesn't really take the time to prepare, that I thought it would.

Everything we have or do in our homes, becomes an important building block in our children's memories. The music we play, the books we read, Family devotions, the scents in the bathroom, the aromas in the kitchen, the sweetness of our temper- all add up.

We women need to embrace the culture of family, hearth and home: simple tasks undertaken in love, can be the difference between the beautiful and the prosaic.

It's easy to become a bit flat in our homemaking duties, where we start to do things the quickest or easiest way. When I'm tired or not well, that special effort tends to fly out the window with me and I need a kick in the pants or a fresh dose of inspiration to get me going again.

The Bible says, "But ye, brethren, be not weary in well doing." I know when I'm feeling this way, I need to spend more time in God's Word-This is an investment in your time- it won't eat your time!and I take a bit of time out to flip through my old collection of "Victoria" magazines from the 1990's. They inspire me in the "art of living" once again, as I read of the simple, beautiful things that make such a difference to those we love.

Our homes are a place of refuge from the chaos of the world outside, not a pit-stop and a change room. We have to live in our homes anyway- why not live beautifully and do all of our tasks to the glory of God.

Labels: being at home, family life, homemaking