A Homemakers Chat
The Welcome Home
June 7, 2004
Dear Sisters, I am remembering you and pray you’re well. I thought I’d
just share some different homemaking type things today. The, hopefully,
next week I’ll have regular messages prepared to share. I pray for you
and thank the LORD for opportunities to write to you. We are all
traveling this road together, and were you to stop by, you'd see that I
am just like you: still in the Hand of the Potter, daily being trained
and reworked by the LORD. Our home is a “Christian home”... a welcome
home to our family and to you, our friends... most of all it is a home
where the LORD is at work and we are in all stages of growing in Him.
There are so many ways in which the LORD is visibly evident. It seems to
me that this month, in particular, really demonstrates the order of the
seasons and new growth.
Spring has sprung and Summer’s coming! Maybe sometimes we feel that
*our* spring has sprung! Is your spring sprung? I say this because we
all have so many things on the docket, so to speak, that often times we
are stretched to the limit, pushing all the boundaries, running on
empty, frazzled.... Like sprung springs. I pray that you will be
refreshed in these seasons and that you will be encouraged in the LORD.
I hope you will take some time away, just now, have a cup of tea and let
me share with you some things the LORD has laid on my heart to share
this week.
Each year with the change of the clocks for Daylight Savings time or
standard time, I do a few semi annual things in our home. Do you have a
regular time to check and/or change your smoke alarm batteries? Every
year with the change of the clocks, I change the batteries in the smoke
detectors. I have a sheet of paper in the kitchen on the inside of one
of my cabinets that I have listed in columns the date and whether or not
the battery was checked and/or annually replaced. This year, I’m a bit
behind in this task!
I usually check the fire extinguishers, and vacuum under the fridge and
in the dryer vent, too. Some of you may remember how I wrote to you
several summer’s ago regarding the home I saw at the beach in California
that had burned because of lint accumulation in the dryer vent. It was
so stirring to see the shell of the elegant home and the beautiful
surrounding yard. It was sobering to me to think of the potential fire
hazards in our homes. We need to always trust the LORD for His
protection and provision while doing what we know to do in the
maintenance of our homes. A fireman told us that a couple of the
greatest fire hazards in the home are the accumulations of lint under
the fridge and in the dryer vent. When we recently replaced our dryer,
it was so surprising how much lint (and lots of other stuff) had
accumulated at the exhaust vent at the base of the dryer. Under our
fridge needs a thorough vacuuming, too!
As we are nearing the mid-point of the year, it might be a good time to
renew commitments made at the first of the year. Remember in January
when we had a bright new year ahead of us... a clean slate, a new hope,
an unwritten book...? Well, now that clean slate is probably a bit
tarnished, some of the hopes may already be dashed, and some of the
writings in the book are already written with regret. Could I encourage
you to give it all over to the LORD once again? God is the God of new
beginnings and new hope. If we have made mistakes, errors, sinned
against the LORD, our husbands, our children... He tells us in His Word:
"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins,
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." -1John 1.9
If you intended to get up a bit earlier to be with the LORD Jesus, if
you intended to memorize the written Word, if you intended to be a sweet
offering to the LORD and to walk in His ways and yet you have failed...
would you join me in recommitting your way to Him and ask Him to forgive
you for the things you know you ought but haven't done, ask Him to be
your guide... ask Him to give you the grace to obey His Will and His
Word. Maybe you will join me in praying the LORD will grant you the
wisdom needed to manage the home, to love your husband, to work with the
children, to minister to your neighbors. Time is important to the
LORD... it is evident in His Creation. How we spend the time He gives us
must become more important to us.
Ephesians 5.6 says: "Redeeming the time, because the days are evil." And
in Colossians 4.5: "Walk in wisdom toward them that are without,
redeeming the time."
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I have been thinking for some time about organization, home and time
management "stuff" ---and I have written to you about all of this
several times---but it has really hit me again that many of us never
learned time and home management not because our mothers were not
guiding us in these areas, but because our mothers, many of them, didn't
have half the things(!) we have today and they were not faced with the
same decisions we are faced with today---and vice versa. They didn’t
have the sort of schedule we have, nor all the “stuff” to make their
lives *easier!*
Go back in the theatre of your mind and picture the home in which you
were raised. I did this, and thought: even though my parents were very
affluent compared to my husband and me, they certainly didn't have all
the things(!) we have today. Consequently (and this has all changed
drastically now), my mother didn't have to organize, containerize,
prioritize the way I have found needful in my home---she had other
things with which to concern herself. I know she had several obligations
and had a large home to manage, but she surely didn't have all the
stuff(!) we all have today. She didn't have Rubbermaid bins, boxes,
stackers, space makers, organizers, etc., etc. I know things are
much different for her even today... she's begun to "need" all these
things, too, even though this isn't the way it's always been. I am
imagining that it was probably much the same with you. We sure need
loving encouragement to press on , to decide what it is that the LORD
requires, what is important, and how we are to manage what the LORD has
called us to. This is one of the reasons that I write to you each
week---not because I have such great ideas or such a wealth of wisdom to
impart---no, it's because I long to encourage you to good things.
Whatever it is the LORD has called you to, and wherever you are, I
believe more than ever, that we all need helpful inspiration to walk
with the LORD and to look to Him. I do not know anyone who, from time to
time, does not get discouraged along the way. It's discouraging
sometimes: the dailies. It is discouraging sometimes when we fail at the
very things we "know that we know that we know." I feel this way
sometimes and that is why, though I feel incapable, I believe the LORD
has prompted me to walk with you along the way to encourage you to trust
in the LORD with all your heart, to try a little harder each next time,
to love your husband and your children, and to live out your life as a
sweet offering to the LORD.
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*What do you have in your hand?*
I imagine there may be many things you wish you could do, wish you were
able to accomplish, wish you were able to afford, but for whatever
reason you are unable. So--- what do you have in your hand? I tell
you from time to time things I "have had in my hand." Maybe I could be
of encouragement to you as we walk along together. My mother and
grandmother used to ask: “what do you have on hand?” when I wanted to
make something… cooking or sewing. I appreciate that early training.
I’ve often wanted paint or wallpaper to fix up our home. It all looks
fine---but the paint is old on the inside, the lath and plaster walls
sure need attention.. Well... I went out to the shop to take a look
around and found some paint. This may go against your grain, and
ordinarily, I wouldn't like this solution, but here I was in need of
paint and I was faced with a dilemma: do I use what I have, or do I
wait? Well---okay, so you know where I'm going with this... I painted a
wall---and I have done this exact same thing before---I just use what we
have on hand. I am learning that what we have on hand is: doing the
next right thing. I did this several years ago----ooooh, too bright and
too pink! So, what to do, what to do. I decided to try sponge painting
and looked under my sink for a sponge and in no time I had, with a
couple of colours, made a nice change that I am still happy with (okay,
and still surprised!). I failed to mention that I hadn't done this
before and most all of my painting “career” has been this sort of "hmmmm,
I wonder what's out in the shop" sort of painting. Every now and then
we have gone to the hardware store to actually choose paint and
thankfully I have always had lots of help with the big jobs *and* have
occasionally ended up with an extra gallon of unused paint in a
favourite colour. All that to say, if you are wishing that you could
make an improvement in your home, but lack the resources, I would ask:
"what do you have in your hand?” What do you have on hand and, would it
be alright to use it?
I’ve been trying to do some major cleaning [again] this week. I’ve been
thinking of this for a few weeks now. I do this kind of cleaning a
couple of times a year and some years I sort of dread what it takes to
do the sort of cleaning I am talking about. Do you have an annual
cleaning schedule? I learned this from my mother in law who has a very
orderly way of caring for things. Over the next few weeks I will be
sharing some thoughts about deep-cleaning. This week I will begin by
doing the vacuuming I described earlier and then I will do a thorough
house cleaning in order to do a deep clean all next week. For my initial
deep house cleaning, I will be going around our home with a garbage bag
and a "give away bag." I’ve found over the years that it is much easier
to *clean* a clean house than it is to try to do everything in the home
at once. SO I am enlisting the children's help in this as well.
I pray that you are walking closer by the LORD each day and that it is
your hearts' desire to live pleasing to Him. I am praying for you as I
write, that the LORD will bless and guide your days and your
thoughts...and that you will be a fragrant offering to God.
with love, pamela
pamela spurling
http://www.achristinhome.org
© 2004
