HearthKeeper Song

“Then I think about how scared you must be, how you’re in some dark place all alone, but you’re not alone, okay? You are not alone. We are in that dark place with you. We are waving flashlights and calling your name. So if you can see us, come home. But if you can’t, then, then you stay alive, because we’re coming.”

-Penelope Garcia, Criminal Minds-

Do you ever get the threadbare feeling? Like you’re not tired but weary down to your bones, weary in your very soul? That the weight of loved ones, responsibility, and the fight with sin is just too much anymore?

When that happens and when it’s not happening, we fly to Christ. We remember our roots sunk deep in His rich promises presented in his Word. We drink the refreshingly cool water of His grace. This is always true. But, our King uses means. Miracles aren’t the norm. Means are the norm. (Not specifically the Means of Grace, but just ordinary providence.) Our King sometimes uses ordinary things to re-remind us of the heart song He gave us.

Our heart songs are that one thing or a handful of things that thrill us, feed us, are our true selves, gifted to us at birth and developed through life.

They are our Happy Thoughts.

My happy thoughts are summed up in these favorite words, quotes, and themes: visceral, endure, stand, undeserved rescue, and loyalty. Best job I ever had. Jesus touches the sick, befriends the villain, and retrieves the dangerous. Never out of the fight. Live for nothing, or die for something. This is what we do, who we are. Root and Water. Warriors.

These things inflame my heart, infuse me with delight, and sing loudly through me. But, they can be worn down, muted, and even silenced by conflict, betrayal, walking out, weakness, capitulation to bullies, and a lack of a willingness to stand by me and others. And I’m a Pastor’s Wife! If ever a role was fraught with conflict, with seeing weakness, capitulation, or the sin of people, it’s the world of pastoring.

That threadbare feeling? That was me two weeks ago. I didn’t realize how worn down I was until the last week of January. I was utterly de-railed, lost, drained, and my love of homemaking was gone. I wanted to give up. I was about to do the ISFJ door slam on HearthKeeping as a whole. (The ISFJ door slam is basically when the person who prizes loyalty the most just can’t be loyal anymore. It takes a lot to get me to that point.)

The signs are there for all to see.

Music that makes me cry, reminds me of ‘a love even time will lay down and be quiet for’, friendships, and bleeding struggles, sacrifice, and scar-leaving loss, not just betrayal but those no longer with us, songs of war, warriors, and home.

Shows on repeat known to carry such agony I might for a moment forget my own, friends who stay friends to the bitter end, swelling music and broken shards of souls scattered like leaves in a wind, the warriors in the fight, screaming, haunted, so muddy and broken.

The signs are there for all to see, I’m crying at old country songs about boys who never came home, and screaming defiance to the throbbing drumbeat of a heavy metal anthem. I’m furiously cleaning.

I’m hunting high and low for catharsis for my soul.

I’m reading my stories again. They fit against my skin like broken-in jeans and a long swirling coat. They are me, me for all to see. They are both achingly familiar and surreally surprising. They are mine and aren’t. But, they are me, me seen for my TrueSelf.

The signs are there for all to see as I flip through the TV only to watch something I’ve seen a 100 times, only to sing a song that still hurts after a 1000 listens, only to read books I wrote.

I was discouraged down to my core and my song went silent.

I no longer wanted to endure. I wanted away.

What do you do when you want to leave your hearth?

What do you do when you don’t care about your hearth? When the light goes dim and cold and out?

The answer for me is funny, or funny to me when I step back and examine myself.

Broken, drained dry, I crawled more by instinct than anything towards a cheesy action flick. I found a movie with no romance, almost no women, that was all about a man giving everything to protect a child. It was bloody, muddy, sweaty, guns, violence, and language. It was muscles, training, and willing sacrifice. The battle to the end to save someone who has nothing and in the process maybe save yourself. It was total cheese.

And my song swelled, up, and up, and up and my fire flamed, my candle burned, my hearth warmed, and I knew myself.

I am a HearthKeeper.

I’m the keeper. The woman who sees strength wrapped in tenderness, who tells her man to go fight even if she knows that means she’ll lose him, the one who holds the tears of the strong man.

This is who I am. I am the one who sees and holds and cherishes. I’m a HearthKeeper.

The movie reminded me of how I see my husband. He’s a handsome, middle-aged man who is of average build and height. But, invisibly, he’s a muscle-bound warrior constantly forming a shield-wall, constantly wading into the fray to rescue the weak, constantly bleeding out, and constantly standing.

And, I am his HearthKeeper.

This is why I love cheesy, fantasy, and war movies. They lend sight to my faith. This is why I love Captain America and Iron Man. These stories lend sight to my faith, my faith that my husband is more than a middle-class, 1st world American, that masculinity is mighty, attractive, valuable, and not toxic. That ultimately, Christ is this warrior standing, enduring, facing Satan and his hoard for me, the weak. For me because he loves me. He faces the world armed and powerful and turns to me in tenderness.

My song sounded out in a drumbeat of delight!

So, dear women, dear sisters, dear fellow HearthKeepers, what is your song? What makes your heart sing? What thrills you?

Is it something homemaker-ish? Growing things? Cooking? Decorating?

Dig deeper. Reach down down to your core. If you stripped away hearth, home, husband, children, and stood naked, what do you reach for? An animal? A book? An era? A philosophy? A field of study? Physical exertion? A place? A type of typography? What gift has God given you to delight in? What thing has He made and then made you to enjoy?

Maybe it’s an interest in weaving that makes you learn about dye and colors and history and methods. Maybe it’s coffee or tea. Maybe it’s books. Do you love libraries and bookstores? Maybe it’s forests, lakes, and rivers. Maybe it’s an art like music or a sport like baseball. Maybe it’s broad. Maybe it’s narrow. Maybe it’s tightly nuanced or covers a spectrum.

What makes your heart sing?

When you have found what makes you sing, you can grow up from there to HearthKeeping.

I love warriors and warrior stories, which probably doesn’t seem very feminine, and yet it drives me to want to make a comfy home. It drives me to pray for the men in my life, it drives me to accept my husband as a man. It makes me hate the hating of men endemic in our culture which makes me want to make a home.

How does your heart song point you to home in a way unique to you?

Maybe you love to travel so home is filled with those adventures and home is a coming back. Maybe you’re a movie buff, so you fill your walls with movie posters, your shelves with DVDs, and you have all the comfy chairs. Maybe it’s a cause, like children, so you foster and adopt and design a home for lost boys and girls. Maybe you love teaching, so your home is filled with diagrams and messy textbooks. Maybe you love birds, so feeders crowd your porch, and feathers, empty nests, and eggs in all colors line your shelves. Maybe you love castles or mountains or Africa and you use that love to decorate.

Whatever your heart song is, I believe it will point you back to your hearth and with such diversity as to enrich our world. Our diversity is a gift as much as our heart songs. The rich tapestry of our interwoven lives is one of the great beauties of God’s creation. We’re all similar and all different.

How we structure, manage, embrace, use, and nurture our homes will be different. Even how clearly we see our homes will be different at different times. How we use the tools of our craft—cooking, cleaning, decorating, soothing, calming, nesting—will be different. Some of us will be all in and some won’t. That’s fine. But I think as women, our heart songs lead us to domestication, even those of us with wild heart songs. I think many of us find contentment in nesting and delight in tending our hearths for the sake of family and friends even if our heart songs aren’t domestically leaning.

Warrior-hoods and brotherhoods make me happy. Writing makes me happy, but I’m happiest, gentle, calm, and quiet in my soul when I move from them to my home.

What makes your heart sing?