Simple, Purposeful Living in Our Home (Part 3)

Our house isn’t fancy. Honestly, it’s nothing to blog about. I laughed out loud when three lifestyle and home bloggers wanted me to join them in this series. I love our house. I think it’s pretty. But it’s definitely not going to be one you would find in a magazine.

But our home. It’s different. We’ve spent the last several years learning about home. Making our house a home, learning what it means to be home, and the people we would find there. I think it’s true for most Mamas, but the older I grow, the more home means to me.

IMG_2035.JPG IMG_2035.JPG

Home is more of a feeling than a place.

Because you can live at a house and never feel at home. And you can feel at home and never be in a house. Some of the most monumental moments of my story happened when I felt at home, when I was safe, loved, accepted, and free. Home is a tender place for me. It’s caused some of my deepest pain and the most extravagant beauty.

But over the years, the more I have learned how I’ve found home, the more I can make a home for my family. Home is where my Father is. Home is where I belong, where I can be free to be me, where there is a seat at His table for me, a place card with my name on it. Home is where I am fully loved, fully known, and fully accepted. I think before we’re able to live purposeful in our home, we have to know home ourselves.

We can’t give someone something that we don’t have.

Home for us has started with knowing our identity as a daughter and as a son of Papa God. Everything about how we think of home for our family always starts and ends there. Living simple with purpose, building a home for us is really about growing a culture. We want the culture of heaven to be the culture of our home.

IMG_2033.JPG IMG_2033.JPG

We make every decision, every plan, with every intention of building a culture.

How do we want our home to feel? When our kids are grown and have families of their own, what do we want them to remember? When the mail lady knocks on the door to drop off our mail, what does she see when she takes a peek in? When strangers and friends alike find their seat on our couches, or our kids come home from school and take their shoes off, what do they feel?

We want to build in this home a culture of heaven.

When orphans walk through the door and become sons. Where sick people come to get healed. Where the oppressed are set free. Where the rejected find a place where they belong. Where those in chaos find sudden safety. Where we laugh and dance and create and grow. Where we argue and disagree but we do it in a healthy way. Where we let go and relax. Where we rest and recharge. Where we dream and work. Where we fight hard for love and where we feast.

Where love lives.

IMG_2036.JPG IMG_2036.JPG

There is so much to my children’s stories. And where the world might look at our family and think we don’t match or if they ever feel there is a place they don’t fit in, I want home to be the place where they are safe. Where their stories are secure. When nothing seems to make sense, I want home to be where they sort it all out. Where they find out who they are and where they fit into this big world. Because we just aren’t raising children here.

We’re raising generations.

IMG_2037.JPG IMG_2037.JPG

Generations will come from these three.

We want them to burn with the fire of God, to be His laid down lovers. So that when they have children they carry onto their children identity and the culture of heaven.

It’s easy to look at them and only see now. It’s easy to see meals that need to be fixed, messes that need to be cleaned, or clothes that need to be washed. It’s easy to see their sweet little faces with the Nutella on the corner of their mouths. It’s easy to see them for who they are now. But when I look at them, I see generations.

I see generations that will no longer look as they have before. I see a clear line drawn in the sand, that from here forward there will be no more addiction or poverty or abuse or rejection in our blood lines.

That for the rest of ever, the generations that will come from this home will be laid down lovers of God. That as for me and my house and for the generations to come, we will serve the Lord.

IMG_2039.JPG IMG_2039.JPG

This all starts now. At home. It starts with us building a culture in our home that looks like heaven.

So no, my house probably won’t be in a beautiful magazine. It isn’t much to blog about. But my home and what we’re building here, it is. Forget magazines, I’m convinced the children and generations to come from our home will be in history books.

IMG_2032.JPG IMG_2032.JPG

And it starts now.

Building a culture. The great thing is we get to choose. Just like we pick out paint colors and curtains and décor, we get to choose the culture we want to build in our homes. Maybe you haven’t thought of your home’s culture, it’s okay. You can now. It’s never too late to start building a culture in your home. And it’s never too late to change it either.

Instead of seeing our homes as brick and mortar, let’s see them as something that outlives us. Something that last long after we’re gone. Most people only think those that have adopted have forever homes. But I think we all do.

And we get to choose today what those will look like for generations to come.

*******************

Don’t forget to hop on over to my friends’ blogs to see how they live simple and with purpose in their homes.

You can check out Amber’s blog here.

Lindsay, over at The White Buffalo Styling Co, here.

And sweet Eileen, at Eileen and Co, here.