Over the past few months, I have been mulling over the idea of a life giving home. It started when I read Sally Clarkson’s The Lifegiving Home: Creating a Place of Belonging and Becoming. In this book, she and her eldest daughter, Sarah, talk about what it means to create an atmosphere that gives life. Life to your family. Life to those who visit. Life to yourself. They encourage the creation of a home that tells the world who you are. A home that builds your family unit. I want a home like this! To be honest, it’s been a few months since I have really dug deep into this book. But I think the following quote does a great deal to summarize just what the focus of this book is: “Homemaking must be understood as a potent Kingdom endeavor, not merely a domestic task. Homemaking requires a willed creativity, a conscious diligence, because we are called to create new life and challenged to do it in the midsts of a world that actively resists us in this endeavor (pg 39).” 

Sally & Sarah set out to give us examples and ideas to help us craft such a home. I love that they want to help people see that homemaking IS Kingdom work. When I have children, they will be MY responsibility. Given to me to care for BY God. He will expect that I see it as purposeful work for His glory! But at the same time, the world will attempt to pull me away from what should be my life’s greatest work. I must resist. How? By creating a safe space in which I can give life to all those who enter. By creating a life giving home.

I truly cannot do these books much justice. If you are at all interested in learning how to create a space that breathes life into your family and friends, then I’d encourage you to grab a copy of Sally & Sarah Clarkson’s book The Life Giving Home as well as Sally’s follow up book: The Lifegiving Table: Nurturing Faith through Feasting, One Meal at a Time.