Why Light the Way Back Home?

The world faded away around Will. The flashing lights of Dale’s car, the men standing around him locked and loaded. It faded away. Agony ripped his spine from his back. Torture drew and quartered him. Pain cackled madly inside his guts. He had to get to Dún.

A warm hand lit with a welcoming yellow light hovered before him. Will looked up and groaned, tears springing up in his eyes. Dún, standing before him formed all of light, smiled. She held his face, tracing the scar on his jaw with her thumb. “No. I’m not dead, Will.”

Will swallowed.

“What are you then?”

“I’m a HearthKeeper. Be of good courage, and come for me.”

At that moment, the one who stood between innocents and the darkness was protected. Someone stood between for him. She lit his way back home. The Valkyrie to his Viking. The HearthKeeper to his Huntsman.

Dún disappeared, but her light remained.

Dwelling.

Price and I were talking about where a woman roots her thoughts, her ideology, as a homemaker. And, no offense meant, unlike Presbyterians who tend to root everything back to the Garden, Price suggested a more New Covenant understanding of home.

In Ephesians when Paul talks about how we are to conduct ourselves in our local churches, he describes marriage as a reflection of Christ and the church’s relationship. The husband reflects Christ and the wife reflects the church.

What does this mean theologically? That we wives aren’t so much homemakers as we are the home.

We’re the dwelling place of our husbands.

We’re the dependent ones who receive his leadership, protection, provision, and sacrifice while obediently following him. We are the home he is building. We are our husband’s dwelling place.

Practically, yes, we are homemakers, HearthKeepers, but that is the branches and leaves springing from the root of understanding that we are a reflection of the greatest love story of all time: Christ and his Bride. We are the dwelling of our men, our husbands.

Now, if you read that and the little demon of independence started to do a jig on your insides screaming that this isn’t fair, that it’s demeaning to be a husband’s dwelling, that they get all the acknowledgment, that you don’t want to sit in a corner waiting on him hand and foot, and why don’t you ever get to do anything important, and well-behaved women rarely make history, take a deep breath.

The fear that being a dwelling means that we won’t exist as our own person anymore is illogical. We sometimes feel that boundaries are bad. We think it’s abusive for someone to limit what we do. Yet, we strive humbly to accept the Lord’s boundaries. We work to submit to Him. Why do we get so hissy and catty when He tells us that He would like us to be the reflection of the church in our marriage? Why do we act like God is not good and doesn’t do good? Why don’t we trust Him?

It’s very hard and scary when we realize that part of being finite is losing options. Age limits our options. Health limits our options. Children limit our options. Where and when we live limits our options. Intelligence and education limit our options. Marriage limits our options. In a way, when we get married we are losing ourselves. We are. We feel trapped because some of these options are given to us, they’re put upon us, they’re binding us. They feel harder than we thought they would be and we feel like we have lost ourselves. We feel that way when we have to submit ourselves to someone else.

We have and we haven’t disappeared. We exist in different boundaries. All of life is this way. We have to change with life. But we believers don’t exist for ourselves. We trust Christ and find our identity in Him, not in staking our claim and guarding it selfishly. See, Christ has promised that if we lose ourselves, if we die to ourselves, we will find ourselves in Him. If we look at the idea of being our husband’s dwelling, of reflecting the church in this manner, and we want to scream at how unfair it is or we fear we will lose ourselves, then we need to lose ourselves. Christ has called us to lose ourselves. But He has promised that in that loss we will find. This requires us to put away what we thought was best for ourselves for Christ’s sake, giving up on hopes and dreams, trusting he will give us better hopes and dreams.

There is a real and true reality that marriage contains an element of losing ourselves, but so does all of life. That is part and parcel with being a finite creature. This is being a Christian, a follower of Christ. Instead of kicking against it, we should see it as an opportunity to show our love of Christ, and we should count it a great privilege to reflect the church. This is only demeaning and belittling if you let yourself think that. This is only unfair if you let yourself believe that lie. You’re a believer in Christ, not lies, and He has said if you are married you are to build your home and reflect the church by being the dwelling place of your husband, just as the church is the dwelling place of Christ. (If you aren’t married, then you need to be aware of the fact that this is what marriage is.)

Dwelling.

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.

Our lives are no longer filled with the dark terrors faced by our ancestors. We live, most of us, in the suburbs with electricity, grocery stores, refrigerators, and stoves. It is unlikely we will get lost running to Target, or attacked by animals or people. It is unlikely our husbands will get lost on the way home from work. We don’t live in real fear of the elements. But we have our own darkness to contend with. The darkness of ideologies. Women have left the home. We’ve stopped being our husband’s dwelling place. We’ve believed that what happens inside the walls of our houses is beneath us and unimportant. Home gets relegated to the back burner, no one’s favorite. We sing of home, but we don’t talk about the work necessary to create the environment we long for. We tell stories of home, but never notice the labor of homemaking unless we’re mocking it as a waste of time or complaining about it. But home doesn’t just happen. It takes a strong woman laying herself down to make a home. It takes a purposed woman. It takes a love of being the dwelling place. It doesn’t just poof into existence. If you think something looks warm and inviting by happenstance, then you probably have a very shallow understanding of it…and I have some oceanfront property in Arizona I’d like to sell you. ☺

I’m a woman with a heart for warriors. Nothing makes me happier than war movies and cop shows. I read predominately male-protagonist driven fiction. I love modern military history and true crime, which is almost entirely male-centric. I have a heart for warriors. My husband is a pastor. It doesn’t get more front-line in the real war than that, and I’m honored to serve him. I see my Christianity through war-colored glasses.

So for me, Lighting the Way Back Home is partly male and partly female.

I want to recapture the magnificent, ordinary beauty and magic of being the dwelling place of my husband. I want to create a home because I am Home! I want to do it in such a way as to draw other women with me. I want to blaze out in a dark world and say, “Come home!” especially to you ladies. I want to remind you of the grace, glory, and grit of being a dwelling. I want to honor the work of homemaking that flows out of knowing and loving what we’re reflecting. I want to be a sisterhood that honors men. I want daughters and nieces to make HearthKeeping their goal, not just a side gig. Let’s Light the Way Back Home.

There is also a male element. I want to, as a whole and not individually, call men back home. They’re out in the dark too. They’re lost in the cold. Do they even know what they fight for? What they protect and provide for? Do our sons, grandsons, nephews know that their maleness is good and necessary? Are our husbands safe to be men around us without being nagged or called toxic, stupid, or abusive? Do we encourage their strength or belittle it into weakness? Do we even know what leadership looks like anymore? Have we, in leaving our homes, pushed them out into the dark? If we’re the dwelling place of our husbands but we left the home, we reject being home, where does that leave them?

If we really seek to be calm, comforting, restful dwellings for our specific men, we, ladies, are Lighting the Way Back Home for men, men out in the dark. We’re showing women what true beauty is and that lights the way home for the men.

This is why we set a candle in the window and work to harness our independence and fear. We are the Lantern Bearers. This is letting our light shine. This is an amazing work. Light the way back home for your man. Show it to your sons and let our homes burn with this light.

The group you have joined is called HearthKeepers because I believe this work is strong and worthy and hard. This group is also called Lighting the Way Back Home because that is what I’m attempting to do. Not to save the world, but to help those already saved combat the darkness around us and in us. Only Christ has the gospel, only that Preached Word can be used to save lost souls. But as a saved soul, as a follower, as a reflection of the dwelling place Christ is building, I want to set a candle in the window for fellow believers, and I want to encourage all of you, my dear sisters, to do the same by being the dwelling place of your husbands.