Many of us wear a lot of hats – wife, mom, grandma, daughter, sister, friend—and
often one of those hats is a job outside the home. But at the end of the day, we all have a common destination we call home. Home may be a house, an apartment, a basement, or a bedroom.
Wherever it is, it is your home and you get to decide if it is a place of peace and restoration
or simply a place to exist between activities in your “real” life.
Homemaking is not Donna Reed (oh, I just really dated myself) wearing pumps and pearls
and making sure the kids look spiffy to welcome home the hubby with a hot, made-from-scratch dinner.
Nor is it creating a magazine-worthy décor that could be featured in House Beautiful
with nothing ever out of place.
Homemaking is creating a place of comfort and rest where your heart feels at home,
and that is going to look very different for each one of us.
In our home comfort and rest looks like an upright grand piano in our wide hallway above which hangs our wedding photo,
pictures of our immediate family, and framed picture wires hanging with ancestral photos.
A place where my granddaughter and I sit to play and sing “Jesus Love Me.”
It looks like a closet where we used a bookcase to convert it to a “butler’s pantry” to hold all
of my “extra” dishes that don’t fit into the hutch. It makes them accessible
so I don’t have to unpack them when I want to create a special table.
It looks like an antique school desk tucked in the corner of our dining room.
Inside the desk are treasures for our granddaughter like crayons, color books, a match game, and play-doh.
Sitting on top of the desk is my mother’s Bible in which she traced the hand prints of her children
and grandchildren, and I have started to trace the hand prints of her great-grandchildren.
It looks like a pine quilt rack made by my dad on which hangs throws for when it gets cool in the evenings
and the “Grandma” blanket my aunt made me when my first grandchild was born. It is the backdrop
for our son’s childhood rocker and the rocker my parents gave me for rocking my children.
It looks like an under stair closet that is lined with bins that hold toys from my sons’ childhood
and play dishes from my childhood that now are enjoyed by our granddaughter. It also provides
a parking place for her “Puppy” riding toy and her cycle-bike (her word for tricycle).
It looks like projects in-process on the counter of the utility room or on a table
set with my sewing machine in the upstairs hallway.
What does comfort and rest look like in your home? Is it a college throw stretched across the bed in a dorm room?
Is it a trunk that holds quilts made by a grandmother or is used for a coffee table?
I would love to see how you have created a place of comfort and rest in your home.
Allow homemaking to be fun. Surround yourself and your family with things that you all love.
Most importantly, remember that you are creating a home for you and your family
so it doesn’t have to look like a magazine layout or the current designer trend.
It needs to provide comfort and rest for all who live there.
By surrounding us with items that preserve memories and create cozy comfort,
I get to share my heart for home with all who enter!
And hopefully all who enter will find comfort and rest!
