Being domesticated

The last two months I've spent an incredible amount of time being domestic. I quit my job last summer so that I could more fully focus on our family and our work to raise support and get on the mission field. I wanted to be able to serve my family as best I could, to make their life at home a bit easier since otherwise their stress levels would be going way up. I wanted to pack lunches, make dinners and special treats, have a clean and peaceful home, and not put undo pressure on them to keep up with all of it. So I sometimes clean their rooms and make their beds, which I did not do before. But the weird part is....I like it. I actually like it! I've always valued being a housewife, and am proud of the choices we've made to make it possible for me to stay home instead of work. For most of our 16 years of married life, I have stayed at home. But it has been a LONG time since I've been this domestic. When I worked part time, I just couldn't keep up with the household chores and our home always seemed a bit chaotic to me. I didn't want to waste the time we had together on weekends and evening doing housework, so we let a lot of that go in order to have family time. And before I was working, we homeschooled...for those of you that homeschool, I needn't say more. But for those of you who don't, and who think homeschoolers have all the time in the world to take care of the house, you couldn't be more wrong. My time was consumed with lesson planning and implementing, and making sure each kid was actually doing the work, and since we were home ALL the time, the house was even messier than normal because it was well lived in. It was all I could do just to keep a walkway through our home when all three of my kids were home all day. So needless to say, housewife duties and cooking gourmet dinners were not top priority during that time. And way before even those days, we had toddlers...and babies...and their needs far outweighed housecleaning. Like I said, its been a LONG time since I've been this domestic. When we were first married, I loved running around our little apartment feeling like June Cleaver in my apron, whipping up meals from scratch, dusting and vacuuming, scrubbing floors and windows. (You'll notice that doing dishes does not make the list. I absolutely detest washing dishes, and it was a deal my husband and I made at the altar that he would be the dishwasher. So this duty has always been his, although I do pitch in and help, and we have since acquired an actual dishwasher :) And over these last few months, I have really grown to love and enjoy my time at home, creating a peaceful environment for my family to come home to. It helps that our house is now on the market, since we have to be ready whenever someone might wanna look at the house. But what feels like a really small act of service has turned into a great joy for me. I wish it had always felt like this. I let so many other things rob me of the joy of serving my family- pride, laziness, busyness, selfishness. Not to say that I don't still expereince those things, but becoming a missionary has a way of laying those things aside in a way I've never done before. There is a greater purpose to it all, and that makes it fulfilling, even when it's sweeping the floor or making beds. And I think we can all learn to find the joy and purpose in the every day things. God is in it all...we are always serving Him. And you don't have to go to the mission field to experience Him.