Homemaker? Yes, I Am.

Since I only work in the pharmacy one day week, I get questions about that.....but only at work.  I’m not sure how it happens each time but it gets out in my conversations with other pharmacists that I only work on Wednesdays. A couple of weeks ago, a pharmacist on the line caught wind of it.  I hear him say, “What do you do the rest of the week?”   In the pharmacy, for a suspended moment in time when you could have heard a nitroglycerin tablet shift places in its bottle on the back shelf, I heard myself say, “I am a homemaker.”  Silence.  Everywhere.  I feel like my answer echoed to Dallas.  Maybe we have been watching too much Leave It to Beaver but, in that second, it’s the word I chose.  I think I usually say, “I stay at home with my kids,” or something like that but they’ve been school age for years, so I guess there have been times I said, “I teach my children at home.” I don’t know but “homemaker” came out this time and it felt funny.  The awkward silence that followed made me self conscious so I’ve been thinking about that.

I am so very grateful to work as a pharmacist only eight hours a week.  By God’s grace, Jeff works hard and is an excellent provider for our family.  He values immensely my desire to be at home with Julia and Brighton and thanks me often.  It is what I do.  I appreciate my education {the one my parents paid dearly for} and my job at Walgreens but for the eight hours I am there, hardly a minute passes without my thinking through where Jeff and the kids are in their day, what the kids need to finish, how they need to get ready for the next day, what they will eat for supper {did I leave something easy for Jeff to whip up/warm up} and on a really bad day, what time Brighton needs to be at the ball field for his game.  {Bad because I cannot be there}  It’s official-- and has been since the first day I went back to work after Julia was born-- my heart is at home.

Of course I always had fresh camellia buds on my kitchen table.....

However, I need to be reminded of this almost daily-- home is foremost people and then a place.  Let me say it again-- people first, a place second.  Unfortunately, I get this mixed up.... often.  If the place isn’t just so, I tend to forget about the people and dive in to get the house "just so” or I get frustrated with the people because of the condition of the place.  I have to realign all the time.

Many things that have been a part of our home life are packed up.  My goal was to simplify what we were unpacking and repacking in a matter of months but my kids are missing what they remember what makes our home, home to them.  Some Christmas traditions were put on hold while we were trying to get our bearings within the first few weeks of our move.  Valentines came and went without one familiar thing- not unnoticed by Julia and Brighton and by Easter, the kids took it upon themselves to bring in the familiar.  They prepared the Easter Garden in my largest piece of kitchen Rubbermaid.  Rocks from the yard lined the path to the tomb.  Green weeds were replenished every day keeping it looking nice and fresh.  They found broken white bricks to make the tomb.  Good Friday night, we lit the candles and listened to our songs and stories and it was as meaningful as it ever had been. Jeff emptied it before I took a picture of it and if that’s not bad enough, on Easter morning, I forgot to open the tomb and empty the white cloth.  These things were important to my little people and I hadn’t even thought to ask them.   How I have “made their home” so far for them, means something.  When I don’t do it, they miss it.  Enough to do it themselves.  Easter was a good reminder for me.

Whether it’s holiday traditions, the quirky way you cut their sandwiches, the way you treat their daddy or the prayers you pray throughout the day, homemaking is feeding your children’s souls.  Just the fact that we want to be with them, make things special for them and be available for them before, during and after school provides security in their little young hearts-- something they don’t even understand, much less appreciate yet.

So everyday, you are making home.  You are a homemaker and the Lord is pleased with your decision.  You bless Him by loving your family like that.  He is delighted by you and your choice to invest your days as a homemaker.

So hug them, make them cookies, discipline them, fold their laundry, give them chores, celebrate things worth celebrating, help with homework, smile at them, take their temperature, let them make messes, go on dates with their daddy, teach them to clean up messes, take them to museums, pray with them, teach them manners, keep a tidy home, referee their arguments, read them books, make them hot chocolate, cheer them on, make their favorite meal, correct them, be the first to ask for forgiveness, create traditions, listen to them, tickle them and watch them flourish.

Homemaking.  Homemaker.

Give yourself to it.  They won’t forget it.