Truly Devoted?

Do you like learning new words? Let me throw one out you may not have heard—domesticity. A general definition of domesticity is "a devotion to home life." Perhaps "domesticity" sounds to you like a dreary home economics term from the ‘50s. Sorry, that perspective is entirely too narrow.

Domesticity includes activities like:

• Arranging midday picnics on the back lawn with your toddlers.
• Hosting a neighborhood Bible study.
• Taking spontaneous midnight excursions to Waffle House with your teenagers.
• Leaving surprise love notes in the car seat or in lunch boxes.
• Scheduling family game nights.
• Planting a vegetable garden as a family project.
• Participating in pillow fights.
• Nightly readings of The Chronicles of Narnia with your kids.
• Heading up family reenactments of favorite plays, movies, or Bible stories.
• Family "camp outs" in the living room, complete with tents!

True domesticity might mean putting off vacuuming in order to spend a "girls' day out" with a teenage daughter who's beginning to retreat into her own world. It can mean stopping in the middle of laundry to help your third-grader memorize multiplication tables. In our fast-paced, overly scheduled, stress-filled world, families are in desperate need of true women embracing the virtue of domesticity—being truly devoted to their homes.

Domesticity isn't limited to the married, or to moms, but is a virtue for all women. Domesticity needs to be cultivated and routinely practiced by widows, singles, empty-nesters, and self-proclaimed "messies." Home is more than the four walls that encompass your living space. As you practice domesticity, the home can be your primary vehicle for displaying God' s presence and His glory. It can be a central location for ministry to occur through hospitality, in providing a safe and welcoming environment for loved ones and visitors to retreat in times of need.

Home: The place where those who cross its threshold experience the presence and ministry of Christ as though He were greeting them with a loving embrace and bending to wash their feet.

She looks well to the ways of her household, and does not eat the bread of idleness (Prov. 31:27).

Now let me hear from you! If you have positive memories of home life, please share things that were meaningful.