This week I have been turning the house inside out and setting the domestic homemaker inside of me free to scrub as hard and as thoroughly as she wants.
Townsville is a very dusty place so my house needs frequent attention in order to vacate the forever invading family of dust-bunnies which claim the right to live within it's walls.
With a 14 month old toddler arriving in just 4 sleeps I have given extra attention to this task and it occurred to me that when we love someone it's natural to push the extra mile isn't it?
That's why I arise joyously each morning before dawn to prepare a hearty and healthy lunch for Mr E to take to work. His fellow employees call him 'spoiled' but my dear husband knows that he is quite simply 'loved' and I too am blessed because every day he goes the extra mile for me out of that same shared commitment to our relationship, our love and the vows we made at the altar almost 24 years ago.
Last
night I returned to my half finished Bluework version of A Year of
Gentle Domesticity and within a few hours had it finished and ready to
be bordered and framed.
Stitching the
words "gentle domesticity" once again stirred my heart and as I settled under our
quilt at bedtime I let my thoughts fill with grateful thanks for all
the changes which have come to pass so far this year, for all the gentle adjustments that have brought peace to my heart and my personality, and for how those changes have re-ignited and re-inspired my natural love for homemaking, wiving and mothering.
Then
I renewed my desires for more life-giving-home-inspired-heart-adjusting
changes still to come and offered them to the Lord with a request that He would bring them to pass.
It's so important to look back and see the good in our lives, yet many of us spend too much time reflecting on the bad. Letting go of my failures, grievous hurts made against me, and people who bring me down - that has been, and still is, LIFE GIVING.
And you know, as I grow into a better Jenny the mistakes of the past
fade more and more and the things to give thanks for increase and shine
brighter.
I treasure all my hopes for the future and safely entrust them to Jesus, but I remind myself often to examine my motivation for needed adjustments because there must not be a self-serving pride in those hopes and dreams, but a humble and gracious desire - always.
I don't think my journey to Gentle Domesticity will finish when 2015 rolls over into a new year because I've only just scratched the surface so far, and that's rather exciting.
Want to know what prompted my Year of Gentle Domesticity? Read about it HERE.
As a blessing to the domestic heart in all of us the embroidery pattern for "Gentle Domesticity" is free HERE in my shop until Monday 13th July, so be quick to download it, okay?
This is how I stitched it the first time, in colours on a vintage linen doily...
Have you noticed changes in your own year of domesticity thus far?
hugs
