Are you a homemaker? Or are you a home maker?

Maybe it’s all just semantics but that extra space makes a big difference to me. It takes an adjective and it turns it into a verb. It takes a description (one that is often taken for granted or underestimated, I might add) and it turns it into an action. An intentional and purposeful one at that.

The fact is that we are all home makers, whether we realize it or not, whether we want to be or not. If you are a stay home mom, a work at home mom, a mom employed outside of the home, a wife with no children yet,  a wife with no children still living at home… (and even dads and husbands play their part)… you are all home MAKERS.

Every little thing that you do on a daily basis, or don’t do, adds to the sum total of your home. It is NOT the sum total of your home, but it adds to it, whether you want it to or not. For better or worse, good or bad. Whether you are “johnny on the spot” with every task and chore, whether you put things off for later, whether you provide hot meals like clockwork or whether you are queen of the microwave at the last minute — and everything in between — each little piece determines what your home life is like. All the myriad pieces of our day come together like tiny tiles in the mosaic of our home.

The real question is what are we putting into it?

The wise woman builds her house, But the foolish pulls it down with her hands. Proverbs 14:1 (NKJV)

Think about all the different things things that can mean, all the different ways that we as women can build (or tear down) our homes…

  • The wise woman builds up and edifies the members in her family with words of kindness and encouragement; the foolish woman will tear it down with words of criticism and anger.
  • The wise woman builds her family unity by facilitating family time and togetherness; the foolish woman will tear it down by allowing each member to go their separate ways too often or by getting caught up in her own hobbies and needs solely and forsaking the needs of others.
  • The wise woman builds her home environment with her very hands, seeing that needs are met, chores are done and food is prepared; the foolish one will destroy her home environment by allowing her home to be overrun with bad habits, accumulating stuff, and overwhelming disorder.

And most importantly:

  • The wise woman builds her home by seeking God’s wisdom, God’s ways and God’s will, regularly; the foolish woman will tear down her home by ignoring God’s wisdom, abandoning God’s ways and evading God’s will.

Notice that I didn’t say a wise woman cooks from scratch, never eats sugary foods, homeschools her children, teaches Sunday School class, sews her husband’s clothes… God calls us each to different places, different decisions, but these wise ways of building our homes are universal to all of us. We will all build or tear down our homes by our actions and our words. We can all seek to build our homes in these ways.

Even if you are not a believer, surely you can agree that we, as women, as wives, as mothers, have a HUGE impact on our families and their lives within our home. Our routines, our habits, our words, the memories we make will shape our growing children, impact our evolving marriages and speak volumes about our hearts and desires to those in and out of our home alike.

Sure, we’re not all perfect. We’re not going to look like June Cleaver and we might not even look like the Proverbs 31 woman, either. It’s a high calling and a hard task. But seeking God’s wisdom and striving to be a wise woman who builds her home is not out of your reach. It’s a desire, a motivation, a prayer and an action away.

I don’t want to be “just a homemaker,” just a wife staying at home with her kids. I want to be a home MAKER. A HOME maker. A maker and builder of a healthy home life for my family.

What kind of home maker do you want to be?

Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/atcevik/ / CC BY 2.0

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Amber

Hey, y’all! I’m Amber and I wear many hats. I drink a ton of coffee and I’m constantly sweeping crumbs off the floor. After 18 years of homeschooling, I’m getting close to graduating my third child and now we are starting over at preschool with our fourth, Lil Miss Mouse. She keeps us young and she’s the main reason for my excessive coffee consumption. Drink up!