Mission to Find Joy In Our Homes

Joy? Humph. I'll have more joy in my homemaking when I get more organized...when my husband stops leaving dirty socks on the floor...when my kids grow up...when I don't have to work so hard...when I can afford to hire a maid.

Sound familiar? Or maybe it goes more like this:

Of course her spice jars are alphabetized, her husband does all the cooking.

Yeah (rolling eyes), my house might look like House Beautiful, too, if I didn't have all these kids.

I wish I could clean like her, but I have too many other responsibilities.

It is Satan that tries to get us to keep our eyes on our circumstances or compare ourselves to others. After all, this was his own downfall (quite literally by some Bible translations). He looked around at all the worship and praise being directed to the Great Creator and began to compare himself to God. He wanted to be better than God. This pride could not exist in God's holy home of Heaven, so Satan was banished.

We cannot allow this negative thinking to rob our joy and exist in our homes either. Oh it's hard sometimes: I know! However, the truth is that no matter how much comparing we do, no one really "has it all together". We don't follow that other homemaker/woman/wife/mother around every moment to see her areas of weakness and discouragement. And we don't know who is looking at us and thinking (suppress your incredulous laughter here) that we have it "all together".

One key to joy in homemaking is to rejoice and find joy in the areas in which we do excel as homemakers...the things that do bring us joy.

I have an assignment for all of us this week. Grab your camera and walk from room to room in your home in the next few days. Overlook the pile of messy laundry on the couch and take a photo of that lovely wall arrangement you worked so hard on. Turn away from the dirty dishes waiting in the sink and take a picture of that breathtaking view out your kitchen window. In the bedroom, ignore the unmade bed and take a snapshot of the collection of loved things that graces your dresser. Thursday will be "Snapshots of Joy" day here on Joy Ever After. I will post the things that give me joy here and you can post the things in your home that give you joy on your blog and link to it here. And...if you find after a second look that the pile of messy laundry on the couch is actually your husband, go ahead and snap a photo! :-)