I’m beginning this series while sitting on my soft velvet pink couch in my living room where legos and blocks are scattered about. It’s the first cozy day of autumn, so my black and white striped sweater tucked into my high-waisted jeans is a perfect fit for today. As I look around at the toys and hear soft music playing in the background, with an iced latte in arms reach, my children’s artwork hung on our walls, our new-to-us piano enticing to be played, stacks of good literature and lit candles in every room, and home school items left out from earlier this morning, I simply keep thinking: this is home, my home, the home of my husband and young children, the place where friends’ gather, where hardship is shouldered and where celebration happens.
The longer I’m a wife and a mama, the more I’m learning how every member of our family partakes in creating our home. When my children were younger I was the one planning all the meals, creating the activities, booking all the outings, choosing the music we listened to, the books we read, prayers that were said, and doing it all alongside my husband. But now that our littles are turning into bigs and my baby is far more of a toddler than an infant, I’m amazed at how much input my children desire to have.
The first home to the very first people was a garden – lush, beautiful, expansive, perfect. God created it with His words, he made it suitable for human beings, just like us, and every animal imaginable. Adam and Eve, the first man and woman were partakers in this haven, Adam was given the role to name the animals and care for the land, and Eve literally means “life” or “mother of all living”. There is so much to a name, Eden means delight, pleasure, Paradise, Heaven. God gifted us, from the time of creation, with places we call home, where love, beauty and order are manifested by every member of the family.
Our homes are the beginning of a lifelong pursuit our children will endure. For them to know they have a purpose in their home, that they are partakers in the home creates in them a myriad of possibilities once they mature and eventually fly the nest. The ways we craft our home, our days, our words and actions towards our spouse, our children themselves, anyone else who walks through the front door, will naturally have a great effect on who our children become and the choices they make. Although I still have fairly young kids, I’m believing this to be true. I see it on a tiny scale, in their sweet prayers, what they deem valuable, how they speak to one another, how they pursue friendship. God chose home to be the beginning of the rest of their lives. Our pursuit of love, beauty, eternal worth will shape their pursuits – the pursuit of glittery things or the pursuit of deepening relationships, intimacy, adventure, and dependency on God, all of which we were created for.
Just as God created and named Adam and Eve, gave them jobs to do, things to tend to and rules to follow, we too have been created for a purpose, we’ve been named by Him and have been given little people and a home to tend to. And whether your home is a townhouse in a city, rented apartment, your in-laws basement, single-family home or anything in between, it points to the future Home we will have in a new Paradise. When we rest assured in Jesus’ blood shed for us we gain access to that Home, in Luke 12 Jesus says that God delights in welcoming us into His kingdom.
So how do we create a sacred, intention home, with relationships at the center, as we walk towards our eternal Home together as a family? There are several routes we could take to begin answering this question, but one of the musts is the belief that our physical, earthly homes are indeed sacred spaces for raising souls and tending to hearts. Our homes are the launching pads for what our kids will believe about their heavenly Father, about His eternal kingdom, and the plans He has already prepared for them to do. Once that belief is rooted in your heart, you will naturally invite your children into partaking in creating a beautiful home overflowing with intention.
In this series we will unfold and discover how our homes can be a place of belonging, a place of celebration, a place of discipleship, struggle, beauty, rest and fortitude. I hope you will join me so we can unpack these beautiful truths together.
