The other day found me busily tending to many needs. There were calls to make, laundry to run, and inevitable dishes that follow meals at home. I finally had a chance to take a cup of tea to my favorite chair and rest a moment, and once more it struck me: though home making always takes a lot of effort, it is worth it. We all —mamas, too!—need the comfort to be found in home.
In a world that rebelled against God’s original intention, too many are left with no understanding of the Genesis mandate or the importance of home building. Broken families, divorce, abandonment, passivity, and abuse have plagued family history and have left scars on the hearts of children grown into adults. The vision of home as a place to flourish and grow fully into healthy persons has too often been lost in the busyness, distraction, and brokenness of both our secular and our Christian cultures.
Add to that the impact of technology in recent years, as social media tends to elevate virtual relationships over real-life, face-to-face encounters. Tweets, profiles, and statuses have replaced personal conversations. Gathering around the table for food and family discussions, lingering on front porches for long conversations over coffee, whiling away evenings with family and friends—all these have been replaced with quick trips through the fast-food drive-in or fifteen-minute meet-ups at a local coffee shop. There is little time or space for instruction about life or discussions about truth. Our souls seem to be filled with the sawdust of a lost generation.
Corporate moves have displaced people from their relatives; megachurches have replaced local congregations; and so many of us have become accus- tomed to growing up without a physical, local community of friends with whom we share life every day and who hold us accountable. Neighborhoods have become merely places to hold the dwellings where we sleep, grab food on the go, and meet our bare needs for existence. Sometimes we are lonely, and we do not recognize what has been lost.
As a result, in so many ways, we have become a homeless generation.
For encouragement in your own homemaking, may I suggest the book these words came from?
