There are days I feel a lot of energy and excitement toward caring for our home and other times I lack motivation and, as things pile up, my to-dos overwhelm me. As a mother with three young kids, I still find myself craving control and consistency but balancing homemaking with homeschooling and caring for my children rarely felt possible. As soon as I felt I had a working system in place in my home, something would shift - our schedule would change or illness would hit our home, not to mention how after each pregnancy, birth, or loss, it felt like we were starting over from ground zero.

Building a Home With the Right Expectations

At the start of motherhood, I was shocked by how little I was prepared for the role and the level of fortitude and sacrifice it really requires to love your family well while keeping house. Before kids I was always able to maintain my home easily and took pride in spotless counters and clean baseboards. Now, I go through seasons where my standards have to adjust and I have to be vigilant in how I prioritized my time spent cleaning using the energy and time I had. Pregnancy and nursing have historically sent me into a tailspin on how to make it all work. The sleep deprivation, the unpredictability, the interruptions, naps and nursing schedules; things can get off track very easily if we wait for motivation and the perfect circumstance to come.

When we are doing the work of motherhood along with managing a homes, we need to adopt a flexible mindset and a willing heart to pursue peace in your household and creates spaces that support our families flourishing. We don’t need big overhauls and cleaning schedules to prepare us for our work; we need to jump in and get the thing done. Sometimes its as simple as responding to the question, “what’s the next small thing I can do to better my home for my family?”

This is one of the concepts, Mystie Winckler’s inspired in her book, Simplified Organization. When I started reading, I was hoping for a few ideas on how to keep my kitchen, laundry and meal planning in balance and feel more caught up but I got so much more from this book. Mystie offers to much biblical wisdom on how to start with the right heart posture and right thinking about your role within the home:

“A homemaker is one who does what it takes with what she has to make a home. She is a manager, running an organization: a life-giving home. All that we do as wives and mothers shapes others. How we do what we do also shapes others. Such is the responsibility and vocation as a homemaker."

Mystie helps the reader to clarify their expectations about homemaking and what success looks like, “The difference between productivity feeling bad or good is not the work being done but our feelings about the work. This is why our attitudes are so important to our organaization. We have things we need to get done every day. We have people we need to build up. We have homes to manage. We have good works God has called us to. It is possible to take joy in those good works-all of them-because of the One Who sends them. A productive day is one wherein we respond in trust, with steadfastness and faithfulness, to the circumstances God sends us. That is how He produces in us the fruit of His spirit, which is the productivity He desires.”

The will of God for our life is to be in a loving, right relationship with him and to love others in and outside our homes. This truth helps us adopt a motivation to please the Lord through our serving at home. Our home is not to sparkle and impress. Our home is meant to bless others and help those who enter our four walls to experience the love of Christ which means hospitality is a big part of God’s love language. We are called as Christians to pursue hospitality in our homes to encourage and invite others to experience the love of Christ. Our homes are not however a place to impress others - to strive to make others believe we have it all together, that we meet a certain standard of decorating or cleanliness. I believe that we should steward or home and care for our household in a way to supports the family. A clean bathroom is an act of kindness for your family. Organized laundry and thoughtful meals help everyone in the home feel cared for.

Resisting the Temptation of Perfectionism

It is easy to fall into the temptation that our home has to be picture perfect to the point we resent our family for making the mess, dirtying the dishes, or needs clean underwear. We wish we could just be done with chores and push an imaginary pause button that would frreeze our house in that tidy, magazine-cover worthy asethetic. But the hard truth is that the chores will never be done and Winckler’s big ideas that we must instead renew our minds and tackle our housework as a means to reset and prepare something for our family to use it. Fora clean dining room is ready to invite others to a meal, a laundry-free couch is ready for your next or movie night, a clean bathroom allows the next user to feel more comfortable in that space. These are gifts we are giving our family. When we surrender and accept the role we have instead of resisting it - we enter into God’s peace. As Winkler says, we can “learn to love what must be done.”

You are called to be a mother and with that comes a lot of sacrifice and hard-work. The Lord desires for use to be humble and meek servants in our home in order to share the love of God with your family. You can be a light in a dark world for the people who enter your home, starting with the people that live there. God will equip us and strengthen us to do what is right in his eyes and to make our life a “fragrant offering” for others to see God’s glory through our joyful obedience!

I pray that you would take some time today to think about the blessings God has given you within your home. What comforts does your heavenly father afford you? How has God provided your family with shelter, food, and other necessities? How can you see God’s faithfulness in how he meets your needs? Then we take our gratitude for God and use it to motivate our right action toward maintaining a home where you can loving and serve God’s people.

To learn more and purchase Mystie Winckler’s book, “Simplified Organization” click here to visit Amazon.