My Career is Homemaking

Do you ever have a moment where something finally clicks and you get it? Lightbulb! A-ha! Eureka!

I had one of those around July 2017: Homemaking is my career.

Homemaking is my Career.

Let me put some flesh on that thought.

I have this weird fatalistic streak that runs deep in my soul. A c’est la vie, what will be will be, attitude. After years and years of wrestling with it, I realized I’d twist the sovereignty of God into laziness.  Deep down, I believe there are things I can’t do anything about so I shouldn’t be required to deal with them. I did not have to be purposed.

I can be aggressive and self-educating if I am interested in something, but if it overwhelms me, I shut down. I move whatever it is over into the ‘God’s sovereignty’ slot. God’s in charge. He’ll have to deal with that. Now it’s not my problem.

Homemaking was one of those things.

I believe that as a woman I am a natural homemaker. It is something inherent in me. However, I had twisted that into a lie: I am only as good or bad a homemaker as God had naturally made me. It wasn’t my responsibility to improve beyond a point. I can work out. I can watch my diet to try and keep my body healthy. I can’t wish myself into being tall and willowy, or that my hair would turn red. I thought it was the same with being a homemaker. I can cook and clean, but once you move beyond my natural skill, that was it. Tough luck.

God only hands out so many skills, just like there are only so many redheads.

I used the idea of homemaking as something that naturally flowed from my fingertips as a human being with a uterus as an excuse. I excused myself from studying, learning, growing, or developing my skills. I could only do what came naturally, no more. I refused to be purposeful in homemaking.

This mindset developed into attitude issues. *surprise, surprise*

My path as a homemaker wasn’t what I thought it would be. From childhood, my heart’s desire was to be a wife and a mother…and a cowboy. Instead of getting married and having babies right away, we bought a business. Instead of being at home cooking, growing plants, and surrounding myself with little people, I dived headfirst into fashion, marketing, customer service, company culture, employees, and all that owning a small business entails. (Don’t think I did this all on my own, please. My husband was the forerunner, leader, and head researcher.) We always talked about how our boutiques were an extension of our home. That’s how I viewed them. But I didn’t look at homemaking as my career. I still looked at it only as something inherent to being female. I had nature without any nurturing. I didn’t view myself as having a career. I was never purposed or intentional. I was serving and helping my husband. At no point did I realize that I, in fact, do have a career: homemaking.

For lots of reasons, we sold our business and I came home. I quickly became as busy, or busier, than I had been before. I dived headfirst into life. Everything got a yes answer. Conferences, showers, writing lessons, every imaginable event with nieces and nephews, writing groups, and so much more. I had several social events a week, plus all the duties of keeping a home and feeding a family. But things weren’t going well. Instead of studying, learning, and growing as a homemaker, I continued to assume it would just happen. I was a woman, right? I didn’t want a career, I wanted to be a stay-at-home wife. But, I never viewed that as something to develop in myself. *Insert facepalm here*

Every time my husband tried to push me to show more initiative or tried to explain that something was my responsibility, I hunched down in my shell. I tried to take care of him, but I felt like what he was asking of me was the equivalent of suddenly becoming a redhead. I watched other women who always seemed in control of their home and they never studied. They just naturally exuded comfort, beauty, a cheerful welcome, and joy. Why didn’t I? Well, God just must not have given me that skill.

In 2015, two years into being a Homemaker, my body just gave out. Years and years of running on adrenaline, starvation dieting, and other factors took their toll. I was out of the game. The couch became my place. I rarely looked beyond my own body. I rested and rested and rested. Life was on hold.

Two years of no energy passed. I was able to function, not at full speed, but that was okay. I didn’t and don’t want to go back to what I had been doing for the twelve years before 2015. I want to find a new speed. After all that—selling the business and new chronic health issues—I felt like a twenty-two year old just starting. I was a newbie. I didn’t know how to keep my home, to be a homemaker.

In mid-July 2017, after one of those weeks where everything you do is wrong, every sin is out there for all to see, and God is exposing all the wickedness in your heart, I decided to read some blogs about being a homemaker. I knew something wasn’t right. The smallest things overwhelmed me. I was never happy with how my home was, and I knew my husband wasn’t happy. This had nothing to do with cleanliness. I was never in control of our home. I flitted from one thing to the next. I always felt overwhelmed, anxious, and stressed.  After being out of commission for two years, there was a lot that needed to be done. My husband was changing careers and starting seminary. Things needed to get in control. I needed to be in control. I needed to be able to manage my home and help my husband, with the right attitude, not a put upon attitude.

I needed to quit acting like the hired help. I’m not a maid and cook. I’m the lady of the house. I needed to act like. . .I needed to believe that this was who I was. I needed to see this as my career. I needed to be purposed and intentional in my homemaking.

One of the blogs I read mentioned studying to develop a new skill in Homemaking.

Click. Lightbulb. A-ha. Eureka.

A thousand different things slid into place and I realized I’d never looked at homemaking as my career. I assumed it just happened. I’d never treated it with the same focus I had owning our business or my writing. My thinking and understanding of homemaking had been all wrong. I’d read books about being a good wife, but I’d read very few about wise housekeeping or wise homemaking, starting with perspective and working out into labor. I didn’t pick other women’s brains about how they create a culture in their home. I did when we owned our own business, but not my home. I just assumed my home was my home. I never went at it with purpose. I had nature but no nurture.

Oh, the burdens lifted from my soul when the light of truth shone in.

Stumbling and bumbling, I started looking at my home as my career, my life’s work, given to me by God. What did I find? A supreme challenge with wonderful benefits. I found something that will stretch and grow me beyond any other work I could set my hands too. A homemaker must be good at so many things and willing to switch between them at the drop of a hat. Here was a life-long challenge! But here was also comfort, beauty, hospitality, serving my church. All the things I’ve ever wanted in their proper place.

Each time I’ve wanted to run and hide, duck down, wrap myself back up in my little shell of God’s-gonna-have-to-deal-with-that-if-He-wants-something-done-about-it, I remind myself that this is my great work. My work given to me. From that, I have found the courage to face things I’ve avoided for many years.

By grace, I’ve taken control of my home. For the first time in my life, I don’t feel trapped in a maelstrom of ‘everything needs to be done and, look, Abby has to do them’. I know what needs to be done. I know what needs to be done first, and I can make a plan to do it.

It’s also soothed my frustrations as a wife who writes. I have struggled for years with envy towards all the women I know whose husbands embrace their writing career, invest money in getting them published, and bless them with large chunks of time to write. My husband never did this for me. We always found my writing to be a source of discord. I’m ashamed when I look at this now. Of course, my writing caused discord. I wanted to focus on it while I refused to focus on my home. I spent every spare moment I could snatch from a day writing or studying about writing. I wanted more time for it when I wouldn’t spend one more minute on my home. My poor husband. Of course, he found it frustrating. (Through all this, I’ve been amazed at how gentle and patient he has been with me for years.)

Now I see where my writing belongs. It is a part of me. It is something I want to develop. But my career in this life is homemaking. Not being an author. Being an author can snuggle in there amongst all the other things, but it can’t be my career. Why? God gifted me to be a writer, but he called me to be a homemaker. Yes, He gave me those writing gifts. Yes, I have a responsibility to use them and grow them. But under the heading of my career: homemaking. A person with the career of being a lawyer doesn’t just fudge his way through that while focusing all of his being on growing rosebushes. He doesn’t let innocent men go to jail because he was thinking about the next plant he was going to buy. He keeps his love of roses in its proper place. It’s not a bad love. It’s just kept where it belongs.

Understanding, believing, and trusting in the priorities that God has given me has helped me calmly face the situations of my own life. If all those women’s husbands are one way, and mine is another, that’s okay. I wasn’t sovereignly married to them. I was married to mine. I need to focus on my career, not trying to have a different one.

There are still many things I must learn. There are still lots and lots of old habits that need to be broken. I still battle anxiety every day. But now I have motivation and direction. I continue to see the benefits of my lightbulb moment. I’ve conquered more things in the last few years than I have in all the years before 2017. I’ve been able to communicate clearly with my husband about where things are at. I’ve had a sense of peace and control. I’m not trapped in the dungeon of “I did the best I could, and since God saw fit to only give me these skills, everyone just needs to accept that, and appreciate it.” Instead I freely dance in the rain and sing, “Since God has blessed me with a mind and resources, since God has told me this is my job, I’m going to go research this so I can do my best for His sake.”

I would imagine that most of you reading this have already come to this conclusion. I would imagine some of you think of me as an excellent homemaker because my home is generally clean. I’ve learned those aren’t the same thing. Having a clean home may be because someone is an excellent homemaker. But it may be that they go through the steps never really understanding why they’re doing this beyond just that it needs to get done, and when it gets done, they can go back to their real life. This is my real life. And it’s a good one.

I think we do a disservice to women as a culture because we don’t see homemaking as a career anymore. All the things out there are a career. You have to go clock in, or go to school, or drive to an office, or at the very least have your own business to have a career. Being a homemaker is just something on the side that has to be done, like laundry. I think this has led some women who are homemakers to be lazy because they don’t see what they do as a career, just like being a lawyer, banker, and business owner. If you don’t see it as a career, you’re never going to give it its due. I think some men disrespect it for the same reason. They don’t see their wife in the home as her in her God-given career either. The world lies to us. It tells us that we deserve more. It tells us that being a keeper of our homes is a waste of our skills.  It tells us homemaking is an un-career. Sometimes without even realizing it, we take in those lies. We lie to ourselves, and sometimes we don’t realize we’ve believed the lie. Sometimes we react against it by thinking we shouldn’t have a career at all as women. (That’s what I did.) But we do. God gave women a career. It’s homemaking.

God is good. He is light, hope, and joy. In His providence, He gave me a lightbulb moment.

I have a career, a good one, and a challenging one.  I’m a HearthKeeper. I am Purposed and Intentional.