The Heart of the Home

In my life I have so many identities and roles. I'm a wife, a mother, a daughter, a sister, a friend. Each of these have a wonderful and welcome place in my life. Yet above all of these I am also the heartbeat of my home. I set the atmosphere within the walls of our family sanctuary. I decide if this is a place of welcome or a place to be avoided. I am responsible for the pace of life day by day.

Realtors/Estate Agents know that to sell a home to a family they have to market to the wife/mother. They will tell you that the single most important room for this is the kitchen. The woman has to see herself comfortable in the kitchen. Once that is done the house will sell itself. Why is this? It is because deep down as women we know that we are the heartbeat of our homes and we like to beat in the heart of the home, the kitchen.

I know for me, in all the different homes I've lived in over the years, I have always gravitated towards the kitchen. I love being in the kitchen and being busy. I love to bake and cook. I love to organize and plan from the kitchen. It is where I am usually to be found if the children are sleeping. I love the rest of my home too. But I always come back to the warmth and vitality of the kitchen.

At present we have a small table in our kitchen that I use as an extra work surface. It has become my baking station. I have a baker's rack against the wall near this table that holds most of my baking supplies, so it is a natural place to mix together something wonderful. It is also the only real heat proof surface in the kitchen, so it is also the place where hot tins fresh from the oven are placed before the contents are removed. Already this morning I have completed 3 loaves of bread and a batch of cookies. A loaf of banana bread is currently in the oven. This afternoon I plan on making some apple turnovers to use up the last of our organic apples before they get too old. I can't think of a nicer smell than fresh baked food.

My love of the kitchen extends to my collecting instincts. I love to collect small kitchen gadgets. I love to find those wonderful little curiosities that make the life of a cook or baker so much easier. From the measuring spoons that go down to a pinch and a dash, to the scone cutter and flower petal maker. For Christmas my wonderful husband even surprised me with a few new ones in my stocking, including a chocolate mold and a new cookie cutter.

I remember with great fondness the wonderful aromas of my childhood home. We did not have shop bought cookies/biscuits in our home very often. Instead we always had fresh baked cake available. In the winter there was usually a very large pot of home made soup on the stove. My brother and I were the most popular children in our respective classes at school when we turned up with cake. Mum would give us two slices of cake instead of candy or chips/crisps for the morning break time. We would half one slice and swap it for a candy bar or a bag of chips/crisps. Mum thought she was helping us to healthier having home baked treats. We on the other hand had a captive market amongst children who never had home baked in their homes. The other children craved the cake we had, not just because it tasted good (and it tasted so wonderful we always kept a slice for ourselves) but because of the love that went into making it.

Knowing that I am the heartbeat of my home I want my children to have the kinds of lasting memories I had growing up. While they may not have the daily or even weekly visits with extended family, they can have the wonderful treats that feed their souls as well as their bellies. I can fill our home with the sweet smell of food prepared in love, or I can fill it with the foul aroma of convenience that says there are more important things than them. I can be the agent of peace and love that makes our home a welcoming place to all who enter, or I can busy around keeping it so perfect that nobody feel comfortable to spend time here. I can embrace my role as the heartbeat of my home, or I can let my home fall into ruin.

I love that I get to choose my response to my role in our family. I only have myself to blame if I get it wrong. I am glad to choose to stay at home every day, and make our home a wonderful to stay in. The memories my children take with them from here can be wonderful, filled with the sweet aroma of foods prepared by loving hands, only if my hands are filled with love while they work.

A wise woman once told me that no matter what happens in life my reaction is my choice. Now that I get to stay home every day this is still true. I could choose to be discontent and want to be out somewhere, anywhere on any given day. I could disregard the needs of my children and be busy out and about doing things outside the home with them. I could even choose to find employment and put them in daycare so we could have more things or travel to more places. Instead I choose to stay home. I choose to plan around nap times, diaper/nappy changes, snack and meal needs, nursing, cleaning, cooking, baking, and occasionally writing. This is being a heartbeat, a steady constant rhythm that keeps our lives moving along, slowly, carefully and at peace.

Getting Organized

After getting unpacked from our move I have started trying to get more organized. With two under two on different nap schedules I often have days where the boys tag team their naps. This leaves me with very little time when they are not needing my attention to do chores. So I have challenged myself to get smarter about chores. I really want to protect the evening and weekend hours when Rob is home to keep them chore free (or at least to only have minimal chores.)

So far I have made progress in the following areas:

Laundry

Instead of my old routine of laundry once a week I now try to do one load every day, with two loads on the three days a week I do diapers/nappies. It seems easier now to deal with a small amount of laundry as part of the daily routine now that I don't have the luxury of time to devote a whole day to the task.

Cleaning

I've made myself a monthly spreadsheet of every single cleaning task. I print it out once a month and put it on the fridge. When something gets cleaned I tick the box for that day & week. It has made it easier to keep a track of what has been done and what still needs to be done. It also gives me accountability as Rob can see at a glance how much has been done on any given day. I also set the kitchen timer for 10 minutes a couple of times a day when just Aiden is awake. I clean for those 10 minutes then do something with him as a reward for being patient for that time. This is how I get everyday things like emptying the dishwasher and sweeping the kitchen floor done. It also reminds me to give Aiden some undivided attention too.

Meals

We still use our 8 week menu plan. However we have realized that there are occasionally days where dinner isn't going to be ready on time. So now I also have extra sides (like mac'n'cheese) prepared and in the freezer for those "meltdown" days. On those days where getting into the kitchen, or putting the baby down, has been impossible I'll take out a side dish and call Rob to pick up some cooked chicken on his way home from work. That way we still get a healthy meal on time, and we don't spend as much money as we would if we just got regular take out food.

We have also made a commitment to not buy bread products this year. Just before Christmas I invested in the book "Healthy Bread in 5 Minutes a day" and it has spurred me back to making bread. I hope to write a review of this book as soon as time allows, so I won't elaborate here. I'll just say since using this technique I've had no excuse not to have fresh bread whenever we need it.

Another new dimension to our food routines is having "easy to eat right now" food available for during the day. I am trying to keep to a minimum how much time I spend in the kitchen when Rob isn't home. At the same time now that Aiden can tell me when he is hungry he is asking to eat about once an hour (he is a grazer like his Daddy.) When Aiden asks for food he doesn't want to wait 5 or 10 minutes while I make something. So I am trying to keep a good stock of food already prepared ahead of time. These days our fridge is generally full with tubs of such foods. We like things like potato salad, tuna salad, cheese sticks, sliced roast beef (roasted and sliced at home,) boiled eggs, fruit and our one indulgence is animal crackers (which we call cookies here.)

Well that is about all I've got time to share for today, as Aiden is calling for his Mama.

What things have you found that help you stay more organized?

A Wise Woman Builds Her Home Link Up

Today I'm participating in the blog link up at A Wise Woman Builds Her Home.

You will find lots of links to other blogs to encourage you in your role as wife, mother and homemaker.

Guarding the home

There has been a lot happening in our home recently. Much of it has pushed me and my darling husband into a time of seeking the Lord in a way we have never done as a couple. November was a month that has changed us both deeply, and for the better. Perhaps our biggest lesson has been about how we, as a couple, guard our home.

Through a spiritual trial that effected our 6 month old son we realised just how easy it is to let our guard slip, and let the world (and the enemy) slowly take over our home. Through a long series of events during our first two years living in the same home we had let our guard down. The cable TV had been connected, our DVD collection, while mostly classics, contained many films that we should not be watching (just the use of blasphemy alone, even once, whittled down our collection by over 70%), books, music CD's and even vacation souvenirs all had brought the world into our home.

With a lot of prayer and humility we went through our home and cleansed it of all the items we knew we should not have. Some required some research to find out if they had pagan origins, and therefore wrong spiritual influence. The enemy is a legalist, and anything we freely bring into our home with ungodly associations give him ground to enter too. So we tossed the souvenir lei from our vacation to Hawaii last year. That was all the easy part.

Now comes the more difficult task of keeping our home guarded. As the festive season approaches there is a lot of temptation to bring back in many items that have pagan origins and ungodly influences. The most obvious for us was the Christmas tree. We will now be a tree free home in December. I've kept some of the tree decorations and arranged them in bowls to decorate our table instead. Yet there are so many parts of the Christmas celebrations that have pagan origins it is difficult to know what to keep and what to eliminate. Yet it is worth the effort to figure this out for our family.

I know many will think we are being extreme in some of the choices we make as we walk this path. I freely acknowledge that this is extreme compared to most, and certainly compared to everyone around us. It may not be the path the Lord leads others down, but it is the path to which He has led us. Rob and I are still processing what it means for us as a couple, and us as a family. Yet always we keep in mind why we are doing this. Our wonderful, precious 6 month old son is totally dependent on us for everything, including his spiritual well-being (for now.) He is a gift from the Lord, for us to take care of. It will be years before he is old enough to understand he is a sinner, and that he needs saved from the punishment of his sins. Until he reaches that point we have to guard him from ungodly influences and keep his heart tender to respond to the Holy Spirit.

It won't be easy. There are no guarantees either. Yet with prayer and vigilance we will be doing everything we possibly can to make sure our precious baby never has to go through a month like last month ever again.

The miracle of good naps

Ever since Aiden came home from the hospital a little over five months ago we have struggled to get him into a good nap routine during the day. He is a champion sleeper at night. Within the first two months he had developed the routine of sleeping ten plus hours at night. When he first started extending his night sleeping I was a little worried that he was going too long between feeds. I needed to nurse him at night more frequently than he awoke to feed. We both adjusted and I was surprised at how well he slept at night with no effort on my part.

Being just like his dad Aiden knew that when it is dark outside it is time to sleep, and to stay asleep until it gets light again. Right now he wants to go down for the night by 6pm. With the long dark nights upon us he will happily sleep for between eleven and twelve hours during the night. Yet daytime naps continued to be a struggle.

No matter how tired he got, Aiden just would not stay asleep during daylight hours. Every day was another battle to get him to nap for more than fifteen or twenty minutes. I always lost. He would take four naps but together they would add up to little more than an hour of sleep.

Then at the beginning of last week it changed. Rob and I had been doing some spiritual spring cleaning. We decided not only to unplug the cable (which we had only connected for the teenagers who stayed with us last school year) but we also removed it altogether. Along with the TV went to home theater system that had survived from Rob's bachelor days. His extensive DVD movie collection went too. We removed the world from our home and it resulted in a miracle.

We are now half way through our second week of the miracle of good naps. Our little boy now has a one hour nap after breakfast then a two hour nap before lunch. Later in the afternoon he will have another one hour nap. That's four hours of daytime naps. And he still sleeps all night long.

Finally I can get caught up on chores. Finally I can once again feel organised. Once again my darling husband can come home to dinner on the table and other delights like freshly made cookies. My son is happy. My husband is happy. I feel so blessed.

I am at peace now that I have order again. I am calm now that the distractions are gone. We are more together as a couple and as a family. I am reinvigorated with an energy I haven't felt in a long time.

The Lord is so good to us. He is patient and merciful. He was willing to wait for us. Then once we were ready to do whatever He required, He met us and transformed us.

Rob and I have agreed that from this point on we have to be a lot more careful about what we allow in our home. We have a responsibility to protect our son (and any other children if the Lord so blesses us) and guard his heart until he is old enough to guard it himself.

Guilt free, never fail, Chocolate Cake

As requested on Sunday by some of the ladies in our Sunday School Class this is my guilt free, never fail Chocolate Cake recipe.

Sift together: 1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups of flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
3 heaped tablespoons cocoa

Make 3 wells in the mixture and add in:
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon vinegar
6 teaspoons oil

Pour in 1 cup of water and stir mixture well.

Bake in a 9inch by 9inch cake tin in a moderate oven (Gas 5, 350f, 180c) for 25 minutes.

I like to top with either chocolate water icing or chocolate buttercreme icing.

I've been using this recipe for 17 years and I've never had it fail me yet. I've even used it as the cake base for novelty cakes, including an Elmo cake for my sister's 21st birthday.

This cake is guilt free as it has no dairy products, no butter, no eggs, no chocolate. I have tried substitutes for the sugar but the chemistry that makes this cake so light and moist just doesn't work so well with anything but white sugar. It does make 16 portions so I feel that 1/16 cup of sugar is not really so bad for such a yummy cake.

I did experiment with this cake for a friend who could not eat cocoa. I substituted 6 heaped tablespoons of dessicated coconut for the 3 tablespoons of cocoa, and added just a little less water. It also needs to bake for 40 minutes instead of 25. I like the coconut version topped with lemon water icing, as the lemon flavour goes very nicely with the coconut.

Both versions can also be made up as cupcakes, just reduce the baking time a little.

Busy and Exhausted

I can't believe we're in October already. I also can hardly believe it's been over two weeks since I posted. Life has been pretty busy here, with school runs, homework, sports and all of us trying to adjust to this new lifestyle.

It's Monday morning and I'm already exhausted. One of the boys decided he wasn't tired enough to go to bed last night (after sleep ALL afternoon) and I ended up having to chase him to bed after 11pm last night. Then I get to be up at 5:30am this morning, while he didn't drag himself out of bed until 7:15am, when we leave the house at 7:40am. I have all day to think of a suitable means of enforcing discipline for this. It's the third Sunday on a row this has happened. My dearest husband and I had already agreed that this week we wouldn't let them sleep at all Sunday afternoon, then my beloved decided it wasn't a big deal and let them sleep. It's not a big deal to him, as he's not the one who gets to stay up to make sure they go to bed, and he's not the one that has to get them up, make their packed lunch, make breakfast and then drive them to school. I won't take another Sunday night/Monday morning like this again. I need at least eight full hours of sleep at night, and I haven't got that since the boys moved in.

We've also been working ourselves to death to help them with their homework. Well last week I spoke to the English teacher of the same boy mentioned above. She said she would be happy to tutor him on Monday's after school, so he was told to ask her to start today. He "forgot." So this morning I reminded him again to ask his teacher to start the extra tuition. If he doesn't do it today I'm not going to be reminding him again. I am also not going to be helping him with the homework either until he starts putting in more effort.

We've certainly stepped into parenting by the most difficult route possible. One thing we have learned though is that we are most definitely going to be homeschooling our own children.

New Direction for our family

We’re just a few days back from Hawaii for our anniversary/vacation. At times it is difficult to believe that it has been two years already since I became Rob’s wife. The first year was marked by separation, the second by constant flux. The third year looks like it is also going to be an interesting one. Two weeks ago we agreed to become the host parents to two boys who will be attending our church school this coming academic year.

We knew the school was beginning to take overseas students, and an appeal for host families had been made at the beginning of the summer. At that point we were not in a position to get involved. I was pregnant and due half way through the school year. When a second appeal went out a little under two weeks ago we were again in a position where we could not volunteer. We spoke about possibly volunteering in future years, but I was waiting to find out if we had managed to get pregnant after our miscarriage, and my sister-in-law was due for brain surgery to remove a tumour and I may have been needed back home in Scotland.

Then on Thursday two weeks ago I tested negative for pregnancy. My sister-in-law had responded so well to surgery that she was being released from hospital the next day. That afternoon I got a call from the school. We were being asked directly if we would consider taking one of the students. Rob was at work, and I didn’t want to disturb him, so I asked for time for us to discuss it and we would get back to them. All afternoon I thought and prayed about it. The timing and direct approach cut through my previous reasons for declining. After Rob got home we discussed it and decided that with some more information it would be a definite possibility. We called back and said that our answer was provisionally a yes. During the conversation we were then asked if we would consider taking two students. Someone had pulled out earlier that week leaving two boys without a place to stay. We have two empty bedrooms, and two would be company for each other, so why not.
The first of our new “sons” arrived on the Sunday. He was accompanied by his mum, aunt and uncle. We invited them all back to ours for lunch, as we already had a friend coming over for lunch. We had a great time of fellowship and mum was comforted to know that her “baby” would be living in a good Christian home. We met our other “son” when we got back from vacation.

A bonus of this move is that it forced us to purchase a car. With four of us at home just having the two person pick-up truck was no longer adequate for our needs. On our way to church on the Sunday morning before our vacation we saw a car for sale at the side of the road. It was parked off the road, but not as part of any home. We went back later and looked it over. It was perfect for what we needed and a price we were willing to pay. Rob took it for a test drive Sunday, and after a trip to the bank on Monday the car was ours Monday evening. I’ll be taking my driving test to get my full license in a couple of weeks and finally I’ll be fully mobile. I’ll be on the school run at that point, but it does feel good to know I’ll finally be able to get out on visitation during the day while Rob is at work.

So we had one last week of just the two of us before embarking on the adventure of parenting teenagers. It will be another interesting year for our unconventional journey, but one I am looking forward to with eager anticipation.

Budgets, Budgets, Budgets.

It's budget time of year here. My wonderful husband is the Deacon in our Church who heads up the Finance Committee. I am also responsible for setting the budget this year for our Ladies Ministry, after taking on responsibility for that ministry a few months ago. We are also continuing to work on our personal family budget. So my days are filled, after chores, with various spreadsheets full of budgets. Until this year the Church Secretary has done the administrative side of budget season, but it has now become my job, as my beloved's secretary. I must confess I rather enjoy the challenge. I like to keep my mind busy, and thinking through layouts, formulas, and sub-headings on spreadsheets gives my mind a little extra exercise.

It is not lost on me that I am taking this one as we are deep into a recession. Money is tight everywhere. We live on one income, in a two income society, so I am very aware of how every cent counts. Now that I have got used to prices over here and actually thinking in dollars, it is great timing to be surrounded by this work. It is making me evaluate where the money goes. At the same time I don't want to get caught in the trap of a "poverty mentality" and never be able to enjoy a luxury or two occasionally.

I really enjoy Italian food. I also really enjoy cooking Italian food. My favourite thing is a freshly made tomato sauce with basil and garlic served with some homemade ravioli. I want to cook from scratch, but fresh tomatoes are way too expensive compared to tinned tomatoes. Somehow the taste is so much better when the tomatoes are fresh. So last weekend we went to Walmart and got a few tubs for the patio, some potting soil and a couple of tomato plants. We also picked up a basil plant for the herb tub. I already had pepper seedlings I had grown from the seeds of a couple of peppers we ate recently. We deliberately picked two different varieties of tomato. One will be ready for harvest in about 7 weeks and the other about 4 weeks after that. We also picked up some organic tomato seeds that I will start in another few weeks. This will give us a bountiful harvest of tomatoes to provide months worth of fresh tomato sauce. A true luxury that will cost more in time than money. Already my mouth is watering in anticipation of the first batch ready for the pot.

Are other recent luxury decision was regarding our drinking water. My beloved used to suffer from kidney stones, which he has assured me is more painful than childbirth could ever possibly be. He was told it was probably caused by a mineral build up from the water he consumes. So he switched to bottled purified water. This was great for him while it was one person living on one income. But with me at home all day our water consumption rose more than double. After months of discussion and research we finally found our answer in a Berkey Water Filter. It arrived on Tuesday, and I got it set up Wednesday morning. I got to enjoy the water first, and it tasted so good I had no problem motivating myself to drink water all day. Then Rob got home and had his first taste. He loved it too, so much he thought it tasted a lot like the normal water from my home area in Scotland. It was an investment, but it will easily pay for itself in less than eight months, and it's healthier than either mains water or purified water.

So my goal for the rest of the year is to find at least one idea a month that will save on spending while adding to the sense of luxury in our lives. Afterall our lives are to be enjoyed rather than endured.

With a break from spreadsheets fulfilled, it's back to budget work until dinner.

The call back home

With our decorating almost over I thought I could spare some time to write again. Decorating has been a long project for us. When I moved here in September last year our whole house needed to be painted. Rob moved in just after construction was completed, and so all the internal walls were covered in plain white plaster. Nearly seven months later we have just a few coats of paint in our bedroom to go. We did choose a lovely dark crimson so our room would be nice a cosy. As a result we are having to do several coats of paint. So far we are at two coats, with probably two more to go. I'll get another one done today and then we'll do the fourth tomorrow. That should have us ready to move the furniture back in on Monday. I will be so glad to finally have the house back together and my routine back on track.

Recently I started meeting with a friend once a fortnight for bible study. It started as a response to a crisis, but after the first few she came to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. Already it has been encouraging to see the change in her life. We have committed to continue to meet and study God's Word together. We are currently looking at Ephesians 4 and Paul's instructions for living a godly life. I think Ephesians is a great book, as they were surrounded by gross ungodliness and affluence, just as we are today. They faced the same challenges in everyday living that we do. Last night we were discussing why Paul told them to not be like their pagan neighbours. We too are called to be different from the world around us.

With my friend it is easy to see how the Lord is working in her heart and transforming her from the image of the world into His own likeness. Even though she is but a baby spiritually and has everything to learn, the Lord has moved her heart in the direction He would have it go. I can remember just weeks ago, before she was saved, how she would explain her lack of desire for her home. Her husband did a lot of the chores at home. They both worked full-time and with teenage daughter involved with school sports for a large part of the year she had neither the time nor the interest to be involved with a domestic life. Praise God, that's the first thing He changed in her heart. Since salvation she has developed a burning desire to be home and focused on being a wife and a mother. She didn't even know that was biblical until she had already decided to find a way to get back home. She has shared with me how during quiet spells at work she is thinking about what she could be doing at home instead. She is excited to be home cleaning and organising and caring for her family. I have already told her how encouraged I am at the complete change in her, whilst also trying to prepare her for other people's reactions.

It is a sad truth that in the Church we both attend there are very few women who stay home, or even desire to be home. Some of the older women smile when they find out I am a stay at home wife and have no desire to be in the workplace, but even most of them don't do likewise. Most of the women I know have become so used to silencing that inner voice that calls them home, they don't even hear it anymore. The dividing line between us and the world has been somehow erased. Corporately, in our desire to be relevant and reach the lost, we have forgotten we are called out of the world by our Lord and Saviour. The gospel is not a relevant message, it is a radical one. The first century Church turned the known world upside down. In our generation instead of transforming we have become experts at conforming.

I have never been very good at conforming. Maybe it is because I come from a non-conformist background. Even as a teenager I knew the God I read in the Word and the God I experienced was a radical transformer. I knew even at the age of fourteen, when I first got saved, that I was called to be different. All of us who know Christ, and Him crucified, are called to be different. Along with being non-conformist, I have also never been a good compromiser. For me the two go hand in hand. I am a sold out, give it everything I've got kind of person. I was that way even as a child, and I am still that way today. It is how I understand God to be. He doesn't want a part of me, or you, He wants it all.

So what happens now. We take that radical message of complete transformation and we let it get infectious. We share it honestly and completely and watch it grow. Only six weeks ago I was a lone voice in my Sunday School class, and Church. Now there are two of us, with three teenage girls to influence. We pray for two more, then four more, then eight, and we keep going until our entire Church is transformed. Then we keep going until our entire community is transformed. Then we keep going until it is no longer a few lone voices who only meet like minded women through the internet.

I am excited about the prospect of being involved in such a radical transforming power, as the gospel of Jesus Christ trully is. It is the power to completely change lives, take take shattered pieces and make them whole. May the call back home become a mighty shout no woman of God can ignore.

The busyness of life

The last few weeks have been busy around here. With the approach of daylight savings time, the start of spring and the increase in temperatures my beloved has been in overdrive for us to get finished with all our house decorating. When I arrived last September our entire house needed to be painted. Although Rob had been living in the house for over a year he was waiting for my arrival to begin painting. Before I ever saw the house I thought it would be a few weeks to complete. When I saw how big the house was I knew it would take much longer, just not this long. We are on the home stretch now, with just our own bedroom to paint. Even the garage got painted before our bedroom. After all the delays we looked forward to completion. Then last week a friend asked me to help look after her toddler for a few days, as he couldn't go to daycare. I happily obliged as I enjoyed a change of pace. Needless to say I didn't make any progress in the decorating in those few days. Rather I got to enjoy seeing my home through the eyes of a young boy, and marvel at what a wonderful playground our home is. Carpeted stairs seemed to be the favourite toy, as both days saw hours spent climbing and playing on the stairs. As I remembered back to my own childhood I believe my brother and I also would spend a lot of time playing on the stairs in our home. No need for expensive toys when there is a house to play in.

Then we also had some terrible news last Friday. My husband and I help in our Church bus ministry. We run one of the bus routes for Sunday mornings. My husband is also the AWANA Commander. That is our Wednesday evening children's ministry. I help in by being director of the younger children (Sparkies.) On Friday night we got a call to let us know that one of the children had suddenly died. He was only 12. He had died in his sleep on Thursday/Friday. This boy was on our Sunday morning route and also one of our AWANA boys. He lived with his father, as his mother had left when he was very young. He had only just got saved three weeks ago, and now he is home with the Lord. The funeral is tonight, at the same time as our AWANA group. His family has very little by this world's standards, and do not know the Lord. Our entire Church are wrapping around this family during this difficult time. The family don't even have any money to pay for the funeral. This boy was not one of the popular children. He could be very difficult to love, but he was still important to God. He is in glory now, but there is a shattered family still here to be ministered to. I cannot even begin to imagine what it must feel like to loose a child, never mind to go through it without the comfort of my faith. Yet we will continue to reach out to this family after the funeral is over and the other visitors have gone. The grief will take a long time to process, but we have a hope to offer this family and so it is our duty to continue reaching out to them in the coming months and years.

This week also sees my first Ladies Fellowship at our Church. I am eager to get started in this ministry, but also a little nervous. I have no idea what the ladies are expecting from me, or what previous fellowships have been like. I am launching this ministry with an afternoon tea, so the next few days are going to be busy with lots of baking. Regardless of the trims and expectations though, the important thing for me is to bring a refocus to our ladies. It is time to stop looking for entertainment and start looking for opportunities to serve. I am going to challenge the ladies with the verses from Titus 2 about the older teaching the younger, and being keepers at home. It is a message that is definitely needed here in Florida, where everyone lives such fragmented and isolated lives. Lord willing the message will begin to impact the women in our Church to make a real difference in each others lives as well as reaching outside ourselves to serve too.

Well it's time to close and get a paint brush back in my hands again.

Who is my neighbour?

In our Church we are part of a Sunday School class of mostly thirtysomethings. The class chose the name "Homebuilders" when it was first formed just over a year ago. It is a class made up of mostly married couples, with a few single parents who don't fit in any other class. We are a very eclectic mix of people, and most were already adults before they were saved. My husband and I are the only non-parents in our class, at the moment. (We are working on rectifying that one.) Yesterday we had a very interesting discussion about the need to be looking out for each other. We have been looking into the life of the early Churches, as found in Acts, and what they can teach us about how we should be living. The sense of community that was found from the very first day after Pentecost is a very stark contrast to what we have here in South Florida in the 21st Century.

I grew up with a model of community that had more in common with the first century Churches, that with my current experience. Everybody knew their neighbours, not just to say "hello," but really knew them. No house was locked up, except if no-one was home. Everyone shared when they had plenty, and when they had little. Celebrations were joined by everyone. Times of mourning were also community events.

I remember my seventh birthday. A few cousins were visiting for the day and their mum had planned to have a small family celebration of my birthday. That didn't happen. Every child who played with us that day, that is every child in the neighbourhood who was at home, joined us for birthday cake. It is one of my favourite birthday memories. No organised party. No mountain of presents. Just a simple cake and a few extra treats, and lots of friends to help celebrate. It was the late seventies in Scotland, nobody had much of anything, yet we were amongst the wealthiest people in the world because we had each other.

My husband and I now live in a small neighbourhood within a "small town" yet we only know our neighbours to say "hello." It is a new neighbourhood, and Rob was the first person to move in, so everyone is new here. Even in our Church it is proving more difficult to build relationships that I first anticipated. Everyone seems to live in their own little world. There is no time for outside relationships. Yet at the same time, these same people can be heard to complain of feeling alone and isolated. Nobody cares about them. Everyone is too busy. Everybody works. I have moved to the most affluent country in the world, yet the people I meet are the poorest I have ever met when it comes to relationships and community.

Then yesterday our class began to discuss this very issue. We cannot be who we are chosen to be as God's children if we are not reaching out and making a community. We need to make time to build relationships. We need to be in each other's lives throughout the week. We need to know what is happening in each other's lives if we are going to truly be a help and blessing. For me this happens through opening our homes. It is in our homes that we build relationships. It is in our homes we establish community. Opening our homes in hospitality is opening ourselves to other souls. Sometimes we minister to them, but often they minister to us.

Who is my neighbour? Who should I be building community with. For me it is everyone that the Lord brings across my path. It is the members of our Sunday School class. It is the neighbour across the street, who has never heard the gospel. It is the friend across the seas I can offer encouragement to. My neighbour is every person it takes to build a community. I am challenged to step further out into the unknown, to show myself as a neighbour and begin building a new sense of community right here where I live right now.

Keeping My Home

It is February already. This is going to be another busy month. This month will also see me celebrate six months of living here in Florida. The first six months has gone by quicker than I could have imagined. The first year of our marriage seemed to last for eternity while we were separated by an ocean. Now we have been living together as husband and wife long enough to become some what settled in our routines.

As I think about the time we have had together I am thankful. I am also aware that I am not yet all the wife and homemaker I should be. For the last few weeks I've been struggling with fatigue. Rob hasn't noticed much difference in my home keeping, but I have. I am aware that there are days when I have to remind myself to rejoice in washing the tile floors. Doing such a chore means I am here with my husband. We have a home for me to clean. I have the mobility to clean. There is much to rejoice in when washing tile floors. It is my joy and privilege to serve my husband by keeping our home.

So how do I get through the days when I find it difficult to find the energy to finish all that needs doing?

My first strategy, no matter how I feel, is that I have a list. My general weekly list is on the refrigerator door. It is split into the five days that Rob normally works, and the work is split between those days. At the bottom I also put the tasks that are done daily. This is only a list of the tasks that are done every week. We have a large home, and this allows me to pace the regular chores across the week, so everything gets done properly and regularly.

My next strategy is to have projects. I currently have several, all requiring different amounts of physical or mental energy. When my regular chores are done for the day I can then pick a project to work on. At present my projects include: priming and painting the downstairs bathroom; sewing a new church dress; cross-stitching a picture for my mother-in-law's birthday in April; restoring an old steamer trunk Rob inherited from his grandfather and completing the illustrations for a book I am writing for my niece's birthday in March. Some of these projects require physical energy. Some require mental focus. Then a few require less of both for when I am really weary.

Along with chores and projects I am learning I have to guard myself from committing to things outside the home. Before I even arrived my husband and I had committed to my volunteering at our Church school's library. I only go one day a week. It is tempting to increase the time I spend there, as it is a big job to reorganise an entire school library. However we both realise that one day a week is all that I should be doing. Ideally I wouldn't even do that, but we made a commitment and we will see it through for this school year. There are so many needs amongst the women in our Church. I am often tempted to take on more commitments than I should in ministering to these women. However I am learning that good is not the same as best. I am instead trying to be of use from my own home. I am willing to serve in any way the Lord requires of me, but look for ways to serve that don't take me from home. This can range from cooking meals for a family when the mother is sick, to counselling a woman in crisis. It can be opening our home in hospitality for overnight guests, or just for a family meal.

I have always believed that it is the wife's place to keep the home. I have spent thousands of hours since I was a teenager learning how to be a better keeper of the home. The theory was never a problem. The reality is more of a battle that I ever thought it would be. It is a battle against laziness. It is a fight against indifference. It is a war against a society that thinks keeping the home is a waste of my gifts and talents. Yet if anyone would ask my husband he would not hesitate in saying that it is worth every fight, battle and war. It is worth it when he comes home to a clean, neat and peaceful haven. It is worth it for dinner to be waiting on him as he walks in through the door at night. It is worth it when he gets to be greeted by a content and peaceful wife who is always happy to see him.

Keeping my home is the best way I can serve my husband. Keeping my home is essential to serving and glorifying my Lord and Saviour. Keeping my home keeps me at peace. Keeping my home helps me to build contentment in my life. Keeping my home is my work and my pleasure. keeping my home is what it means to be Rob's wife.

I am blessed that I can stay at home to keep our home. I don't have to go out into the world every day. I don't have to spend my life surrounded by messages that breed discontentment and unhappiness. I rejoice that I have a husband who understands and enjoys a wife who stays at home.

Praise God that His ways are always best.

Free to Serve

Choosing to stay at home has freed me to serve. In the last 24 hours that has become abundantly clear to me. A women in our Church is ill right now, with five children and a husband to look after. I am free to help her because I stay at home. Another family has been ill and their toddler can't go to daycare because of the illness. I am free to help them because I stay at home. Our church has several missionary families all visiting this coming week for our annual missions conference. We can host a family because I stay at home.

We live in a world where our families are fragmented. In previous generations it was our extended family who helped in times of crisis or illness. As women we turned to our mothers, grandmothers, aunts, sisters and cousins when we needed help or advice. Who do we turn to when those very women are hundreds or thousands of miles away. My family are several thousand miles away and my husband's family are scattered across several states, with his closest relatives hundreds of miles away from us. Our situation is very common where we live in South Florida. Most families have few, if any relatives living in the same State. The women who are at home and available during the working week are usually either elderly, or they have young children of their own to care for. For the working women with children there is noone to turn to for help. Then there is me. I stay at home, making me free to help.

It is a great blessing to know I have a freedom few others choose. The sacrifices we make as a family for me to stay at home are more than repaid by the blessings of service. There has been noone in our Church recently with the time and the burden for our ladies ministry, and so it has been neglected. I am free to serve. I am excited about the opportunity to regrow this vital ministry in an atmosphere where women are feeling overwhelmed and discouraged. I have time to give. I have love to give. I have experience to share. There is a gap in our wall and I can fill it. I know I will be blessed so much more than I can ever bless others. It is an priviledge to serve. It is an honour to serve. It is my calling to serve.

There are many topics that are burdens in my heart, and over the coming months I will share and explore each of them. Right now my priority burden is service. It is when we freely, willingly, gladly serve that we can impact the world around us. There are plenty willing to teach and to lead, but where are the servants? The one woman who had the single biggest impact in my life and faith was a servant.

Mrs Gray was a quiet, little, older lady in the Church I grew up in. From a young age I watched her quietly serve with no thought for herself. She had learned to serve from an early age. She had worked in a factory during the Second World War, where she lost part of a finger. She never made an issue of it. I only know because as a teenager I asked her what had happened to her hand. When I knew her she was already retired and a widow of many years. Her hands where crippled by arthritis. Still she quietly served. In my mind she was always in the Church kitchen. No matter the occassion Mrs Gray would be in the kitchen with a large kettle on the stove. She was always ready with a pot of tea and a listening ear. She discovered I had a love for cross-stitch and embroidery. It was a hobby she had loved too when she was younger. The arthritis in her hands meant she could no longer do such delicate fine work. The next time I saw her she had a large tin of threads for me. It was her lifetime collection. Without a second thought she gave it to me, a loud chatty teenager. In the midst of the turmoil of my teen years Mrs Gray was always there. She always had time to listen, and quiet wisdom to pour gently over me. Then one day the Lord called her home. It was a glorious day for her, but a sad day for our Church. We suddenly became aware of how important one quiet little servant could be. There was noone to replace Mrs Gray in the kitchen. Noone else wanted to serve the way she did. I don't recall that she was ever thanked publicly in our Church, until her funeral. It was too late then. Until the day I left that Church in my mid twenties, to move to another part of the country, noone had stepped in to replace Mrs Gray. There was not a single person in the Church willing to humble themselves to serve without thanks. We all had excuses, including me. I was busy with University, then going overseas as a short-term missionary, then when I returned I had to start a career. I saw the gap, but didn't think it was my place to fill. I was too young, too busy, too selfish.

It has been over ten years since I left that Church and began moving around the country on a regular basis. Finally I have stopped moving around and began to put down roots. I am part of a much bigger Church than the one I grew up in. Yet the need for those quiet little servants is just the same. I am called to be a servant. We all are. How we serve is unique to each one of us. For me, I want to serve like Mrs Gray did. I want to hear that "Well done, good and faithful servant." when I get to glory, just like she did. As a woman, as a wife, as a member of my Church, I have been given an incredible gift. I have been given the freedom to serve. I will never be just like Mrs Gray, but I can be just exactly like me. I am first and foremost, a servant of Jesus Christ. All I do should be in service first to Him, in reverence and humility.

May we each find the places where we are called to serve.

Why I stay at home

I realize that in the society I have chosen to live in I am very much in a minority. I do not personally know any other women who have made the choice to stay at home unless it involves children. Before I even arrived in America my husband and I had several discussions on the subject of me working outside the home. Since arrival we have again had the same discussion a few times. The immigration process took much longer and cost a lot more than either of us realized at the beginning. Economically it would make more sense for me to find a job until we become parents (if we ever do.) Yet we both continue to hold that the right thing for me to do is to stay at home.

This is not a decision we have taken lightly. Like I have already mentioned it would be better for us financially right now if I had a paying job. However we firmly believe it is God's will that I stay at home. Throughout scripture it is made plain that God's plan for women is to stay at home. The book of Proverbs in particular has much to say about the woman who does not stay at home, and none of it is flattering. Rather as instructed in Titus 2:5 we should be "keepers at home," which means being content at home as much as practically possible. The home is my realm of influence. The home is where I can best serve my husband, and my Lord. Staying at home is a positive choice. It frees me to serve, and it empowers me to make a difference in the lives of other people.

Choosing to stay at home also entails some other choices. We choose to only have one vehicle. We choose to enjoy what we have instead of constantly looking for new and better. We choose to have freshly cooked meals every day. There is no need for expensive and unhealthy convenience food when I am at home to prepare meals that taste good and contain less salt and sugar than processed food. My husband gets to come home every day to a clean house where there are no chores for him to do. He enjoys my staying at home as much as I do.

Every woman who wants to do God's will can make the move to stay at home, if she really wants to. We each have a choice to make. We can compete and strive out in the world, just like everyone else. Or we can choose the peace and contentment of home. It is a simple choice, but not an easy one. Many don't understand why any woman would not work, some even think we are lazy for wanting to stay at home. If you have worked outside the home it is a financial sacrifice. There probably won't be the regularly changing new cars, or the exotic vacations. There probably won't be regular meals out at nice restaurants, or days out shopping at the mall. Instead there is learning contentment with what you already have. There will be time to make it yourself instead of buying ready made. There will be time to think of ways to romance your husband at home. There is time to not feel tired and stressed all the time, which is the one thing I hear most often from the women around me.

While I know I don't have it all figured out yet. I have always worked before. I started working delivering newspapers when I was 10 years old, and I pretty much always worked right up until I made the move to Florida four months ago. Sometimes I worked and studied, and sometimes I worked two jobs. Since leaving home at 18 I had to work to support myself, and living alone I also had a home to keep. This is certainly the largest home I've ever had, and it requires a lot of cleaning. We are also still in the process of painting walls and general decorating. I sewed all our curtains by hand and am in the process of recycling old picture frames to contain some of the artwork that will adorn our walls. My days are full and busy. Yet the same comment is made by all those who enter our home. There is a wonderful sense of peace in our home. It is a peace that we work hard to maintain. It is a peace that comes from contentment with what we have. It is a peace that is nurtured by us both centering everything we do on God. It is a peace neither of us want to loose.

Staying at home is a choice. It is a choice I am glad my husband and I have made.