Design creates culture. Culture shapes values. Values determine the future.
— Robert L. Peters
While traveling in Vienna one day, I was struck by the beauty and quality of design in almost all of the buildings downtown. Each building was constructed with an elaborate plan, that not only considered structural strength, but also beauty and detailed design that validated the skill and craftsmanship of the architect.
Our modern day homes lack the craftsmanship and artistic skill of historical buildings that were built to last for centuries. And so the pragmatic and common place has swallowed up the art, beauty and strength of the design of a dwelling crafted for beauty and visual design as well as structural strength and longevity.
Similarly, while walking the streets of Vienna, I was struck with how much we have lost the value for the beauty of God's original design for home and family. We have replaced the purpose, beauty and meaning of family, home and motherhood with the common and demeaning value our current culture has placed, by devaluing of the original purpose and beauty of family and home. And so we are not always even aware of what we have lost because we lack a perspective or memory of the beauty of the original design and what God intended it to be.
When God created the heavens and the earth, he created it with minute and detailed intricacy and order. There was color and form and beauty woven in every aspect of His creation, as an expression of His own life art.
The pinnacle of creation, though, was crafting man and woman in His image. And with this image, and relationships amongst those who would be his children, sharing His image, he created order and beauty within the structure of relationships called a family--a father, a mother, and children, and generations of family connections.
God's purpose in giving order and structure to these relationships was to provide a community of security, comfort, pleasure, inspiration, purpose and belonging. When children are born into families where the structure is intact, there is beauty, strength, health and moral and educational strength. Family was the perfect design before the fall, before there was any sin in the world.
Mother was the first name of the woman. Mother, by its very nature, embraces the giving of life to another outside of herself--a real live human being whose life will have implication for all of eternity. Motherhood requires accepting children as a gift, and giving them life--both spiritual, emotional, intellectual, and moral--is the greatest civilizing and most beautiful work a mother can perform. And when she skillfully builds a soul, by taking the time to give structure, beauty, excellence to the life of her children, their souls will emerge with the design, the very imprint of God's image and capacity for excellence in their lives.
If we have lost the imagination of how beautiful and meaningful motherhood and family was designed by God to be, we will lose the value and ability to reconstruct the beauty of God's original design and settle for something much less.
And so that is why we must return to the original design of motherhood and family. We must get into the heart of God's design if we are to manifest his purpose in relationship to our children, and value them appropriately, as God intended us to do.
Read more about the beautiful design of motherhood here:
