A Peaceful Home

It has been an interesting weekend...in my head. I recently gave up eating gluten. I have suffered greatly from digestive issues since I was a kid and when I did some research I found that taking out gluten would be a good place to start in healing. It was. I am so much better when I am not eating anything with gluten in it. The down side is without wheat or milk products (Betsy has dairy issues) it sucks a lot of joy out of cooking for my family. It is way more difficult and much more limiting and a lot more exhausting.

Food is delightful though and I want to serve my family and enjoy food as well. Off to the library I went for more, fresh ideas and inspiration. Evidently Julia and I would have to see a little less of each others. Sad.

I found some books by Ina Garten, The Barefoot Contessa. Her books are beautiful and her recipes are intriguing. I sat down Sunday afternoon and poured over them, reading her little introductions and stories or life and her journey as a wife, a homemaker, a cook...by the end of the evening I was downright depressed.  She talked of large overstuffed chairs and couches in their home with piles of books and good lighting for reading. Mood music playing. Candles. Flowers everywhere. Her goal was to make a home that was comfortable, peaceful and where people wanted to be.

This is not my home. I started re-ordering my life. What can I take out of my schedule to make more time for decorating? Entertaining? Scrubbing? Saving money so that I can furnish my home in ways that make other people comfortable? The list in my mind kept growing, as did the guilt. I felt ashamed that this woman who didn't even know the Lord, did such a better job at making a peaceful home. I should be working harder at this. I should be...but then it hit me:

She doesn't know the Lord.

Ina Garten is a great cook and a talented author. She has time and finances to spend on making her home beautiful to the eyes and ears, nose and mouth but since she doesn't know the Lord there is a peace that she can never achieve, no matter how hard she tries. She is to be prayed for and pitied...not envied.

God turned my thoughts upside down, or rather right side up again, renewed my mind and I remembered what peace is in His eyes. Peace is a right relationship with God, no longer under wrath and condemnation. My home has that! Her home is relaxing...very relaxing, but not peaceful.

It is true that there are other things that I could be better at doing like moping the floor but sometimes by the time I get everything picked up and then swept it is time to do the next thing and the moping will just have to wait. There are other things that are not relaxing in a home with five kids. Sometimes music is just one more thing making a racket in the house... definitely not relaxing. I look forward to continuing to make our house more relaxing as the kids grow.

I am grateful that we are already a peaceful home though and that everything we (Tommy and I) do is motivated by that peace and the desire for our children, and others who come into our house, to know that peace too.