It’s funny, as we wait for another little baby to arrive, I am reminded of how terribly scared I was before having Tyus. I was petrified of a plethora of things, but what stands out most in memory is the fear of being trapped. Trapped in our small townhouse, trapped within 4 walls and by the binding schedule of another person in my charge. I remember crying out to God and asking Him to change my heart so that being at home, staying at home would become a joy, not a prison.

Its funny how much has changed. Not overnight, mind you. I still have my days of feeling like the four walls of being a stay-at-home momma are closing in on me, of feeling limited rather than freed by this calling. But as I sit here and type, we are all still in pajamas, getting ready to make cookies, then attempt to do some schooling. We haven’t left the house or yard yet and probably won’t be fit to do so for another few hours, if we do at all. And this has become normal to me, more than normal. Comfort, joy, even.

You see, God has been working on my heart over these past 5 1/2 years since Ty first joined our lives, creating in me (slowly, steadily, often painfully) a theology of home; instilling in this busy, restless heart a value for stillness and being and a longing to create an environment conducive to that for others.

Oh, don’t get me wrong, we have our share of boredom and failure and restlessness here, especially here in my heart. We have days where my kids watch too many Disney Junior shows. And yet, I have grown to treasure our hours at home, even through the boredom and the chaos and the failure. This is a work of grace, one at which I stand amazed at God’s ability to continually shape His children.

At a wedding of a high school friend, a friend who had known me since middle school approached me (picture kids hanging off of me and me doing those goofy dances you do with kids at weddings) and said I was the least likely person to be a mom so early and so many times over. I’m not sure how he meant it, but I took it as a compliment. God has been and will continue to change me, my values, my passions.

Oh, how I long to number these days, to treasure them up in my heart. Oh, how I pray that my home will be an ark, a nursery, and a seminary for these little men He has entrusted to us. An ark that protects them and is a haven against the storm and the Evil One, a place of safety and refuge. A nursery where little sapplings are bent and grow deep roots, preparing them to become oaks of righteousness. A seminary where little minds are incited to love learning and God’s word while they are still wet cement, where the boys are nurtured and encouraged to be who God has already hard-wired them to be!

Here are two excerpts that have been forming my theology of home.

“And tell me, people of Orphalese, what have you in these houses? And what is it you guard with fastened doors?

Have you peace, the quiet urge that reveals power?

Have you remembrances, the glimmering arches that span the summits of the mind?

Have you beauty, that leads the heart from things fashioned of wood and stone to the holy mountain?

Tell me, have you these in your houses? Or have you only comfort, and the lust for comfort, that stealthy thing that enters the house a guest, and then becomes a host, and then a master?”

-The Prophet, Kahlil Gibran

“Sanctify and prosper my domestic devotion, instruction, discipline, example, that my house may be a nursery for heaven, my church the garden of the Lord, enriched with the trees of righteousness of Thy planting for Thy glory.” –The Family, The Valley of Vision