HearthKeeper Victories

If we want to encourage each other and be an encouragement to other HearthKeepers, we have to embrace the idea that this is where we want to be, that this is worth it, that this is beautiful, and that this is hard work. How can we do that?

NSV.

Non-Scale Victories are a diet training exercise that helps correct bad thinking. It teaches you to stop looking at a number, stop defining yourself by a number, and stop being emotionally bound by a number. It encourages thankfulness. It is noticing that you may have not lost a pound but you’re down a clothing size. The number hasn’t budged but you have more energy, your husband is excited about food, you kicked a sugar habit: all these wonderful things that a scale can’t tell you.

I think the same idea can be applied to our homemaking to help foster a positive, loving attitude. HearthKeeping is 90% your heart attitude. That is why we can be so diverse and yet all homemakers. Home is really where the heart is and that heart is you.

Enter HearthKeeper Victories or HKVs. Think of the World War 2 Victory Gardens. According to the often joked about resource, Wikipedia, Victory Gardens “…also called war gardens or food gardens for defense, were vegetable, fruit, and herb gardens planted at private residences…”. HearthKeeper Victories (HKV) are our war thoughts, or thoughts for defense. They guard us and nourish our thought life. HKVs help us turn up the soil of our mind and plant it with honest and good thoughts. They help us change our thinking and create a habit of thankfulness. They bear the fruit of strong women equipped for the fight.

“What fight?” you ask. Why do we need HKVs? What does it matter?

I recently finished binge-watching a popular TV show. It was geeky, funny, and had some great friendships that grew, changed, and brought tears to my eyes. But, it also belittled motherhood, marriage, and homemaking at every opportunity. It promoted the idea that feeding your family, making bread, and raising children was something women were reduced to and oppressed by; that we could be doing something great if we could just break the homemaker stereotype. This is the fight we are in. Everything in our entertainment is preaching to our daughters that home is oppressive. Everything in our entertainment is preaching to our sons that they are oppressive if they want a homemaker wife. Many men just automatically assume that a woman wants a career outside the home and can’t understand why she would want to be home. We are told this is the definition of oppression: homemaking. If you don’t think this is infiltrating your home or your own thought life, you’re kidding yourself and you're leaving your mind and your home undefended. You can’t ignore it, you have to go to war.

HKVs are just one way you can stay in the fight. They are stopping to notice the tiniest good so that we’re not weighed down with the struggles and lies. Losing weight and getting healthy is a lot of hard work, both physically and mentally. You have to train yourself to see the small wins or you will throw in the towel and eat that whole tub of ice cream…or cake. I’d eat the cake. All of it.

Noticing the small wins at home, the small victories, will encourage you. It will help you keep a smile on your face for your husband and children. It will help you learn to evaluate the day by what you accomplished, not by what you didn’t. It will help you grow into bigger goals. Your delight in your homemaking will infuse the whole house like a pan of simmering water filled with oranges, cinnamon, and cloves fills your home with the smells of Christmas.

So, what are the teeny-tiny wins? What are the mindset changes? What are the goals? What is one tiny thought that you can change or even work on to help your home?

Things like:

-          I kept a plant alive in the house

-          I found a simple dinner that my family loves

-          I got dressed (LOL- this is me!)

-          Baking cookies makes the house smell good and the family happy

-          Flowers on the dining room table

-          Food in the Freezer

-          A freshly organize space

-          A basket of laundry folded

-          Fresh sheets on the bed

-          A new idea applied

-          A new habit, even something tiny like emptying the dishwasher once a day

All of these and more are wins. When we praise the wins, no matter how small, it helps us move forward, keeps us motivated, changes our attitudes, and all of that changes our homes. This is something I want to cultivate in our group. I want to share many different HKVs. I want to cheer each other on. It may be that this week you made your bed every day. Or that you learned that letting your bed air out before you make it is a wise thing. Or this week you read a short book to your kids every day. Or this week you kissed your hubby when he came home every day. Each of these tiny little things is significant.

When I started noticing NSV it changed how I thought about food, my body, and my clothes. It changed how I cooked. I have become a much more positive person who is thinking more correctly about the temporary, earthly gifts God has given me. If it worked for my eating and my figure, why can’t it work for all of us in our homes?

Let’s celebrate the small Victories, the unspoken wins, so that we focus there instead of on the negative. This will change our attitudes and as our attitudes change it will shine out. If we believe this is the ultimate career, a reflection of the church, we should adorn it with unique beauty. We should be rejoicing, not complaining. Spend just a few minutes watching a sitcom or on Pinterest and you will find a world of homemaker complaints. Many of them are cloaked in sarcasm, but they’re really complaining. It’s gross and disheartening. If we can’t see the might and magic of this ordinary calling how do we expect anyone to take it seriously? How do we expect our daughters, the next generation, to desire this if we grumble and complain? We must shine the light. We must change our attitudes. Proverbs talks a lot about how it is better to live in the corner of a dripping attic than with a contentious woman. We don’t want to be that woman constantly nagging, belittling, disrespecting, and complaining. Let’s take our complaints and turn them into praise. Hate dishes? Be glad you have food. Hate laundry? Well, you could be naked. Hate budget work? You have money to manage.

Even as I write this, I’m so convicted. I constantly have to stay in the fight against myself or I will complain, feel put upon, and abused because I don’t want to do the work…again…and again. Why do I have to come up with one more meal to eat? Why do I have to iron your shirts? Why me? Why me? Why me?

Instead of that, I can change my thought life. I get to decide what we’re eating. I get to craft a warm, nourishing meal with cookies after, communicating love to my husband. I get to iron his shirts so that they’re ready when he needs them, with an eye to detail because that is part of his ‘love language’. I do it because this is where the Lord has put me and called me to and He is to be trusted. I do this for my Captain and Savior who died for me. And I do it with a cheerful heart.

So let’s work on our attitudes and celebrate our HKVs, not as a lie to make it look like we have it all together and don’t need to repent and don’t need help, but as a way to rejoice, correct our thinking, and work on our attitudes.

What are your HKVs?