“I have come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly.” John 10:10

It was a solemn moment in my journey as a homemaker, when I realized that my homemaking was not very Christian. 

My housekeeping routines I held so dearly were failing me, yet everywhere I looked, every blog post I read, every YouTube channel I perused, said that routines were key to being a successful homemaker. 

I was very disappointed because I had routines and they were very good routines and even on the best day, these routines could only do so much. There were so many moments where my routines would be interrupted and chaos would enter what I thought would be a peaceful moment where I could be a productive homemaker.

And then my third child was born and my routines could not stand up to the challenge of having another child in the home. My routines were shattered, and I had to start over again.

I was so frustrated. I thought I had arrived. Was this what homemaking was all about? Was it simply living in the cycle of having routines that worked and then as life changed trying to figure out again what would work for this new season of life?

Exhausted and overwhelmed, I simply wanted to give up. It was a helpless, hopeless struggle, and I was ready to quit trying to live an orderly life.

And then a new journey began, a journey where I began to seek out how to really truly flourish as a homemaker despite the season of life I was in, despite how many children I had or the attitude of my children, despite how I felt from a night with little sleep due to having a nursing baby, flourishing regardless of my situation.

It was a journey towards life, an abundant life, but in the back of my mind remained the question “Can a homemaker with small children flourish?” It seems impossible, and yet everything in me wanted it. I was tired of being in survival mode and tired of the chaos and I just wanted to truly live.

The thought of living beyond the chaos of every day, beyond the temper tantrums (the children’s and my own), beyond the responsibilities of a mom, beyond the never-ending piles of laundry to wash or put away, the endless cycle of dishes being used and needing to be cleaned again, the unrelenting lack of energy or desire to fulfill my role as a homemaker… the thought that life could exist beyond all these things seemed nearly impossible, but my soul craved it.

This is when Christ came, knocking on the door of my heart and to my weary soul said “ I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” (John 10:10)

If Christ came to give abundant life, then somehow… it is possible for even homemakers with young children to flourish with an abundance of life. 

Listed below are a few changes that I made to my homemaking that allowed me to begin to flourish as a homemaker of small children. Here’s how I pursued Life.

Christ In Every Moment

As I began to search for the abundant life as a homemaker, it began with a realization that although I was a devoted Christian, my days were not very Christlike. I trusted in my routines and my own willpower to create a home and let me just say it was not the most fantastic place to live in. Chaos ruled in my heart and my home despite all my efforts to spend time in the word, pursue virtue, train my children in the way of Christ, and steward my home. I was trying to do everything and I was failing miserably at it all.

Something had to give so I decided to take a sabbatical from my housekeeping. I intentionally let go of all my routines, crucified the pressure that my house must be spotless for it to be in order, and began to rest and invite Christ into every single moment of the day and not just in my limited moments of devotion once a day. 

To be Christian came to mean living every moment in the pursuit of Christ. To be a Christian homemaker came to mean re-ordering my days to make space for the things of God multiple times throughout the day. 

The number one priority of my day changed from following my routines to asking Christ to be present in every single moment no matter what I was doing. If I was folding laundry, I wanted him to know that he was welcome, and that there was space in my heart and mind for his peace and his joy. If I was parenting, I wanted his presence, his gentleness, and goodness to be present in my responses to my children. If I was trying to do dishes for the umpteenth time that day, I wanted his abundant life as my own at that moment because my home could totally do without my negative spirit that was threatening to be present instead. 

To be honest, I didn’t even realize how little Christ was present in my day as a homemaker, but as I chose to be a more christian homemaker and I sought for him every moment as I went about my day and in multiple times, devoted specifically to him, my life and my family’s life began to be transformed from survival mode to a bountiful goodness that could only have come from Christ. It was a stark contrast that was unexpected, but incredibly welcomed!

Surrender

Part of crucifying my routines was surrendering every one I had to the scrutiny of the Holy Spirit clinging to the promise that he would in fact “ shew me the path of life.” (Psalms 16:11) Letting go of what I thought I had under control was hard. It appeared to be the best path toward a flourishing life, but once I had a glimpse of something more abundant in goodness than my routines had ever offered me, I knew I needed to surrender the actual living out of my routines so that I could have the space to hear how God wished my days to be ordered. Once I had peaked at a life so full of peace and joy, I knew that I had to see what it was all about. 

It was like Christ caught my eye and I turned of the path of trying to figure it out on my own and followed him, dropping my routines as I went, surrendering my hold of my home as a homemaker in hope of something far better, knowing that in time, he would teach me his way and how i ought to keep house in a God-honouring way.

After offering up my routines, I began to surrender to whatever the day would hold. I had no idea what it would do, or if doing this would impact my home much, but I knew that it was part of the journey. I wanted to see where surrender would take me so whatever the day needed to be, I was going to be content with it. 

If it looked like nothing that I thought needed to be accomplished was done, or if every single thing I tried to do was interrupted…. Whatever the day needed to be for me and my household for Christ to be king, I surrendered to it. 

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that I surrendered once and all was well, that suddenly I became mature or in the least proficient at not losing my cool when my toddler decided again to wash her hands in the toilet or when my four year-old decided to sneak the honey jar out of the kitchen again, open it, and sleep with it under his pillow, or when my baby decided to start teething and interrupt my perfectly fantastic early morning routine because I could no longer wake up early anymore. (I’m sure you have your own stories to tell:)

I am very, very far from perfection or maturity, but learning to surrender to what the day would hold no matter what, allowed the Lord to peel back layers of vices, immaturity, and overall lack of virtue in myself. 

Surrendering to what the day would hold ultimately meant surrendering to Christ and embarking on a redeeming and transforming journey as a homemaker. It was (and still is at times) a hard messy journey. There is still a lot of failing on my part, but it has started to be less and less. I fail fewer times throughout the day to be Christ-like not because of anything I have done, but because Christ is renewing me, transforming me into something more beautiful than I could hope to ever be in my own strength. 

Surrendering my day and heart over and over again throughout the day as needed as well as before it is needed as an act of vigilance for my home does not in and of itself change me, but it does bring me to a humble state where God can then work.

So I surrendered my routines giving him full reign to scrutinize and teach me how exactly it meant to have an orderly home in this season. God is a God of order so I know I could trust him to teach me orderliness that was appropriate for me right now.

I also intentionally surrendered throughout the day my heart and home as disorderly as it was offering it to him frequently because it needed frequent attention. How else was anything to change if Christ was not doing an ongoing work in my heart and home? 

But what change indeed he made to my life! Instead of feeling like a frantic housekeeper who was trying to do everything but was really just making a mess of most of it, by giving it all up, I began to feel like a flower blossoming slowly day by day opening another petal, unfolding slowly to live a beautiful life. 

Surrendering is quite the paradox. It’s messy, but somehow God takes our mess and reshapes into a thing of order and beauty. Surrendering is key to becoming a more Christian homemaker.

A quiet life

In pursuing Christ more and more in my homemaking, I couldn’t get away from the fact that it was a calling to a quieter life, a life as free from distraction as it could be, away from unnecessary activities outside of the home. It was a commitment to learning how to dwell every day with a mild spirit that reflects Christ’s meek and lowly one (Matthew 11:28).

We cannot hope to hear God’s still small voice if our minds are easily drawn away by distraction and overstimulation. We can only dream of becoming more like and showing Christ to our family instead of our old nature until we purposefully prioritize intentional time to sit at his feet, wait on him, and live in his presence on a consistent basis.

Early on in my journey to become more like Christ, I came across this verse in 1 Thessalonians 4:11, “And that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business…” Study to be quiet. What does it mean for a homemaker with small children to study to be quiet? We definitely don’t have all the time in the world to get away and study something, let alone have the promise that the time we do get will be quiet and uninterrupted.

For me, learning to be quiet meant starting by accepting the pressure from my daily duties and responsibilities to simply stay home. It was far more a relief than a burden to relinquish play dates and other outings that interrupted a consistent life. Unnecessary outings are good, don’t get me wrong, but they have a way of distracting us from our calling as homemakers. It’s hard to make a home if you aren’t consistently there to make it. 

We shouldn’t feel bad if we want to dedicate our lives to our children to raising them up in a quiet home where mommy isn’t stressed and trying to rush them out the door frequently for things that aren’t needful for life. 

Children, especially small ones, need a quiet life because they are naturally chaos monsters in themselves. They don’t need an invitation to wreak havoc or destroy things. They need a gentle loving hand to steer them away from naughtiness and excessive mischief and we can’t do that if we are overwhelmed with doing the basic things of life like getting food on the table and making sure we have clean clothes because we keep leaving the home.

How do we expect to build a quiet space if we are going and coming so often that we neglect an orderly way of living?! I feel quite divided in my intentions when I disregard my calling to be a full time homemaker for a social life. Perhaps this is a little radical and perhaps it is even a bit imbalanced, but the truth is that once I surrendered to being home except for necessary exceptions like church, shopping, or doctor visits, etc. I was more able to mother and serve my family in even the most basic ways from a place of abundant peace and joy.

A simple life

Quieting our hearts so that we can respond correctly in the moment is also nearly impossible if we live a frantic life, if we are hurrying here and there. We can’t do everything. We can’t even do everything we want to in the home when we do commit to simply staying home as much as possible. 

I’m not entirely sure what the solution to this is yet because as homemakers we have a lot we ought to be doing and it’s hard to see a way to be diligent without becoming frantic over something, but I have learned this much. Diligence is not working so hard that you exhaust your strength before the day is done. DIlligence has come to mean slowly (perhaps even painstakingly so) going about my duties living in the rhythm of work and rest so that I do things well and still have bandwidth to take care of whatever may come up.

There is a lot that we can’t predict as mothers of small children so we need to be okay with doing less. We can only do so much and with each child that we have until they are capable of helping us with chores and what not, they take precedence over housekeeping tasks. To let our children be a priority though means that we must relinquish our control over our days. We cannot hope to keep a rigid routine of any sort or accomplish a to-do list when our lives are unpredictable and this isn’t a bad thing.

We can let go of everything except for addressing our basics needs of spending time with Christ, eating, having clean clothes, and enough order to keep us healthy and sane and perhaps be a better homemaker for it (and ironically a more productive and fulfilled housekeeper). Letting go doesn’t mean becoming lazy, it just means living simply and in an uncomplicated way so that we can flourish even as mothers of young children.

It is almost terrifying to let go though. At the very thought of it, our minds run wild with thoughts of what others will think or what our husbands will say. 

Will God be pleased if I only do the bare necessities? It took me a good long while to realize that He is more than pleased with me if I sacrifice my complicated housekeeping systems that don’t hold up to life with kids in order to have space in my heart for peace and joy so that I can train my children as needed from a place of quiet, understanding, and gentleness.

As my children grow older and more capable and in less need of constant attention and correction, we all will be able to do more and more will get done, but for now, it’s the simple life, the simplest life you could possibly imagine, but it’s beautiful because it’s in pursuit of the peaceful way of Christ.

Final Thoughts!

Most likely since you are reading this, you are a Christian already. You have already accepted his gift of the wonderful eternal salvation for your soul. Perhaps you are even one who is devoted to God and have dedicated your life to him, but in all honestly your life doesn’t reflect that as a homemaker and you don’t know what to do…

If that’s you, here’s what I did that started me on my journey towards a more Christ-like way of homemaking. Crucify your housekeeping. Do the absolute basics and when you find yourself with pockets of free time, read scripture, pray, rejoice, read transforming books like “The Imitation of Christ”, “After You Believe” by N.T. Wright, any of C.S. Lewis’s works like “Mere Christianity”. Invite your children to join you in some way when they interrupt you and read out loud or play the thankful game. The Lord knows that they need transformation as much as if not more than we do and who is to teach them the way of Christ if not us?!

Many are the days when we feel like there is no hope for our home. The children are wild, everything is in disarray, and perhaps we show our fair share of immaturity. We long to mother, mirroring the character of Christ. But is that even possible as sleep deprived as we are? Is there any hope that life could be any better in the present now? Sure, it’s easy to see that it will be better someday, but should we simply throw out this hard season we are in as though there is no hope of flourishing where we are at right now?

Often, we may feel like there is no hope of flourishing as mothers, but the simple truth is God is our only hope. This is why we need to be more Christian in our homemaking.

Save it for Later!