Complaining will rot our souls, ruin our homes, and destroy our relationships with our husbands, our children, and our churches.

All the media and modern myths you imbibe act as if feminism is an accepted truth filled with good, as the above quote says. It’s the modern philosophy we aren’t supposed to question. You will have to do the hard hard work of digging it out of your own heart, because believe me, it’s there.

I’ve observed women who don’t go into widowhood, old age, or retirement with any response but to focus on themselves, as if their work is done now that they’re a widow, abandoning the next generation of women. I want to encourage women to re-forge the links between maid, matron, and crone, between grandmother, daughter, and granddaughter.

I love our group because I try to include both the practical and the attitude sides so that we’re encouraged to love what we do. I write because writing is how I process. I would not be where I’m at in my homemaking today without the writing. It focuses my thoughts, forces me to be purposed, and has helped me see areas I still need to grow. It also gives me space to think through things and then ask all of you what you think about them. This gives me some checks and balances, helps me see struggles, and be realistic.

Us cooking nourishing meals, cleaning our homes, washing sheets, encouraging rest, planting flowers, tending our shelters, clothing, and food is tending the church. Who do you think makes up the church?

The tangible, practical elements of our lives are important, but they can also be a shallow trap that pulls us away from the real benefits of our labor, much like living by sight instead of faith. It’s easy to judge things only by the parts we can see. Much of every woman’s work is the repetitive rhythms of days and seasons. But, like living by sight, if we’re not constantly on guard, we can mistake the superficial, visual parts of HearthKeeping for the whole. We will blindly see cleaning and cooking and laundry as the only elements of homemaking and miss the deep, rich world just at the edge of our sight. We will miss the hospitality, comfort, calm, and beauty a skilled homemaker brings to the whole world around her.

I love the image of a candle in the window, the light shining bright and warm in the cold, dark gloom. I once read that in the past a candle was placed in a window to show those who were away how to get home. It was both practical—keeping your family from getting lost in the dark—and symbolic of safety, warmth, and love. A Candle in the Window.