Happiness and Comfort
We’ve discussed intangible elements of the home off and on for a few months now. We’ve talked about Stagnation, Atmosphere, and Conversation. Stagnation is often the issue, and Atmosphere and Conversation are part of the cure. Another two elements here are Happiness and Comfort.
Happiness and comfort in their purest forms are found completely and ultimately in our triune God alone. We can’t ever have true and lasting happiness or comfort apart from Him, but in Him, rooted in our most beloved and blessed Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we can be happy, eternally happy. In Him, we can find true comfort and comfort others.
Happy has two levels, to me. It has a level so deep, so bright, so complete that it’s almost a sadness. The word happy fails to capture it. It is a joy and a delight. Happy tears. It is scarred but whole. C. S. Lewis understood this type of happiness and so did Tolkien. I think Lord of the Rings in its entirety is this sort of brilliant, rich, rooted, strong sad-happiness.
Another level of happiness is delightful but fleeting. It’s a spring day when the rain has scrubbed the sky a brilliant blue. It’s flowers blooming. It’s the screaming laughter of a pack of cousins tearing through the house, beer or wine shared around a fire, snow falling, and the moon casting silvery shadows.
Both of these types of happiness, when rooted in the love of our triune God, are part of what makes home home and are ours to harness. But we have to start in our own hearts.
Ladies, we should be laughing, smiling, and delighting in our homes! Let’s ruin our faces with laugh lines and be old ladies covered in wrinkles. We are loved! Let’s love! Let’s not be sour, dour, bitter, frowning, complaining whiners. Let’s laugh, play, hug, and hold. Let’s delight! We’re the tenders, the keepers, the holders of both eternal souls and temporary things. Let’s embrace both levels of happiness—the deeply lasting and brightly fading.
Temporary happiness is one of noticing. Notice light streaming in your window, the blue of blueberries, the smoothness of wood floors, the green cast to tree light, the heat of the shower, the sound of your husband’s car when he gets home, the feeling of us when you hug even when you’ve been married forever, the familiar voices of family and friends, the small mementos of a life lived scattered on shelves, in books, tucked here and there.
God is good. Cultivate an eye that notices the little things. It’s so easy to get wrapped up in all that needs doing, to get weighed down by the work without end, to feel unseen in your labors. I struggle to be happy, cheerful, and present when I’m slogging through the day's work, but I long to do the dishes noticing the hot water, the bubbles, the shine on a clean dish, and laugh in delight at the simple pleasure of cleaning.
I long not to take things for granted even when they’re oh-so-familiar. I want to see each step as a gift from God. I long to make a happy home and I truly believe I must be happy first to do that. If I’m happy in my work, my home will feel happy. I think for this we must have a rich rooting in the gospel. We must eagerly submit our hearts and minds to the means of grace and then we must laugh and play. Silly stories, songs, games, movies, and conversations, even flippant ones, can fill a home with a breath of fresh air. Playing can engage a heavy mind with something fun and finishable. It can be refreshing!
Comfort is another one of those things that have shallow and fathomless levels. It’s easy to confuse cozy and comfort. We think of comfort as synonymous with blankets, pillows, and flowers, or we confuse it with our creature-comforts, the ways we’re spoiled: toilets, paper products, air conditioning, running water, Wi-Fi, lots of new things, excessive food, clothing, and shelter. Comfort can be those things. It can be cozy. It can be our luxuries. But when you look at the word, the deeper element is cheering strength. To comfort is to ‘give strength and hope to: to cheer’.
As women seeking to create homes, we are seeking to give true and real comfort to those around us. As wives, mothers, women, the helpers and tenders, comfort is the name of our game. Real comfort: cheering strength!
When we’re called the weaker vessels and gullible in the Scriptures, we’re not to use those as an excuse. They don’t mean we get to be fainting and dumb. Yes, we’re weaker than men, but that doesn’t mean we just wilt dramatically on a couch. Our job may not be to take up arms in a war, to be the main providers, or to lead, but we are often the comforters. We’re the ones who bring cheering strength to our homes and often to our churches.
I recently had an opportunity to watch some men in our church be strong warriors in the face of great difficulty. I shared with my Dad how amazing it was to watch them and Dad said, “It’s encouraging to hear that because men standing up for what’s right aren’t acknowledged or appreciated anymore.”
In a way, that was me unintentionally offering comfort to my Dad, a cheering strength. Encouragement. Cheerfulness. Look at the ending of the word ‘comfort’. It’s FORT! What is a fort but a place of strength built to house and provide refuge? Think of a mother comforting her child, that’s cheering strength.
Comfort—both the cozy luxury and the encouraging fortitude—should be hallmarks of our womanhood. We should be comforts to our husbands, especially these days when much of what they do is hated, belittled, misunderstood, or labeled toxic and abusive. Our husbands need cheering strength if they’re to lead in these times. Our children don’t need to be coddled, spoiled, and abandoned. They need mothers who encourage them to endure. Our homes enjoy couches, lighting, house plants, and good food, but they need a center of merry durability. We HearthKeepers provided that. That is our vast work.
This isn’t a call to never be serious, to be shallow or fake. Life is broken. We’re sinners. We live in a fallen, broken world. That is why we must have true and real happiness and comfort first. We must know God is our portion and He loves me and us! We must garden with great care this deep, deep happiness and comfort. Only out of that can we have playful delight in bubbles, flowers, and messy toddlers. Only out of that can we fortify our homes against dark times.
Each home will express and embrace happiness and comfort differently. Some will be active, constantly on the go, outside, playing sports and hiking. Others will wrap up with popcorn and movies, books, blankets, and snacks. Some will have lots of people around, some will be more insular. Some will be scientific, constantly asking why, and some will be fantastic, constantly asking what if.
Songs, music, stories, food, smells, and more will make our homes. Take time to see and enjoy tradition and routine. Get a big-picture perspective of your life and see how wonderfully the Lord has put everything together. Allow yourself to feel a bit of awe at God’s providence in tending to you and yours. Be still and see! This is how we put happiness and comfort into our homes. We don’t find it in ourselves, we find it in God. From the gospel, from the means of grace, we let it shine out of us. This is lighting the way back home.
