Since being chosen as one of the new contributors for Raising Homemakers, I’ve been thinking more about what being a “homemaker” really means.
Adopting a teenager from the foster care system has redefined my ideas of what it really means to make a home. It’s not how well meals are planned, or how clean I keep my home. Those things are valuable — but I believe “making a home” means creating a safe and welcoming place to learn and grow in faith and in relationships. Home is created intentionally. That is the calling that we, as homemakers, have been given. It’s a big job.
In Titus 2, older women are called to teach younger women. In my mind, this has always involved sweet white-haired grandmas discipling mothers of young children. But recently I’ve come to realize that this verse in Titus 2 is really also a call for mamas to train our daughters. Schools don’t teach these skills. It’s up to us.
In Titus 2:4-5, God’s word tells some of what we must teach our daughters:
We must teach our daughters to love their future husbands and their children; unmarried girls can do this by keeping themselves pure of heart and mind, and we can teach them how much their purity now will bless the physical relationship with their husband in the future! We must teach them to be self-controlled and sensible, kind and good-natured. We must teach them the skills of managing their homes, which includes learning to make good use of their time. And we must teach them what it means to submit to their future husband.
Titus 3:5 makes it clear that these things are to be done “so that no one will malign the word of God.” The stakes are high in this job of training homemakers, but thankfully, this big job doesn’t have to be hard. It simply requires living intentionally, and inviting our daughters to live it joyfully alongside us. As I demonstrate affection and respect for my husband, encourage my girls to help plan and prepare meals, and make an effort to speak kind, edifying words, they learn. Even when I don’t do things the way I ought to — if I admit it and discuss it — they can learn from my mistakes, too.
In my family, we have a lot of experience in what isn’t God’s vision of home. My husband and I both come from broken families, and we both have broken marriages of our own in the past. Two of our children — my stepson and my younger daughter — are both children of divorce. Our teen daughter grew up in a truly broken home, and then spent nearly half her life moving from foster home to foster home. The locusts have eaten many of the years of our pasts. However, thanks to God’s amazing and abundant grace, our story does not end there. He has promised to redeem those years.
“He who sits on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new ‘” Revelation 21:5a
“I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten.” Joel 2:25
What a grace-full, generous, forgiving God I serve! I am blessed and honored to be called Mama. I’ve been given a precious gift: the opportunity to bless future generations by teaching my daughters what it means to be godly wives and mothers! I take this gift seriously — and joyously!
I have the delightful privilege of raising homemakers.
By Jamie, See Jamie Blog.
Jamie is a wife, homemaker, and homeschooling mama in a blended family that includes three kids: one by birth, one by marriage, and one through adoption. Her thoughts are always more coherent with a steaming cup of tea in hand, and she knows she can accomplish nothing worthwhile apart from the treasure of Christ within (2 Corinthians 4:7).
