The Mission Field of the Home

Anyone can count the seeds in an apple, but only God can count the apples in a seed. ~ Robert H. Schuller

Valentines Day is a good time to focus on the heart. I’m not talking about lace doilies and construction paper with glitter. I mean the real heart – the one that hides our life’s purposes, our King’s message, and our hope for tomorrow.

My heart has been heavy with a burden for the home this February… it seems the spring of my parenting journey has turned to summer… and the fall will come all too quick. My children both turned a year older recently… my oldest turned 11! They are nearing the stage in childhood when they will soon be waving elementary school good-bye. They are exceptional children… but I am feeling the great divide already – and with this reflection comes an evaluation of my performance that only I can assess. Have they been my priority? Have I used my time and talents wisely? Are their spiritual lives blossoming? Am I the best example I can be? Do they truly know that I love them? How can I improve?

There’s just no way to be an optimist when it comes to the knowledge that your children one day will be grown… the glass is just half-empty. My time is now half-gone. Her tiny pink fingers are now capable of typing 20 words per minute. His sweet baby voice can now read me a classical novel.

Tugging on my heart lately has been a call to excellence: finding a way to maximize my impact in the family God placed me in. That’s a tall order for a Valentine gift – not one you can bottle up and save for just one day a year, either. It needs to be an ongoing lifestyle – a lifelong quest viewed through eyes that know how to fix themselves on the plumb line of Jesus. I want to leave a legacy of love that grounds my children in the Lord. I want God to teach me how to parent like He does. After all, is there any more loving an ideal in all creation than THE Father? I don’t want to need reminders only once a year to make my kids cards, cookies and crafts. I don’t want another moment to slip by when I am not acutely aware of the countdown until they are fully grown… and spreading their wings to fly!

I want my children to be my ministry. I have heard it said before… but hearing it and putting that knowledge into practice each day… waking up with a burning fire to serve, honor, love, teach, help, and inspire… THAT is the kind of seriousness I want God to create in me. I want Him to remind me each day that I AM in the mission field… and that I AM affecting the hearts of my children with each word, each tone, each glance, each gesture… I want my feet to not stray or my mind to wander. I want strength, wisdom and patience… and to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that He is leading the way.

I hope you will join me this Valentines in committing your hearts to the mission God has set before you. He made us perfectly broken and full of need… He gave us imperfect new little souls to lead by the hand and heart… He showed us the Way. If only we could see the mission field that lies within our home – the beautiful hearts of His children… our children.

I’m praying we all have a true vision of our worth and purpose as mothers, teachers and wives. Not just for Valentines, but for all year; let us touch hearts for Christ.

From my heart to yours…

P.S.

My children and I love this devotional about the heart of the home. I hope it blesses you as well.

Have you brothers or sisters living anywhere in this great world? Have you allowed the friendship to grow cold or the ties to be forgotten? Have you permitted all intercourse to be broken off? Lose not a day till you have done the first thing, taken the first step, to gather up the shattered links and reunite them in a holy chain. If they are far away, write them in words of love. If they are within reach, go to them in person. If you are still living side by side in the old home, and if your life together has not been close, intimate, confiding and helpful, seek at once by all the wise arts of a loving heart to make it what it ought to be.

Then, no matter how plain, simple or old-fashioned your home may be, the sacred friendships beneath its roof will transfigure it all. Poverty is a light cross if there is love at home. Toil, hardships, care, sacrifice, and even sorrow affection twines over them as cold, bare, rugged rocks are changed into beauty when the wild vines wreath them all from every crevice and fill every black nook and fissure.

“Dear moss,” said the thatch on an old ruin, “I am so worn, so patched, so ragged; really I am quite unsightly. I wish you would come and cheer me up a little; you will hide all my infirmities and defects, and through your loving sympathy, no finger of contempt or dislike will be pointed at me.” “I come,” said the moss; and it crept up and around and in and out, until every flaw was hidden and all was smooth and fair. Presently the sun shone out and the old thatch looked bright and fair, a picture of rare beauty in the golden rays. “How beautiful the thatch looks!” cried one who saw it. “How beautiful the thatch looks!” said another. “Ah!” said the old thatch, “rather let them say, ‘How beautiful is the loving moss that spends itself in covering up all my faults, keeping the knowledge of them all to herself, and by her own grace making my age and poverty wear the garb of youth and luxuriance!’”

Is your home plain and bare? Must you meet hardships and endure toil? Have you cares and privations? Do you sigh for something finer, more beautiful, less hard? Call up love to wreathe itself over all of your home-life. Cultivate home friendships. Bind up the broken home ties. Plant the flowers of affection in every corner. Then soon all will be transfigured. You will forget care, hardships and toil, for they will be all hidden under lovely garments of affection. Your eye will see no more the homeliness, the hardness, the anxieties, the toils, but will be charmed with the luxuriance of love that shall cover every blemish.

- J. R. Miller (“Home-Making” – originally published in 1882, reprinted by the Vision Forum)

Sprittibee (Heather) has been homeschooling for 6 years and has one crazy husband, 2 crazy kids (ages 9 and 11) and 2 crazy cats. When she isn’t making Tex-Mex, learning web design, homeschooling, or rubbing her face on the cat’s belly… she loves to blog. In her column “Heartstrings for Homeschoolers,” she reminds us to stop and smell the proverbial flowers on this journey we call homeschooling. Not every day will be a great one. She admonishes us to learn to focus on the beauty of the moments God has blessed us with – for better or for worse… because our hearts are shaped by the memories we are making. Visit her blog at Sprittibee.