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I have this little book I love. I love it partly for its quaint Victorian language but also for its inspiration regarding what building a home is all about. J.R. Miller's Home-Making has spurred me to realize that home is not merely a place to sleep, eat, raise children, and furnish it to the best of our means. But that the true idea of home is "that it is a place for growth" for children and parents. My calling as a home-maker is an awesome opportunity to train and nurture the next generation for the Lord's purposes and to fashion the environment in which that will take place. He reminds me that I am a gardener, giving thought to the soil, and doing a myriad of other things that will contribute to the optimum conditions for the growth of my "flowers." How do I grow human souls?
I am not only a gardener, but an artist. These days are the ones my children will look back upon as their memories of childhood! Miller says, "There is nothing in all the influences and surroundings of the home of tender childhood so small that it does not leave its touch of beauty or of marring upon the life." So these impressions of home will be of eternal import. I must see myself as the artist whom God has entrusted with all of his materials. How I use them and shape them he has given me infinite creative domain over. It's an exciting path. I stand back. The canvas is not blank. Holding my brush in my teeth I squint my eyes to get that blurry effect and see what needs tweaking. Homeschooling, child-training, activities, friends and worship all are elements of the picture. But not only these, things more intangible...words spoken, smiles, hugs, firelit evenings together as a family, relationships between brothers and sisters are all a part.
Well, that is the vision, the reminder, the beautiful calling. Perhaps how the rubber meets the road, so to speak, will be the topic for future comment. |
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