January 8, 2012

Welcome Home: The Truth About Your Posessions

This time of year everyone is focused in organizing and decluttering. It’s a new year with a fresh start and we want to make big, lasting changes.

But will the changes really stick?

Not likely.

I’m not here to rain on your organizational parade because I believe organizing and decluttering are incredibly important; however, we will never be able to truly release the clutter and get our house in order if we don’t have the right attitude about our possessions.

We are a society full of stuff and there’s really no getting around the plethora of things available for us to acquire. For many people, this means buying more containers and dividers and baskets and bookcases in order to house the stuff they own. More often than not, they have acquired so much there is no way they could ever use everything they own. Their stuff owns them instead.

As I am beginning to pack up my home for the 10th time in 15 years, I am reminded of something I learned long ago about possessions.

I don’t need them.

That’s why I’ve written a FREE ebook entitled:

Let Go of What You Own
a Biblical approach to decluttering

How can you get a copy of this free ebook for yourself?

Like the Raising Arrows facebook page, click on the Only Likers tab on the left sidebar and grab the download!

I wanted to start the Welcome Home Link Up with this post because I truly believe we must have the right attitude about everything we own before we can create a welcoming home we enjoy caring for.

Won’t you join me on this journey?

Remember, you can get your FREE copy of Let Go of What You Own by liking the Raising Arrows facebook page, and then be sure to join the link up below! You can grab the link up button in my sidebar.

This post is brought to you by Victorian Rose Soap – we love these soaps and we know you will too! And all this month, you can take 15% off your order using the coupon code: Raisingarrows – Enjoy!

This post is linked to The Better Mom.

January 2, 2012

A Change for Raising Arrows & LFO

The Lord has been working on me. Opening the book Home Comforts for the first time only proved to convict me even more. It solidified what I already knew to be the truth…

I no longer found beauty and meaning in my homekeeping.

I don’t know where I lost the joy that comes from the actual task of keeping a home, but I do know I had become so bent on finding the most efficient and shortcut way to doing everything so that I could get on with my real life that I had begun to see my home keeping as a drudgery that must be completed (or not) so that I could get to the things I really enjoyed.

And in the process, my view of my role as a keeper of the home had become one of entitlement and pity-parties. Why doesn’t someone help me? Why do I have to cook 3 meals a day? Why is this toddler out to get me? How come I have to get out of bed every morning? Where’s MY vacation?

As Christian wives and mothers, our homes are not just hotels and restaurants. They are living, breathing expressions of the beauty of God’s grace and mercy, creativity and love.

But I wasn’t finding joy in the expression. I cut corners until there were no corners left to cut and my home stopped feeling alive because I stopped finding meaning in the keeping of it.

I’ve always counseled people to find the most efficient way to do something, and this in and of itself isn’t wrong. But my motives didn’t line up with Scripture. When you look at the verses on homekeeping and women who were at home, you do not see a precedent for them surviving the awful drudgery of being a housewife so they could go out and do something fun. You see them identifying themselves with their homes and families and daily chores. The Proverbs 31 woman’s children didn’t rise up and call her blessed because she was avoiding her daily routine. They called her blessed because she lived her life as a homekeeper with abundance!

She embraced the beauty of her role in expressing God’s love to the world.

And so, dear readers, I will be leaving Large Family Organization behind to embrace where my heart really is. It’s not that organizing the large family isn’t part of my vision. In fact, organization goes hand in hand with homekeeping, but I need to move in a different direction, widen my vision, find my way back.

I will continue to feature the Large Family Organization tips all of you sent in, but I will no longer be hosting that link up. Instead, I will be hosting a link up that my husband and I decided was much more in line with what I want Raising Arrows to be and what I feel the Lord has for me here. That link up is:

This link up will focus on finding joy in homekeeping, creating a welcoming atmosphere, and living an abundant life as a woman of God! The only guidelines for linking up is that you link up a post that is relevant and encouraging to homemakers (yes, please be encouraging!) and you link back in some form (either the button code in the sidebar or by simply linking to RaisingArrows.net).

Next Sunday night, this new link up will go live and run all day on Monday to get our creative homemaking juices flowing for the brand new week ahead of us! I pray you will find encouragement and blessing from the Welcome Home Link Up as we bring back the joy to our homes!

Let’s start off this new year with a heart for our homes!

November 28, 2011

Buy Less, Declutter More and Share Christmas with Us!

It’s Cyber Monday and here I am telling you to get rid of stuff! And not only am I telling you to get rid of stuff, I’m also going to tell you that you probably don’t need to replace all that stuff with more stuff!

You see, come February 1 (that’s not all that far off!), we will be moving…AGAIN. So, my admonition to you to clear the clutter and make wise buying decisions is really an admonition to myself. {and this post at The Better Mom cheered me along!}

So, I am being brutal! I’m working through my tried and true decluttering methods (someday I’ll let you in on those, but now just isn’t the time!) and really focusing on getting rid of things! So far, 10 (yes TEN) bags have gone to the thrift store and just about that many have hit the trash! Even though I’ve done this before (see my Half My Stuff posts), clutter never really is conquered until you learn to not allow it in. And even then, it still accumulates because we are not able to control what others bring into our homes. It really is an ongoing process.

This holiday season, you won’t see a lot of posts here at Raising Arrows about the best holiday deals or buying more stuff to add to the stuff you already have. In fact, what we will be doing is sharing our family traditions and the things we do during the holidays that have become near and dear to us. We celebrate Christ and the family of God this season…not stuff.

So, buy less, declutter more and join us for a Raising Arrows Christmas!

November 15, 2011

The Home as a Haven: 10 Days to a Peaceful Home

Yesterday we talked about how we need to learn how to feel blessed before we can truly enjoy the blessings of the Lord. Today, let’s move on to what a blessed and peaceful home feels like.

But first, a story…

Once upon a time, my husband never wanted to be home. He wanted to be with us, but he didn’t want to be at home with us. He would come home from work and pack us all up and run us around all over the place. I never gave it much thought because I just assumed this was the way he was, extrovert that he is. However, at some point I made the connection that it wasn’t that he really wanted to be gone from home, but that home was not a peaceful place for him.

Home was not a haven.

For us, it was the mess and clutter that kept our home from being a haven. But the clutter wasn’t just isolated to the house. Mommy’s brain was cluttered too. And because I was constantly at odds with my home and my attitude (see Day 1 of this series), I had no time to create a warm and inviting atmosphere for my husband to come home to. Therefore, he wanted to escape.

And frankly, so did I. How much easier it was to close the door and pretend my overwhelming to-do list didn’t exist.

But, I knew this wasn’t any way to live. I wanted more. I wanted the abundant life God promises! So, I began to search.

I searched the Scriptures. I looked to the Titus 2 woman and the Proverbs 31 woman, to the Deuteronomy 6 parent and the Ephesians disciple. I listened to sermons revolving around these posts and read books that gave examples and practical tips.

And then I searched the lives of other Christian women. Women who’s homes felt like a haven to me.

Some felt like havens because they were decorated beautifully. Others were havens because the lady of the home radiated peace and joy. They were homes that were servant-minded and felt comfortable and loving.

So, I took the Scriptural principles I was reading about and the practical ideas I was observing and I began to add these touches to my own home.

The result?

My family now sees our home as a haven. My husband rarely wants to leave, and tells me he feels so comfortable at home with all of us.

That has been one of the biggest compliments of my life as a homemaker because it means I truly “made a home.”

Even though no two homes are alike and what I needed to make my home a haven may not be what you need to create a peaceful haven in your home, I want to give you a smattering of ideas I implemented that brought our home to a place of retreat and safety for the entire family.

*Creating of a routine that worked. We had tried plenty of routines that didn’t work before I realized I was trying too hard. Take what you naturally have and build on it to create the perfect routine for your family!

*Decluttering – my house and my mind. I began to slow my pace and homeschool with purpose and live life with vigor. I also purged the house of half our stuff (even though I could definitely manage to do this again – it was a huge improvement!) As I mentioned in Day 3 of this series, orderliness glorifies God and shows our love for those living in our household. It shows that stuff isn’t more important than people.

*Bringing the day to a close. This is tomorrow’s post – it’s a goodie!

*Creating “atmosphere” and “ambiance” with family favorites. Last week, we talked about decorating your home in a way that brings peace. Add to this things like candles, music, and lighting to create a peaceful atmosphere that is warm and inviting to your dear family.

*Smile. Send your husband off with a smile. Wake your children with a smile. When your husband comes home from a long day at work, smile and welcome him home.

*Show hospitality to your family. Hospitality shouldn’t be saved for guests alone. Your family deserves the royal treatment every day of the week! {Get your FREE Hospitality List to help you brainstorm!}

*Gather the family for Family Worship and enjoy it! We do our Family Worship Time shortly before bed. Sometimes we sing, sometimes there are instruments, Daddy always reads from the Bible, and we always have prayer time. There are no family worship rules, so lose that notion and then work from there. A wonderful DVD on the topic is this one:

{click to see excerpts of the film}

You truly can create a home that everyone wants to come home to!

10 Days to a Peaceful Home HOMEwork:

Spend time reading through Scripture that speaks to homelife and homemaking.
Make a list of families you enjoy visiting in their homes and brainstorm what it is about their homes that makes them feel peaceful.
Make a list of ways you can show hospitality to your own family and to others. Use this FREE Hospitality List to jot down your ideas!

Purchase the entire series along with new content and worksheets for $1.99!

Be sure to visit these brilliant women during our 10 days adventure between November 7th-18th! I love these ladies and we know you will too.

10 days of Character Studies | Confessions of a Homeschooler
10 days of Christmas Countdown Ideas | Milk & Cookies
10 days of Creative Writing | Chocolate on My Cranium
10 days of Crockpot Meals | The Happy Housewife
10 Days to a Godly Marriage | Women Living Well
10 Days of Growing Leaders | Mom’s Mustard Seeds
10 Days of Homeschooling High School | Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers
10 days of I Wish I Had Known | Fruit in Season
10 days of Keeping Your Marbles | The Tie That Binds Us
10 days of Kid-friendly Food | Planner Perfect
10 Days of Language Arts Lesson Planning | Jimmie’s Collage
10 Days of Learning Apps | Daze of Adventure
10 Days of a Mason Jar Christmas | Cajun Joie de Vivre
10 Days of More JESUS in Christmas | Preschoolers and Peace
10 Days to a Peaceful Home | Raising Arrows
10 Days of Raising a Life-Long-Learner | Bright Ideas Press
10 days of Science with Math | Blog, She Wrote
10 days of Teaching Values | Our Journey Westward
10 days of Winning your Child’s Heart | I Take Joy

November 11, 2011

Pleasing to the Eye: 10 Days to a Peaceful Home

Wow ~ what a week!

We’ve adjusted our hearts, we’ve learned to greet the morning with a smile, we laugh in the face of unplanned interruptions, and we are enjoying more peaceful meals! Let’s tackle one more thing this week and then spend the weekend practicing peace in our homes! How about we take a look at the things we look at?

Is your home pleasing to the eye?

The post I did this past spring on Brainstorming Beauty in the Bedroom is exactly what I want you to do for the rest of your home! Read that post, print it out, carry it around your home with you and really think about the spaces in your home and what they say about you and your family.

My home is a mish-mash of family friendly couches and chairs, a buffalo head, and earthy accents that make me smile. This is a “lived-in” home and everyone who enters soon realizes they will be treated to good conversation and a lot of laughter.

If you are comfortable in your environment and feel peaceful there, that will naturally extend to those who enter your home.

I see it as a light. My home is a testimony to the peace of Christ within me. It doesn’t have to be fancy, it just has to be authentic.

So often we think our homes must be perfect in order to be pleasing to the eye, but that just isn’t true. Yes, we need to have a tidy environment, but perfectionism can actually be quite stressful as we try to maintain something that just isn’t meant to be.

Imagine the mother who has just slaved over her spotless home when suddenly her young toddler spills an entire cup of milk on the floor. If she has not learned to find peace and joy in her role as mother, that one cup of milk will spell her undoing. We must learn to laugh at the imperfections of our day and strive toward the essence of beauty rather than the appearance of perfection.

OK, here are a few quick and practical tips for creating a pleasing and peaceful environment (for more ideas, head over to my Brainstorming Beauty post!)

10 Days to a Peaceful Home HOMEwork:

Consider your entire family’s tastes and interests when thinking about decorating your home.
Shop your home first. Take things you already have and recycle them in other areas of the home.
Avoid clutter. Don’t fill every inch of your home with things, let the peace of Christ fill the space.

Purchase the entire series along with new content and worksheets for $1.99!

Be sure to visit these brilliant women during our 10 days adventure between November 7th-18th! I love these ladies and we know you will too.

November 9, 2011

Well-Ordered Wiggle Room: 10 Days to a Peaceful Home

We’ve checked our hearts, we’ve greeted the day with goals, but what happens when the day just doesn’t seem to be going as planned?

We remember that peace can still be found when we allow ourselves “wiggle room.”

If you’ve read my series on Creating a Daily Routine, you already know that I am not fond of sectioning off a day by 15-30 minute time slots. I don’t do well in that kind of environment because it feels too boxed in. I much prefer a routine that is loosely based on times of day and order of activities. The times listed on my daily schedule are suggestions and guidelines rather than rules.

I know, if need be, I can adjust.

THAT is wiggle room.

But, why is this post entitled “Well-Ordered Wiggle Room?”

Because despite the fact I wholeheartedly believe you need flexibility, I also wholeheartedly believe you need order for peace to flow throughout your home.

Living life willy-nilly however you may please may seem free-spirited and wonderfully peaceful on the surface, but underneath all of that footloose and fancy-freeness, there is often found randomness that stems from an aimless life searching for contentment and peace.

Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.
Proverbs 29:18

God is a God of order, not chaos. He gives mankind guidelines and parameters to work within because He loves us. Ordering our day glorifies Him and shows our love for those in our household. Allowing wiggle room amongst the order of the day allows room for God to work and our family to act on those Works!

10 Days to a Peaceful Home HOMEwork: