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the foundation of a home

Posted on February 23, 2012 by Sharon ت

As I prepared for this “Making a House a Home” series, I knew I wanted to include a post about the foundation of a home. However, I felt convicted that I should not be the one to write this post. So, one night as I was contemplating, “but if I don’t do it, who is going to write this post?” No sooner had I finished that thought than Traci came to mind. ”Of course”, I thought. But Traci doesn’t know me. And then my very next thought was, “You have not if you ask not.” So, I emailed Traci, and she so graciously agreed to write today’s post.

I think you will find her as lovely and kind as I do. Without any further delay, let’s hear what Traci has to share about building the foundation of a home.

Hello there!

My name is Traci, and I blog at Beneath My Heart!

I am so honored to be guest posting here at Mrs. Hines Class! Sharon has done a wonderful job with this series.

If you do not know me, I am the mother of four sweet boys…

And I am married to one hunk of a handyman, Cy…

We have been married for almost 15 years, and during that time, we have bought and renovated 4 homes and are currently working on house #5.

It’s what we love to do.

Unfortunately, I’ve only been blogging the past three years. Man, I wish we had a blog during all of our other renovations! But I have been so blessed by my blog that I couldn’t be more grateful.

I find no greater pleasure than blogging about home and family.

Okay. I just lied.

Actually, here is the truth:

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One thing I know for sure is that life is not about a pretty home and fabulous décor.

It is so much more.

Life is about Jesus.

Don’t let anyone tell you differently.

I’ve known it all my life. I am so grateful for a mom and dad that taught me about the love of Jesus.

But never have I experienced that love more than when my mom was diagnosed with Stage 4 gastric cancer almost three years ago. Her faith in Jesus left me speechless. Her witness for the Lord touched my heart more than anything I have ever known.

Mom only lived 7 weeks after her diagnosis.

It was the hardest thing I have ever gone through.

But I am so grateful for how her death opened my eyes to so much more.

You see, my mom loved her home. She loved to decorate it. She loved thrifting, sewing, painting, and more. I got my DIY skills from her. Smile

But when Mom passed away, her home stayed here. The pictures were still on the walls of her home. Dishes were still in the cabinets. Pillows still on the couch and sheets still on the bed.

She couldn’t take any of those things with her. Her faith in Jesus was all that she needed.

Only our faith in Jesus is what truly matters when we come to the end of our lives.

I love the scripture about the wise man who built his house upon the rock and the foolish man who built his house upon the sand.

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Here’s what Jesus himself said:

²⁴ “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. ²⁵ The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. ²⁶ But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. ²⁷ The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”

²⁸ When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, ²⁹ because he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law.

My husband and I want to be like the wise man who built his house upon the rock, Jesus Christ. So when the trials and struggles of this life hit us hard, we can remain standing.

I witnessed first hand how solid that rock is as I watched my mom stand strong on it during her last days on earth.

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We do not want to be like the foolish man who built his house on the sand. The sand represents the temporary things of earth and the lies that the world tells us. The things that do not last.

And when the storms of life come our way, just like a house built on sand, we will crumble.

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So how do we build our lives on a solid foundation?

By hearing God’s word and putting it into practice.

I’m not an expert at being a Christian, and I will never claim that I am. Honestly, a lot of the time I stink at it.

But I’m trying.

I am trying to lead my children to know the love of Jesus.

I do not have any perfect steps to take, but just practical things we do in our home to build that solid foundation.

1. We read God’s word.

I have bought my boys little devotional books (specifically for boys) to read at night before they go to bed. It allows them to read God’s word and apply it to their lives.

2. We attend church and participate in worship.

I have such great memories of going to church as a child. Going to church helped me as a child to build a strong foundation on which to stand. If you are not attending a church regularly, I would like to encourage you to find a place where you can worship.

3. We Pray.

This is an area that I can definitely improve on. I’ve been feeling the need to pray together as a family more often. More than just blessing the food or praying before bed. Prayer is more powerful than we could ever imagine. It’s an unlimited source of God’s power that we so often do not tap into. I am working on praying more. For me, I like to write my prayers down in a journal. It helps me to stay focused as I pray, and it allows me to see all the ways God answers my prayers. But I want to pray more with my children. Pray for children in their classes, for loved ones who are sick, for decisions they need to make, etc. It is so important for parents to pray with their children.

4. We praise Him through music.

Whenever riding in the car, we listen to KLOVE. It is such a wonderful radio station. I love when I hear the boys singing Christian music at the top of their lungs. And so many songs are full of scripture which my boys are memorizing without even knowing it. Smile

5. We talk about Jesus and how his love makes a difference in our everyday lives.

I think it is so important to take time during the day to talk about Jesus and His love with our children. When the boys tell me about a kid at school who is really mean, we talk about how Jesus wants us to act toward that child. How would he want us to love that child?

Or when one of the boys is scared about something, we talk about how God is always with us and how He is watching over us.

God isn’t someone we should talk about only on Sundays. He is an everyday God.

Deuteronomy 6:4–7

4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.

Like I said, I know I don’t have all the answers, but I do have Jesus and His love.

He is our sure foundation.

A foundation that will remain standing no matter what trials come its way.

And believe me, they will come!

Building your life on the foundation of Jesus Christ does NOT mean that you will never have trouble or hardships.

It’s quite the contrary.

But building your life on the foundation of Jesus Christ DOES mean that you will be able to stand strong through those troubles or hardships. God can even create beauty out of it all.

My prayer for you and me is that we will keep our eyes focused on Christ and that we will strive to build our lives on His word.

Many blessings to you!

Traci

Thank you so much, Traci, for sharing the story of your mother, her faith and her legacy. I am so very honored to have you share your heart here today. I cannot think of a better message to reflect on as we start this Lenten season.

And to my readers, I hope you will visit Traci’s blog and get to know her if you don’t already.

Don’t forget, we are closing out this series on Wednesday, February 29th with a “All Things Home” link party. Be thinking about what you can share that relates to this series such as family traditions, what home means to you, how you keep mama happy, home decor suited to your families needs, legacies passed down from past generations….

I can’t think of a better way to end this series than to hear your stories. It’s going to be hard to wait all the way til Wednesday. :)

Until next time,

Sharon

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give ‘em a dose of tradition, a cupful of routine and they’ll be alright

Posted on February 9, 2012 by Sharon ت

Welcome back to my “Making a House a Home” series. If you missed the introductory post or last week’s topic, “If Mama Ain’t Happy”, you can click on the links to see those and catch up. To watch the videos in the 2nd post just click on the titles which are written in red.

This week, I had planned on talking about establishing traditions in your home. And, when I had originally planned my series, I was going to discuss a topic called “The Kids Are Alright” about providing structure in your home. Well, as I have been mentally writing this post, the two topics seem to keep intermingling. So, if it’s alright with you, I’m going to blend the topics together today.

As I kept thinking about traditions, I couldn’t help but be of the opinion that the reason people find so much comfort in tradition is the structure it provides. It gives you a known, and we all love knowing what is going to happen next. We are, by nature, comforted by predictability.

I think family traditions conjure up feelings of well-being and a sense of belonging. Something we all long for.

I have to confess, that while I have been well-intentioned, I have not done a very good job of establishing annual traditions….you know…the ones centered around holidays and special occasions.

I wanted to have a tradition of setting up our Christmas tree on the day after Thanksgiving every year. Well, then one year, I decided I wanted to Christmas shop on the day after Thanksgiving. Honey, after fighting the crowds and going from store to store all day long, there was no puttin’ up a tree in the same day.

Then the tree tradition turned into, the weekend after Thanksgiving. And in more recent years, our tradtion has become “get the tree out of the box and set it up and look at it in its natural state for a few days”…maybe even longer…until, after being begged every day by my daughter, we finally decorate the tree.

I’m not earning any nominations for Mom of the Year, am I?

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Okay, so if I can’t get that right, maybe I can get all of the presents wrapped and under the tree by the first week of December.

Reality check…I start wrapping presents right before we walk out the door for whatever family party we’re attending. And it ends up being Christmas Eve before my daughter’s presents are under the tree.

I’m takin’ a beating here. I need to move on…

I’m sure most people think of traditions in the annual sense, but what about daily traditions? or weekly traditions? I’ll tell ya a tradition that I insist on, and that is eating our dinner together around the table. It doesn’t happen every night, but it does happen at least a few times a week. We get to hear about each other’s day, find out what is going on in our teenage daughter’s world, guide her in her thoughts and decisions….that part of it ends up being kind of a natural devotional time as we try to help her see and apply God’s Word to her daily life. Those moments are irreplaceable.

What about meal times in general…some of the things that you cook for your family that will always remind them of you when they’re older? I think my daughter will always associate Chicken and Dumplings with her childhood. It’s her favorite meal.

I gotta tell ya, my sisters, brother and I bonded over Mom’s cookin’. She would cook things like beef tips and stroganoff, brussel sprouts, okra, greens…stuff no kid wants to eat. The rule was, “you finish what’s on your plate or your gettin’ a spankin’” and Dad always followed through. So, we encouraged each other to finish our dinner…even shared a few tricks for making it look like we ate more than we really did. There may or may not have been food strategically hidden under the trash in the trash compactor…;)

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Would you consider family vacations a tradition of sorts? I do. When I was young, my family mostly vacationed in New Braunfels, TX. So, it was a bit of a tradition to go there.

And my sister and I get together with our kids every summer to spend the day at the beach in Galveston. The kids have come to expect it, and miss it if we skip a year.

Do you have a regular vacation spot?

I’m even going to go so far as to say that daily routines offer a sense of tradition. I remember coming home from school every afternoon to unwind to a little t.v. before homework time. ABC used to run a feature called “million dollar movie” at 3:00 p.m. and they would always have an Elvis week. Loved Elvis week! All four of us loved Elvis week. We bonded over Elvis.

swoon

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I’ve carried that afternoon tradition of unwinding before homework time into my own home. Even though it’s only 30 minutes, my daughter really looks forward to her down time in the afternoon.

When I was growing up, Saturdays were usually reserved for road trips to see grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. So much fun. We never unwrapped our toilet paper casts off our arms so fast as when mom and dad would announce that we were going to see PawPaw, or Granny or Aunt Barbara…

Bedtime was 9:00 p.m. even when I was a senior in high school. I thought it was so strict and a rule that came from my parents being “stuck in the ” ’50′s”, but it provided structure, a routine, and a sense of being well cared for—even if I didn’t realize it back then.

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Bedtime around here is 10:00 p.m, and now I get to play the role of unreasonable parent.

I’ll leave you with one last anecdote.

When my daughter was little, I insisted on getting to spend the majority of Christmas day in our own home. Family could wait til the evening. It was more important to me that the three of us get to have a relaxing morning together and that Hannah have time to enjoy her new things. I also wanted time to make a special breakfast without having to rush to prepare the dish that I bring to the family get together.

I’m sure family felt inconvenienced, but this was very important to me. So, everyone obliged.

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Just this past Christmas, my SIL, who has a two -year- old and a baby under one, told me that now she totally understands why I used to insist on having Christmas morning in my own home.

I was very glad to know that it not only made sense to her, but that she wants it for her own home. I have every intention of coming alongside her to support her next year.

I’ll be her advocate because this is precisely the point that I’m wanting to make today. You might be considered strict. You might be thought of as controlling. Your kids may be resistant. Your family may disapprove. But you know what? It’s okay. Everyone, especially the kids, will be alright. Whether you’re establishing annual traditions or setting a daily routine, you are providing something very necessary to your family’s well-being: structure.