Welcome ! Kim and I want to use our blogs as places to encourage all of us at any age or stage to make our homes a place of refreshment and blessing. It can be a harsh, chaotic and noisy world out there—our homes should be the place we can come at the end of the day and find welcome, order, and peace.
Thomas Wolfe, in his book Look Homeward, Angel, writes “You can’t go home again.” While I understand what Mr. Wolfe is saying, (everything changes and will not be as you remembered), I would also say, “You can’t ever completely leave home behind.” We all have our memories and experiences of home that have shaped the people we are today…and even the homes we make for ourselves. If you were fortunate enough to have a loving, caring family your home was probably a source of security, a haven. You may be trying to re-create the things that made your home so special. To others, home could have meant the opposite-a place of insecurity and conflict, leaving even physical and emotional hurts and scars. You may try to forget that home and those experiences, and you certainly don’t want to re-create them. Some of us may need to ask God to heal us, to help us forgive and move on to create loving homes that will bring Him glory.
This is why Kim and I are writing. We want to offer practical ideas and inspiration to all of us because we passionately believe that home really does matter. What happens in our homes can affect eternity!
A key verse for us might be, “For God is not a God of disorder but of peace.” (calm, quiet)-I Corinthians 14:33. We will be passing on tips and information to help us all establish peaceful, nurturing homes. Topics we will be covering are Home Management and Organization, Family Economics, Caring for Kids and Others, and Food For Thought, written by Kim.
Kim and I are both Home Economics majors and graduates of Kansas State University. Kim’s degree was in mass communications and journalism (with a foods and nutrition emphasis) and mine was in family and consumer science education. We were young career women together in the Hutchinson area. Kim worked as a reporter and features writer for the foods and family section of The Hutchinson News. I taught High School FACS at Nickerson High School. We married young men from Stafford County, and have lived about 20 miles apart over the years. (I used Kim’s Mom’s recipe for mints at my wedding and we even served the cake at each other’s wedding!) We’ve raised our children together, seeing each other at sports events, VBS, school and 4-H activities. We even married off our oldest children this summer—and yes, I used the trusty mint recipe once again to make about 400 mints (and Kim used the same recipe to make 600 mints or so!) Kim’s daughter Jill and my son Kent married wonderful spouses and our other children attend KSU, Kim’s son Brent and my daughter Laurie and son Josh. Kim is a wonderful musician and gifted vocalist as well as a great photographer. She is also a thoughtful friend. I had been dreading the “empty nest” and after returning from taking Josh to KSU for his freshman year, we came in the quiet house and looked through the mail. I had a card from Kim, a photo of a beautiful butterfly with her assurances that life at any stage is beautiful and I would survive the change at our house. I am still amazed at how God used her to speak encouragement to me at that time. Her experiences planning and preparing food for family and friends will help us all create better mealtimes for our families. Check her blog, “Food For Thought”.
I will be writing about Family Economics, Home Management and Organization in “Home Matters” and meeting others needs (and doing some fun stuff) in “Caring for Kids and Others”. I have been a formal and informal student of home management for 30 plus years. My Masters degree work was in these areas and I’ve always been interested in how to use the resources we all have—time, energy and money plus the individual gifts God has also given us to create homes and lives to honor Him. We all have differing amounts of time, energy and money and need to exercise good stewardship of whatever God has given us.
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