As I dream of setting up my new home and the perfect order I am going to establish there (smile) this is a good reminder of what really matters. Enjoy!
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What I want you all to know though as we embark upon this wonderful journey is that this section will not be provided so that we will become discouraged in not having perfect, beautiful homes or perfect homemaking skills--it is here so we may learn from one another and apply our knowledge to richly enhance our own homes. We must understand that being a domestic artist is an entire life's journey--a progress in the making just like everything else.
True homes are made with love, centered with Christ and are focused upon the people that live there. We must be wise when we look to the world's definition of homes when we are bombarded by glossy images of perfect, immaculate homes with all the trendy furniture and latest decor. Those things are certainly nice and desirable but that is not what ultimately makes up a home. We need to keep a balance--striving for an orderly, peaceful and comfortable home but not falling prey to our desires for perfection or pressure from the outside world.
I like this quote Mrs. Chancey shared recently and I am sure many of you will share a sigh of relief upon reading it:
"Clutter is the poetry of our homes. It is an intimate view that is not always perfect--a few dishes in the sink, books piled next to the bed. Everything in its place may give a certain satisfaction, but a lived-in room exudes comfort and warmth." ~ Mary Randolph Carter
And it also exudes that wonderful fact that a family lives there! This is how I want us to truly look at our homes. Imperfect but yet eternal artwork that is about to be unfolded. A wonderfully exciting place where hearts are knitted and everlasting memories are made. Homes that are lived in by real people!
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...before we can say that we have realized the ideal of a true Christian home, we must prove its spirit. What impression would our home and its like make upon a pure and simple-hearted child?
We may build a palace of marble. We may fill it with the rarest beauties of art. We may adorn it in the most luxurious fashion. We may furnish it in the most costly manner. It may be perfect as a gem in all its appointments, a piece of art in itself. Then our home-life may be as stately as royalty itself. There may be the most perfect order, the loftiest courtesy, the utmost precision of movement. Each member of the family may fulfill his part with unfailing promptitude.
Bring in the child and ask it what it thinks of your home. "It is very beautiful," responds the little one. "It is very grand. It is a palace. Does a king live here?"
You turn away disappointed. You have failed to make such a home as you wished. You have piled up grandeur; you have made a splendid piece of art; you have succeeded in setting up a model which all will admire; but you have not made a home of love, of tenderness, and of praise.
You begin anew. You do not seek this time for grandeur. You build your home with taste and thought. You put into it as many lovely things as you can afford. You set up your household life and fill it with the spirit of prayer, of love, of gentleness, of unselfishness. Again you call the child. She moves up and down, in and out. She sleeps under your roof; she eats at your table; she tastes of your pleasures; she mingles in the life of your household. You ask her what she thinks of your home and she replies, "I think Jesus lives here!"
It is not the grandeur that impresses her now, but the spirit that dwells within; not the stateliness, but the affectionateness, not the courtliness, but the sweetness. She finds love everywhere---love that shows itself in tone, in act, in look, in word and in countless little manifestations of thoughtfulness and unselfish tenderness. It impresses the untaught feeling of the child as a home like that in which the Master would live.
This is the true test of home-making. It matters not how little or how much of grandeur, of luxury, of costly adornment there may be. Money and art can do many things, but they cannot make a home. There may be more of the spirit of a true home in a lowly cottage or in the one room where poverty finds a shelter, than in the stateliest mansion.
--JR Miller, The Family
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