Homemaking Study Part 3

Here is Part 1 and Part 2

Now we have the Heavenly view of what homemaking is, lets look at the purpose of homemaking. Titus 2 makes it clear that we are to be workers at home so that we can present the gospel to unbelievers. That includes our children!! The book retells a lovely story of a couple called the Schaeffers, he a Dr (I presume of theology) and she his wife. It is said that as many people came to know Christ through Mrs Schaeffer's cinnamon buns as through Dr Schaeffer's sermons.

There are a great many tasks that we perform at home, homemaking is so much more than just the cleaning and the cooking, although these are important. As wives and mothers, we are the managers of our households, every aspect of our homelives. This can include:

• The people that we live with, their schedules and routines, appointments, needs and wants
• The physical building in which we reside, the cleaning, the upkeep (or organising someone else to do it), the decoration, the insurances, the cooking,
  
• The gardens/land (if any) that comes with the building
• The money with which we are stewards of to ensure that the people we live with are fed and clothed etc, that bills are paid on time, that fun can be had where possible :)

During a day, a week, a month, a year, we can be a cook, a cleaner, home organiser, social secretary, personal shopper, nurse, teacher, counsellor, gardener, academic, seamstress, accountant, stockist, taxi driver, psychologist and many many other roles besides.

It is important that our homes reflect God's presence, and be a blessing to all who enter. A clean, tidy, happy, well-managed home does this far better than a house that is dirty and in disarray where its inhabitants lead chaotic lives. This kind of well managed home does not happen overnight, or without practice. It, like many other jobs, requires planning and hard work, practice and improvement.

It is so easy to become overwhelmed with the task set before us on just the homemaking front, to say nothing of the roles we have as wife and mother that we fulfil in addition to and alongside our homemaking role. It is a huge responsibility, especially when you consider that we are to fulfil the homemaking role to present the gospel to unbelievers.

But there is a solution offered to us in Scripture, and we will look at this in more depth next time.