Ever since downsizing from the McMansion, I’ve struggled with this blog. With the big house and beautiful gardens and silly goats, I had a multitude of projects and Pinterest-worthy photographs to highlight and share, and I did. But two years in our little uninsulated cabin, followed by two and a half years (so far) in our HOA-controlled rental left me kind of stumped. What do I talk about? The persistent flooding? How I’m dying to paint the kitchen cabinets…but can’t?

A lot of days, it felt simply like survival. A lot of days, it still does.

Because I’m still in the thick of diapers, Down syndrome, homeschooling, and meal preparations. I still fold laundry (a lot) and spend time listening to my children and husband (a lot). My days are full and yes, even satisfying, but in my eyes, I guess it simply felt anything but noteworthy. You know, boring. Mundane. Even isolating and lonely at times. Who wants to see a photograph of that? Raise your hand if you can relate.

But here is what I understand.

While the world is celebrating death and cultivating confusion, my home is speaking life and keeping order. Even if I am not growing a garden, I am planting and watering and nourishing something far more profound: a family. And this family, while it goes about the business of serving one another and serving our community, grows its roots deeper and deeper into the truth of who God is and what He has done on our behalf, and it displays Him by our love. Yes, even on those days when bickering and whining seem to rule, in the end love shows.

I have sensed the world hacking away at the family base for a long time, and now as a middle aged woman I have seen it plainly. Despite the damage and its casualties, there is increased insistance to bury this base of every good society and civilization. As Tom mentioned in his recent talk (you can listen to it here), homemakers are in the crosshairs because they stubbornly plant their feet at home, refusing to trade truth with trinkets.

Homemakers are not honored or exalted, to say the least. But all of the shunning (at best) and persecution (at worst) is doing nothing more than pruning, pruning, pruning. What happens to plants that are pruned? Their roots grow ever deeper and their fruit is ever stronger and more beautiful. Your roots do the same when your feet are stubbornly planted, too.

As it turns out, blogging or otherwise, I don’t have to say much at all. Quietly cultivating a simple life, deliberately choosing to stay home with my babies, growing in love and respect for my imperfect husband and honoring the time and resources that I’ve been given by joying in them…all of this speaks more loudly than I could ever know, testifying that the grace of God has indeed appeared. That’s true in your home, too, regardless of how mundane it feels.

God saves and calls us because of His own purpose and grace, and it is through our gratitude for Him that we continue the good work on the home front He has set out for us to do. It may not be worthy of Pinterest, but it will be worth the crown of life.

You are not alone and although your home life may at times feel lowly, recall and rejoice that the resurrection is real, and that you are, indeed, doing a good work in the Lord, and that does say something. In fact, it says everything.

Blessings,