College, Guys, and the Homeschooled Girl

New guest post by Lisa Hallahan for Girl Defined.com!

School is starting and that means college will be commencing soon too. All of your friends are going off to college and you feel left out, shied into a corner and stuffed into a box with the rest of your homeschooled friends.

What’s worse is that maybe you’re old enough to have a boyfriend now and it seems like all of your friends have either been in a relationship or they are in one now. You’re the odd ball out on this one too. Boys seem like uncharted territory to you. You wish you could crawl up into your bed, pull the covers over your head and just wait until the good times come to you.

There are a million questions in your mind about decisions and choices, guys and girls, God and the world, school and your biblical calling.
Let me explain one thing.

If you have chosen to be a daughter who lives at home or if God has laid it on your heart to skip college you are not a “less than.” You’re not less than the girl who’s pursuing a college degree; you’re not less than the girl who has the perfect hair and boyfriend. You are valuable and treasured by the King. I’m not saying girls who go to college are bad. Some of my best friends go to college.

I simply want to share a personal message with the girls who have chosen to pursue family and biblical womanhood at home.

Click Here to Read the entire Article.

Making Your Home a Sanctuary

Cooking, cleaning, dishes, laundry, children and chores day in and day out can get discouraging and tiresome. We wake up everyday and are faced with all of the same duties as yesterday. This makes it even easier to lose the vision of virtuous, beautiful, homemakers. We forget why we do what we do. Our mission here at Young Keepers of the Home is to keep that vision alive and refreshed. Our homes and all that we do in them is a sacred calling from the Lord, given to us as women specifically, why? Well let’s just say that we are the only ones who can meet the qualifications! Men….eh, not so much.
; )

Our homes are a palace to our loved ones-if we remain stead-fast and faithful in our calling. We have the power to make our men and children feel secure, loved, and enveloped in Christ simply by having a joyful heart while doing the dishes! There are several ways to make our homes feel like a sanctuary to everyone who enters our humble abodes. I’ve made a fun list that might spark your imaginations and inspire you.

1. Play worship music all day-setting the atmosphere is key to making your home peaceful. You can do this by playing a worship station in the heart of your home-such as the living room. You can listen to worship on Pandora, Spotify, K-Love, maybe you have albums on your favorite Christian artists? Anything will do the trick!

2. Keeping the house tidy-this is what drains us, I know! But a quick 10 minute “sweep up” of the house 2-3 times a day is simple and can really make things more pleasant for everyone. This can be difficult with young children, dinner calling your name and school books waiting to be read. But it will make the difference! 10 minutes, 2-3 times a day, you can do it girl!

3. Scent is Key! Studies show that 75% of emotions are triggered by smell which is linked to pleasure, well-being, emotion and memory. I find this fascinating and quite true. I love candles, like, I’m literally overly obsessed with candles. I have like 8 candles in my room and am always begging mom to buy a new candle every time I stop in the candle aisle at the store-weird, I know. My point is-light some candles or plug in a Glade product because this contributes more to the home atmosphere than you may think!

4. Light is Life! Light puts the rhyme in all of the poems that you hear about home, it is the beauty that never fades in our minds and it should always be bursting through our windows, our hearts, our faces and our light bulbs (kidding about the last part)! Make sure your home is always bright in every way possible! Open the curtains, smile more and laugh often… All of these contribute to having a cheerful, less stressful, more beautiful home.

5. Laughing is the best thing you can ingrain in your family’s minds! Wouldn’t it be amazing to be remembered as the girl, the wife and the mom who was always full of laughter? This gives you a brighter countenance, an unexplainable feeling in your heart, a cheery outlook on life, and it’s contagious! Home is not the same when laughter is lacking.

6. Flowers-it’s always a good idea to have some flowers (fake or real) in the home at all times. It just gives the home a little color!

7. Something baking in the oven-nothing beats a homemade baked something! Some days this cannot be obtained, but try to throw some french bread, a cake, some cookies or biscuits in the oven from time to time. These seem to give the home a soothing feel.

8. Family photos on the walls-a lot of people have halls, walls and boards chuck full of photos of their families. Some people may not have this option or simply haven’t gotten around to hanging pictures up. But they are great reminders during the day of what your family is made of!

9. Family devotions and prayer time are one of the most important things you could ever do to invest in your family’s well being. Don’t skip this! Try for at least 5 minutes a day to spend in the Word and in prayer with your family. It is what makes the family able to operate!

10. Your heart is the heart of the home. I don’t know who you are-whether you are a daughter, a sister, a wife, a mother or all of the aforesaid mentioned, but being that you are a woman this message is for you. You cannot in any way, make a home a sanctuary if your heart is not in the right place. If you have bitterness, pride, or hatred in your heart for anyone or anything, all of your efforts to make your home nice or peaceful or even functional, will avail to naught. Ask God every morning, every afternoon and every evening to empty you of yourself so that you might be a willing and clean vessel that the Lord can pour His Spirit into-so that you might be used for His glory. This is a moment by moment process-especially in the life of a homemaker! It can be tough to remember or to have a desire to do, but it is the only thing that works and it is the only thing that can get you through the day side by side with Jesus.

I hope this list has given you an idea of what you can do to make your home a blissful experience for all who enter! Please try them out and let us know what you think in the comments! We love hearing from all of you.

 

Blessings on you, your family and your home,

~Lisa

1 Corinthians 13 for Moms

If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and teach my children Latin conjugations, Chinese and Portuguese, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal, and no matter what I say, they will not hear me.

If I have the gift of prophecy, and know my children’s bents and God’s plan for their lives, and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and am the keeper of the teacher’s editions and solutions manuals, and if I have all faith, so as to move mountains, and even keep up with my giant piles of laundry and dishes, but do not have love, I am nothing, even if all the people at church think I’m Supermom.

And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and my formal dining room gets turned into a schoolroom and our family vacations look more like educational fieldtrips, and if I surrender my body to be burned, never having time to get my nails done, put makeup on or even take a bath, but do not have love, it profits me nothing, because all my family cares about is the expression on my face, anyway.

Love is patient with the child who still can’t get double-digit subtraction with borrowing, and kind to the one who hasn’t turned in his research paper. It is not jealous of moms with more, fewer, neater, more self-directed, better-behaved or smarter children. Love does not brag about homemade bread, book lists, or scholarships and is not arrogant about her lifestyle or curriculum choices. It does not act unbecomingly or correct the children in front of their friends. It does not seek its own, trying to squeeze in alone time when someone still needs help; it is not provoked when interrupted for the nineteenth time by a child, the phone, the doorbell or the dog; does not take into account a wrong suffered, even when no one compliments the dinner that took hours to make or the house that took so long to clean.

Love does not rejoice in unrighteousness or pointing out everyone else’s flaws, but rejoices with the truth and with every small step her children take in becoming more like Jesus, knowing it’s only by the grace of God when that occurs.

Love bears all things even while running on no sleep; believes all things, especially God’s promise to indwell and empower her; hopes all things, such as that she’ll actually complete the English curriculum this year and the kids will eventually graduate; endures all things, even questioning from strangers, worried relatives, and most of all, herself.

Love never fails. And neither will she. As long as she never, never, never gives up.

“1 Corinthians 13 for Moms”… by Misty Krasawski from Heart of the Matter 
Here’s a link to her amazing blog: http://goo.gl/SfJ1n 

Doing the Dishes Again!

Doing the dishes again? Woman, I feel your pain. Dishes are one of those chores that piles up so, so quickly and right when you think you are done, look! There they are again! I asked my little sister Cali what she thought I should write more of on my blog and she said “Write about doing the dishes!” I laughed but thought about it… It’s true. Dishes are so annoying. I could be having a really good day but when I stand in front of the sink about to scrub some dishes, I get in the worst mood. It triggers my anger… So, I grab a pot and scrub the life out of it! Kids, laundry, dishes, school, lunch, dishes, snack and play break, then more dishes. It’s aggravating how many times one woman has to do the dishes. Some women don’t really mind doing the dishes. They say that it’s the same as other chores and they even offer to do dishes for others; while the rest of us down here on earth are boiling mad by time mid-morning comes and we’re on our second round of soapy water and wrinkly hands!

So, what am I getting at? Well, for one, I am telling you that you’re not the only one who feels that way. A lot of us can relate. Also, some of the older women in my life, including my mom have said that they felt the same way about doing dishes when they were young moms with a lot of young kids underfoot. But they found that doing dishes can be an asset to keeping your sanity and peace of mind…literally. For example, while doing dishes, maybe this is your only “alone time” and you can pray and talk to the Lord while doing dishes. This is a time that you could sing or get some thinking time in. Put some verses on index cards and place them in front of the sink and read them to yourself or even memorize them while doing the dishes. There are endless possibilities to what you could do while cleaning dishes. Listen to music, light a candle, time yourself to see how fast you can go, have little toddles splash in the sink next to you, reward yourself afterwards and eat some cake or something! Have a little imagination. And lastly, pray that God will help you with that burning anger when you have to go to the sink again. Jesus makes everything feel better! I hope this helps ladies. Thanks for reading.

Much love, Lisa

A Whole New Perspective on the Proverbs 31 Woman

Proverbs 31…We know it like the back of our hand. We’ve read, studied and dissected this lone chapter of the Bible set apart specifically for women. I personally grew up listening to my mom read this chapter over and over and listened to her teach it to women. I’ve done countless studies on the “Proverbs 31 Woman” and tried earnestly to meet the expectations set for women in this chapter.

But for the last 4 years or so of my life, I tuned out. I stopped reading Proverbs 31, I stopped reading Bible-studies on it, and basically got sick of this chapter. I knew that I could never amount to, or be like the Proverbs 31 Woman! I could recite this chapter, teach it to my sisters, quote it for the encouragement for my friends, but I was so, so, tired of it.

Until just the other morning, my mom and I were up early, drinking coffee and talking. My mom had just got a new devotional book (believe it or not) on Proverbs 31! I was happy for her, but secretly rolled my eyes. I mean, how many books on Proverbs 31 are out there, right?! So my mom and I started discussing the chapter…again. Then suddenly, she shared with me an eye opening secret that changed my entire perspective on this chapter.

My mom told me that I already AM the Proverbs 31 Woman! God gave us this chapter yes, as a guideline to help us learn to be a good homemaker, wife, mother and a stewardess of our home, but also to encourage us and tell us that this is what we are! Not what we have to strive to be like. We are FAR ABOVE RUBIES, we are honorable wives, we are beautiful homemakers, and we are special in the sight of the Lord. This helped me see that I don’t have to work and work for the status of the perfect Proverbs 31 Woman. Because I am the Proverbs 31 Woman! This is how God sees me. After realizing that, I went up to my room and poured over the chapter with a new mindset. I was blessed and ministered to from that chapter for the first time in a while. I wasn’t reading it with an outlook that told me that I wasn’t good enough yet, that I still had so many flaws and that I would never be good enough for my family. For the first time while reading Proverbs 31, I wasn’t comparing myself to the image of someone I could never be. I was seeing myself in the chapter as God intended me to see it.

So, thank you mom, and thank you Jesus that you see me as the Proverbs 31 Woman.

~Lisa