Our homes are made to be a place for so many things, perhaps for everything, everything under the sun. Our homes are a place for love to be consistent, a place of celebration, where hardship is shouldered, a place to hunker down and get cozy. Our homes are a place for long talks right before bedtime and for lingering around the dinner table. But these things don’t just happen, so how do we create them?
Proverbs 14:1 reminds us that “the wisest of women builds her house” (ESV translation). It takes wisdom and grit to build our home and build up the people who live there and others who enter through the front door. It also takes humility. Psalm 127:1 declares that “unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain.” We can do nothing without the Lord, we are simply dust, but if we walk humbly with God, allowing Him to illuminate our steps, the homes we are curating will be built to last. The second half of Psalm 14:1 says, “but with her own hands the foolish one tears hers down” (NIV translation). Our hands have strength, whether for good or bad. As do our words, our actions, our daily choices and how we spend our days. A house isn’t built in a day, and although devastation can happen quickly, I’m sure the foolish woman tears hers down little by little, slowly squashing the fruit of the house being once built.
When I became a young mother I was instantly surprised just how long it would take for my babies to become grown and for us to grow our family with the 4 or 5 children I always imagined us having. Whenever I pictured our future life I never thought it would take a decade for that vision to happen. And even today, I’m only in year 7 of that vision. But in the waiting, in these years of nursing sweet babies, raising little toddlers and teaching them how to be respectable children, I’ve learned how I’ve actually needed this much time to do it well. It takes time, as in many years, to teach and train and help kids to develop the skills, the habits, the fortitude and strength it takes for them to mature.
Proverbs 22:6 encourages parents to “start children off in the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it” (NIV translation). It seems as if this Proverb is teaching parents to have vision for the future of their child. We are not raising children, we are raising future men and women. And these future men and women need unwavering direction, space to grow and fail, someone who is sturdy and has been through aspects of life before. These things don’t just happen in a child’s life and to their character, children long for intention. And as parents, we need to gain that vision of our child’s future self.
In this training, in my own home and of my children, I’ve also been trained. I’ve been trained and trusted by God to do good works in my home. I’ve had to learn lessons, sometimes multiple times, and I’ve messed up more times than succeeded. I’ve been the student and have learned to reorient my days and my schedule and my priorities in order for my home to flourish. And I’ve learned that in order for my home to truly flourish I have to be intentional with the space at hand and intentional about the way I spend my time. Proverbs 4:26 says to, “Give careful thought to the paths of your feet and be steadfast in all your ways” (NIV translation). In other words, “ponder” and plan out your days with purpose and intention, don’t look to the right or left at what the world is doing, stand firm in your walk with God.
So let’s take a deeper look at just four areas where we, as mamas, can be intentional in our home and life: Intention with our space, our time, how we serve and with our words.
1. Intention with our space
Take notice of the physical space in your home, do chairs face one another creating an atmosphere of connection and conversing? Is there a space where you can snuggle up with your kids just to listen to them? We put a chair in our bedroom a few years ago and I was shocked how often my kids wanted to simply sit on my lap and be held by me in the confines of a safe and cozy space.
Scattered around our home are heaps of books, in baskets and bookshelves. My kids know they can go into the living room, fireplace room, every bedroom and bathrooms to find books and other reading material. And not just any books, but good books! Charlotte Mason, the late British educator, uses the word twaddle for any material that undervalues a child’s intelligence. We have heroic novels, fairy stories, Bibles, autobiographies. And yes, all of these for our kids who are under the age of 8.
Where are snacks and bowls for your kids to use? Keeping these at eyelevel, their eyelevel, will create in them a sense of independence and responsibility. Especially if you’re in a season of pregnancy or postpartum, training your kids to know how to get their own snacks or refill water bottles will be tremendously helpful to you but more importantly to them.
And lastly, places of rest. My kids love to make forts and little reading nooks with our biggest pillows and soft blankets. It’s almost as if they, too, are partaking in creating their own intentional space to flourish and enjoy, even if it’s temporary. They cozy up together to flip through books or tell each other stories. We also have maintained a good rhythm of keeping their rooms tidy so they can feel at peace when they enter into their rooms for a daily afternoon quiet hour or nap times and while we’re winding down for bed.
A few other ways that come to mind on how to be intentional about your space would be: have music playing quietly from room to room, light candles in the early morning or during dinner, set a designated “tea time” in the afternoon to gather around a table to connect before the hustle of dinner and bedtimes. There are so many ways to create a space of intention, and little by little you can build it and tweak it during each season.
2. Intention with our time
When we become a mother, our entire sense of time changes. Never again is our body our own, never again will we have the time or capacity like we once did. And this happens with each subsequent baby born into this world, but instead of the “never again” it’s a gentle remember… because, yes you’ve done it before, but change of time and space is happening yet again.
This may have been the hardest thing for me as a young mother. As an introverted, internal thinker who cherishes time spent alone and in solitude. We each have our strengths, our limits, our own personalities and selfish habits, and this is mine: time.
But as I’ve learned now over seven years of mothering, my time was actually never my own. Neither was my body, my capacity, my ways of living. And when we surrender these to the Lord, whether we have children or not, time becomes expansive, it’s as if God honors the limits we now have while physically nourishing a child, playing games, cleaning messes, singing littles to sleep, reading the same story 14 times. He knows there are dishes to wash, floors to wipe, stains to scrub, He sees them. But He’s after your heart, which He also sees. God has so much care for our character, which is built within limits. And our limit on time is one of those.
Now let’s be clear, it is healthy to get time by yourself (even if you’re not an introverted, internal thinker), especially as a mama with littles. So how do we prioritize the time we need to be filled, by God and others?
Depending on what you need to be filled up, think about your days and seasons. Maybe it’s a walk once a week with a close friend when your husband can hold your baby for an hour, or you start a play group in your home so your new babe can nap in the comfort of their own home and space. I’ve hosted many things over the years to help fill my soul and my kids’. We have a mix of extroverts and introverts so we do a whole slew of different things that nurture everyone’s needs.
On a daily level, we read the Bible every day in our home. My husband and I do it individually and then we gather our kids (almost) every morning to read Scripture and pray with them. But during those seasons when I can’t get out of bed before my kids because we’ve welcomed a new little soul into our family, I rely on God to fill me and provide for me and nurture me with His Word while I’m reading Scripture to my kids. That time has become my “quiet time” too. And it’s in those moments when my eyes are closed, my hands are raised or open on my lap, when I’m reciting Scripture by memory and my heart is in full surrender to God, that my children see what it looks like to follow Jesus and walk in step with His Spirit.
I, too, have heroes in the Bible. I, too, need God’s Spirit to help me throughout my day. I don’t want to forget how deeply God knows me and how deeply I need Him, and how my heroes of faith have impacted my personal faith. We mustn’t be too proud to not allow these stories to reach our own hearts. And when our children see this their faith will be magnified because the God of the cosmos is magnified in our heart and life.
Now there are so many things I could keep saying about the way we spend our days. There are morning rhythms you can have that would help your family start the day off well, different ideas I could give you that have worked well for our family on a daily or seasonal level, but I’ll stop here and allow you to be led into prayer to see what is best for your family in the specific season you’re in. Feel free to ask about these ideas, but for now, be encouraged by the limits of your current season of life, there is so much goodness in them.
These next two I will be more brief, but will elaborate at a future time.
3. Intention with how we serve
Over the years I’ve come up with a way of analyzing what I do outside of my home. It’s a word I use frequently, it’s a word that helps me decide what to say “yes” to and also “no.” It’s the word overflow. Which essentially means that if what I am doing outside of my home (serving a church, leading a bible study, teaching classes, etc) is not first happening inside my home, then I won’t pursue it.
For example, if I want to serve at church in the kids program but I am not first teaching my own kids the Gospel, then it’s an automatic no. So what I choose to do outside my home is a direct overflow from what is already happening inside the walls of my home.
It’s more of a heart-check than simply saying no to every opportunity to love others.
And it is in this overflow where my children get to see the ways God has gifted me and how I am using it to serve others who are in need, and my children aren’t surprised by these endeavors because they firsthandedly see me doing it inside our home.
4. Intention with our words
Lastly, again to be brief, my husband and I try to be intentional with the words we use. The way we speak to and around our children is the same way we speak around any adult in any situation. There isn’t a “working dad” and an “at home with the kids dad” or a “mom-with-her-friends” that uses different language than when we’re sitting around the dinner table.
Our children, starting at a very young age (even in the womb) can hear and recognize our voice. It’s a God-given, beautiful thing that should be used for good. And when our children recognize our voice, will they know that mama will be uplifting and inspiring, praying for and giving grace, or complaining and gossipping? The way our children hear us speak will affect how they, too, speak to (and about) us, our husbands, their friends and elders in their life.
Just as our children recognize our voice, they will also be able to recognize the voice of their God, their Good Shepherd. Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand” (John 10:27-28). When we speak life and encouragement, and wisdom is flowing from our lips, our children will have an easier time believing Jesus’ words and trusting in His character. This world is loud and filled with so many voices, but to be able to hear the One voice within the noise that is full of truth and love and hope takes practice, and our homes are the training grounds and the best place to nurture this skill.
We are encouraged and convicted in Proverbs 18:21 to remember that our tongues have power, that there is life or death in the words we speak. The last half of the verse says, “And those who love it and indulge it will eat its fruit and bear the consequences of their words” (AMP translation). Let us not be ignorant with our lips, but choose to bring life into every conversation and person we speak of.
My challenge for you, friend.
With so many ways to cultivate intentionality in your home, starting with a few simple daily practices will help and go a long way.
- Choose a Psalm or Proverb to pray over each member of your family and home every day. A few of my personal favorites (although there are over 150 more to choose from) are:
- Psalm 1
- Psalm 34
- Psalms 127-128
- Proverbs 1:1-7
- Proverbs 4
- Proverbs 31
- Read the book of Proverbs in a month. Choose a month with 31 days and simply read 1 chapter each day.
And then take these challenges to your kitchen table or while you’re all snuggled on the couch. Read part of a Psalm or Proverb to your children and have a conversation about it. Some questions you can ask are:
- What does this teach us about God? Ourselves?
- What do you think about this, do you agree? Why or why not?
- Where have you seen this in your own life?
- Do you want this for your future?
With so much more I could say, I hope this gives you a taste of what could be when you choose intention over stagnation in your days with your littles (or bigs). So I’ll leave you with this: it is the Lord Himself who builds your home, Psalm 127:1 reminds us of this truth.
I would love to hear what you are currently doing in your home or begin to try, please leave a comment below or send me a message/email.
