What is "more of home"?
I had this vision years ago about starting a blog and an Instagram account that focuses on home. I knew I didn’t want the things that I shared to just be about home decorating, but also about motherhood, books, and beauty. And so, “More of Home” was created.
There are many things about home that I could talk about for hours.
Let's start with the obvious though. The actual place where we dwell.
How our home looks is important to most of us. Some of us spend more time on our homes than others, but I think we all desire a place that is comfortable, and nice for us to come home to at the end of the day - whatever that space looks like. Some of us enjoy empty surfaces and others of us like every special thing that we own to be out in the open so we can see them. A few of our homes are full of colour and plants, and others are white and simple.
The way I decorate my home is my form of art. (More on this coming in another blog post) What I mean though, is that I enjoy choosing artwork to hang on the walls and placing newly thrifted trinkets together on a shelf.
There is nothing better to me than sitting down in a freshly rearranged room that I spent the afternoon tinkering away at. I can see how a room could look before anything is done to it. Beautiful homes and spaces have my heart and I love flipping through magazines about home decor. Give me a quiet night at home, I will snuggle up on the couch with a blanket, a cup of tea, maybe some knitting and the Magnolia channel.
And yet.
Home is more than the paint colour and how the furniture is arranged.
I think a lot of us know that, but it often becomes cloudy in our minds as we see beautiful spaces on Instagram, YouTube, and on our favourite decorating show.
When I watch the Magnolia channel or HGTV, it’s the last few seconds of the show that stick out in my mind. The seconds when you finally see the family in the space, food (artistically styled of course) on the counter as guests and the family members gather around in the newly styled kitchen. THAT’S what home is about.
We can see a beautifully, newly renovated space, and we can all admire the transformation, but it’s about the family and the people that make the space come alive. It’s how the space is used that matters.
So “more of home”. What does that look like?
It is this unspoken permission (that certainly is not needed) for your home to not be perfect to be beautiful. Thousands of dollars are not needed to be spent to create a beautiful home.
A home that takes time to curate, gather and put together slowly, often is the most comfortable and welcoming space. These slow types of homes create a story that is told in the objects that are placed intentionally throughout the space. There is meaning to these types of homes.
"More of home" is to create a home not only for the people living in the space, but for opening up to others, friends, strangers, and guests.
To allow anyone who enters the home to feel this deep sigh of relaxation and a sense of refuge from the outside world. It is to use the home for God’s glory, in how people are welcomed in and cared for during their stay - no matter how long.
"More of home" is in the conversations that take place daily. Encouragement and discipline towards truth, beauty and excellence. It’s in the books that are read and stories that are told. It’s in the laughter during a card game around the table and the tears after disappointment.
"More of home" is a type of home that honestly will not be fulfilled in completion here on earth. But for believers, it is what we are longing for and striving for and we, as homemakers, have the special privilege to create a place of belonging and love right now.
We can apply the C.S. Lewis quote about books and music to home (and I don’t think he would mind too much):
“The books or the music (in this instance, the home) in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things - the beauty, the memory of our own past - are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself, they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.”
Our homes here on earth are not the main thing. But they can point to the main thing; they can point to our eternal home and our Holy, Loving God. This is ultimately what the concept of "more of home" means.
“No room is just space. No hour is meaningless. No meal is mere sustenance. Every rhythm and atom of existence are spaces in which the Kingdom can come, in which the story of God’s love can be told anew, in which the stuff of life can be turned marvellously into love. We cannot change the world if we cannot incarnate God’s love in our own most ordinary spaces and hours. Homemaking must be understood as a potent Kingdom endeavor, not merely a domestic task. Homemaking requires a willed creativity, a conscious diligence, because we are called to create new life and challenged to do it in the midst of a world that actively resists us in this endeavor.”
Sally Clarkson, The Lifegiving Home: Creating a Place of Belonging and Becoming
Before I confuse you with what I'm going to say next, the topic of creating an atmosphere of beauty is a "both/and" conversation.
Creating an atmosphere in our home where our family and guests can see and appreciate beauty, IS important.
That paint colour that you spent hours picking out? It does matter.
Those flowers that you styled perfectly in the vase from the flea market? They do matter.
The comfy couch that you chose because it just feels like a hug when you sit down? It does matter.
How you rearrange and then rearrange your furniture to set it up for conversation? It does matter.
These things can be used through a kingdom focus.
But, this is where the "both/and" part of the conversation comes into play.
Those things also don't really matter.
If you can’t afford paint right now and you really don't love how your kitchen looks, but you are having a heart-to-heart conversation with a dear neighbour while you both drink out of your favourite thrifted mugs at your kitchen table, THAT is what matters. You are showing beauty and love to your neighbour as you pour tea and listen. No matter what your kitchen looks like.
If your couch is um, the oldest couch that maybe has ever been created (or at least a good 25 years old)…it doesn’t really matter. Because I know that you are snuggling your little one up with a good stack of books and really, the age of the couch just means you aren’t freaking out when a child spills his drink on it. ;)
This is "more of home".
There are so many things about home that happen in the home, that I probably won’t ever stop having things to share regarding the beauty of home.
Our homes can become holy ground if we are using them for the glory of God.
As Jamie Erikson says in her book, “Holy Hygge” (an excellent book on creating a gospel-filled home!):
“Where we live is not as important as HOW we live.”
I would encourage you to take a look around your home right now and give thanks.
Our homes are beautiful, chipped paint and all, because of what happens INSIDE the four walls we dwell. May this be what we focus on as we rearrange our rooms, paint our walls, read books to our kids, fold laundry, and invite guests over for dinner.
To listen to my podcast on Spotify where I talk more about this, click here
