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I really enjoyed this week’s chapter: Domestic Strength.  The author starts with “a woman’s home is one of her sacred spaces” which really resonates with me.  How about you?  Is your home your sacred space…maybe the way it looks evokes a feeling of peace or maybe what goes on there sits well with you?  But if you are like most of us, you want better for your house, you want more.  I think that is the secret behind the success of media like HGTV, DIY Network, Southern Living Magazine (my absolute fav), and Better Homes and Gardens Magazine (number two), just to name a few.  I even love to get the snail mail catalogs for Williams and Sonoma, Crate and Barrel, Pottery Barn, and Restoration Hardware – they have earned a place in the stack of magazines that sit, patiently waiting for a day trip or longer vacation drive, with my husband at the wheel, and me turning pages, folding down corners, and clipping recipes, dream houses, and project ideas.  The internet is amazing too (don’t get me started on the home improvement/decorating ideas and recipes I have seen on Pinterest!), but for me, it cannot replace the soothing feel of slick pages and the whisk, whisk, whisk whispering to me as I turn them, <<deep sigh>>…It is a happy preoccupation for me.  It does not leave me feeling discontented like a have-not, just more hopeful like a dreamer.

These magazines, TV programs, and internet websites show us an ideal life – no dirty socks on the floors of the bedroom pics, no cracked/chipped ceramic tiles, no carpet stains or threadbare sofas and absolutely no spills burned onto the surfaces of those professional series 6-burner, stainless steel, Viking cooktops!  It’s how we wish we could live today and how we want our homes to be “one day”.  We clip or bookmark those pictures to plan our dream houses from the pages of magazines and websites.  In the here and now, we might take on a smaller project and try a new recipe.  I do all of this, happily!  But I got to thinking today, we need to remember what Jesus taught about setting up a home…Everyone then who hears these words of Mine and does them [italics mine] will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.  And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock (Matt 7:24-25).  If we want better for our houses, if we want more, we must (1) hear His Words and (2) do them.  James says “be doers of the Word, and not hearers only” (James 1:22).  I guess I have houses on the brain because this month, I am creating a class to teach at church next month, called “The Family Workshop” where we will put the Word into practice to “build our houses”.  As an aside, the word house can be interchangeable with the word family; in the way we see house in the verse: as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord (Joshua 25:15).

The Bible is our best way of knowing the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – the firm foundation upon which we must build our houses.  Like those magazines and TV programs with their “ideal” pictures, the Bible shows us how we wish we could live today (do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect, Rom 12:2) and how we want our homes to be “one day” (by wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is established, Prov. 24:3).  In the here and now, we might take on a smaller project, adding in a daily devotional or volunteering at church, and we might try a new recipe where we combine the best of ingredients which produces something imperishable, to satisfy the hunger of our souls: Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant  or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;  it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.  Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends (1 Cor 13:4-8).  God’s Word  is the source that shows us what our homes should be like, gives us the DIY directions to get it there, plus offers access to free, on-site, Expert Help!  The Bible is the most relevant book you have in your house – so let us “be doers of the Word, and not hearers only” (James 1:22).

JustAgirl..just like you