Finding Joy in Your Home

This is an encouraging episode, I promise! Something I've been wrestling with a lot in my own life, is how much input from social media, news, and other sources that I'm letting in. Today we are chatting about when it's Biblically appropriate to carry each other's burdens and when it's okay to not. This has been on my heart a lot lately, listen in: Listen to the Podcast: You can find all the links and notes for this episode below! Right click here and save-as to download this episode to your computer. Links & Resources: Tickets go on sale for our 2022 online homemaking conference at noon PST on Tuesday. October 5th. You can find out more here. Get $10 off StoryWorth.com/Homemaking

Anyone else feeling like you need some encouragement in your parenting? Anyone else feeling like you are struggling with connecting with your kids or making sure you are meeting their needs? If you need some Biblical grace filled parenting encouragement, I want you to join me in this episode today with Crystal Paine from Money Saving Mom. Listen to the Podcast: You can find all the links and notes for this episode below! Right click here and save-as to download this episode to your computer. Crystal's book is one of my favorite books I've read in the past 2 years: Love-Centered Parenting. It was not at all what I was expecting in a parenting book, but in the best possible way. It challenged me and encouraged me. But not only in my parenting, also in my own personal heart and outlook. Crystal is incredible honest and open in this book and I highly recommend it. Links & Resources: Book recommendation: Love-Centered Parenting We have a new free Bible Study challenge through the book of James starting October 1st! Join our free community app for it. Also starting October 1st is a brand new theme for our Kitchen Collective: Crockpots and instanpots. Trainings, videos, and loooooots of recipes! Join (and get instant access to September's month (30 Minute Dinners) and October's month (breakfasts)! JOIN HERE Mark your calendar: October 5th!!! Tickets go on sale for the 2022 homemaking online conference. The theme this year is Homemaking in Light of Eternity. Our Sponsor: Join the Moink Movement today! Go to MoinkBox.com/HOME and listeners to this show get FREE bacon for a Year (A pop up will come up with the offer.

Family worship and family discipleship are two areas in our home that we've always wanted to be intentional about. But in the beginning of our marriage, we struggled knowing what this looks like. It's been a journey through the years developing this culture in our home. And while we have a long way to go still, in this episode, Jason and I are sharing what this looks like in our home right now (and what we are still learning): Listen to the Podcast: You can find all the links and notes for this episode below! And don't forget to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes Right click here and save-as to download this episode to your computer. In this episode, Jason and I share our brand new podcast we launched in August called Household Hermeneutics. It's been a passion project of ours in 2021 and we are so excited to share that you can listen to it for FREE wherever you listen to podcasts. There has never been a more important time in history to make sure we know what we believe, why we believe it, and be able to defend our faith. And it's vital that we teach these same things to our kids. Join Jason and Jami as they dive into Christian theology, starting with the basics in an easy to understand way. But they won't stop at the basics or a high level overview. They will dive deep, right into the very heart of God's Word and how we can know Him more and glorify Him with our whole lives…and pass this down to future generations. This podcast is truly unique and our prayer is that it will help you facilitate family worship and growth in your household in the Lord. The podcast is released every other Thursday. On release day each week, we release two episodes back to back. Episode #1 is the full episode meant for adults and teens (the whole family can listen in, it's just on a deeper level). Episode #2 for that week is the Family Discipleship portion that is usually around 10 minutes long. This is meant to be played for the whole family and contains: 1 5 minute lesson, Scripture memory verses, catechism, and singing hymns together. You can listen to all the episodes here! Visit our sponsor for today's episode: Go to HelloFresh.com/homemaking14 and use code homemaking14 for up to 14 free meals, including free shipping!

I've gotten some really random questions lately that didn't build into an entire episode themselves and so I decided to turn them into a little stand alone episode. I love when Allie Beth Stuckey does this! So let's jump in. Listen to the Podcast: You can find all the links and notes for this episode below! And don't forget to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes Right click here and save-as to download this episode to your computer. In this episode, we will go over a few fun and random topics: What our plans are after travel life. Teaching our children to swim How do you know when God is calling you to something verses your wish or desire for something. How to become more like minded with your husband when it comes to planning and goal setting. Training your kids in chores (and an encouragement) How do you handle the fear of being out alone with your kids? Our sponsor: For 50% off your first Care/of order, go to TakeCareOf.com and enter code home50.

If you are needing some encouragement for where is our world headed? Then tune into this second part series of A Theology of Hope. You can listen to part 1 here. Listen to the Podcast: You can find all the links and notes for this episode below! And don't forget to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes Right click here and save-as to download this episode to your computer. C.S. Lewis gives us some good encouragement for right now: "How are we to live in an atomic age?" I am tempted to reply: "Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night; or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents." In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented: and quite a high percentage of us were going to die in unpleasant ways. We had, indeed, one very great advantage over our ancestors—anesthetics; but we have that still. It is perfectly ridiculous to go about whimpering and drawing long faces because the scientists have added one more chance of painful and premature death to a world which already bristled with such chances and in which death itself was not a chance at all, but a certainty. This is the first point to be made: and the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds. — C.S. Lewis, "On Living in an Atomic Age" (1948) FIRST THING: God is good. All the time. "Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!" - Psalm 34:8 Second: He cares deeply for his children. ""Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?" - Matthew 6:25-34 Third: We can trust Him with our lives, our futures, and our kids. "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." - Philippians 4:6-7 ---> God will work all things out for his glory and our good. A look at eschatology I am not going to get into a huge eschatological debate here, but we do need to address something. By and large, the American or western church has become very complacent about the future. With the dispensational premillenial view point of the end times being so prevalent in American Evangelism (think: left behind and sudden rapture), it has left so many of us feeling very apathetic and lazy about the future. I think we've adopted a very fatalistic viewpoint of the end times. The dis-premill position is that things will just keeping getting worse until bam, Christ's Church is raptured. While it's not true for all churches, it does seem that when we look at the past year and a half, the church has become apathetic. We look around and see the world going down hill and kind of give up. We become apathetic.

Anyone else feeling super stressed and overwhelmed with everything going on? I've seen countless posts this week about how heavy everything feels and all of the stress of this world. But how do we, as Christians, face this present age, and the future to come? Join me in this two part series on a Theology of Hope. Listen to the Podcast: You can find all the links and notes for this episode below! And don't forget to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes Right click here and save-as to download this episode to your computer. The Problem of Being Hyper Aware Social media has become a plague to these current generations. We see and know all (or least we think so). And instead of taking comfort in God's sovereign plan, we stress and fret and fear. In the episode, we take a little jump into picturing what it would have looked like to live in the first half of the 1900s with smart phones. And compare that to how it feels now. Studying a Christian Response to: Black Plague Early Greco-Roman Plagues Emperor Nero Our Takeaways: Don't be ignorant of what's happening in the world, but largely stay in your circle Develop a robust prayer life You don't have to know all the answers TRUST In the next episode, we are going to get into the next part: The Theology of Hope for the Future Age Links & Resources: Songfinch is offering an additional $20 dollars off ALL personalized songs at SongFinch.com with code: HOME Go to GreenChef.com/homemaking100 and use code: homemaking100 to get $100 off including free shipping!

When I began looking into hospitality about 12 years ago, I felt totally overwhelmed. It felt like such a big thing to be, because I just didn't know what it looked like or how to practice it. So in today's last episode of our hospitality mini series, we are going to chat about how we can get practical with practicing hospitality. Listen to the Podcast: You can find all the links and notes for this episode below! And don't forget to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes Right click here and save-as to download this episode to your computer. Getting Practical 1) Make a list of 4-5 wonderful hospitality recipes to make Don't try and reinvent the wheel each time. Create a few go-to staples you make and do those each time. The more you practice, the easier and more second nature it will become. Make sure to come up with at least one great gluten free meal and one great dairy free meal in the rotation. 2) Start inviting Seriously, just do it. The first time you blurt out, "Would you like to come to our house for dinner?" might feel awkward! But keep doing it. It becomes easier. 3) If you don't have kids Please invite the families over with kids. Go to the thrift store and have one small box of toys that you can pull out when kids come over. And don't be offended if the family with kids instead invite you over to their house. 4) Plan Ahead I know the first few times we extended hospitality to people we didn't know very well, it felt like it took a week to get ready. Things I don't normally notice (such as cobwebs and dirty mirrors) were suddenly obvious to me! I felt overwhelmed and I was exhausted after the first few people came over. But as time went on, I became more comfortable with the routine. We started practicing hospitality so often that I was always planning ahead to the next get together. This way the house never got too out of hand. After one night of hospitality I knew I had better stay on top of the house and cleaning because a new family would be in our dining room the following week! 5) Think outside the box with hospitality, it doesn't have to cost a ton Practicing hospitality doesn't have to cost a lot of money! Many people feel that they don't have room in their budget to have families over. But don't stretch yourself. Start with a commitment of having a family over once a month and serve pizza! Everyone loves pizza; your meal doesn't have to be complex or fancy. Many families will offer to bring something to dinner. LET THEM! If they ask, let them bring a dessert or side dish. Try out freezer cooking and make all your meals ahead, it can save a lot of money! 6) Learn from others As you start extending hospitality, just wait and you will get invited over to other's houses as well. Learn from what they do. When you get invited to other's houses, make a mental note of what they do from the moment you walk in the house. Do they have music playing? What kinds of questions did they ask? Did they get a card game out or offer coffee after dinner? This is the best way to learn new tips and tricks. Offering coffee at the end of a meal is a great comfort to offer, but if you never drink coffee past 10am then you might not think about it. Glean from other's experiences and wisdom. 7) And ASK When practicing hospitality, ask, ask, ask. Many people that we have invited over to our house, we felt nervous about asking…will they want to come over? We barely know them…do they even know who we are? But everyone loves to be invited over. So just ask! Ask about food allergies or preferences. You don't want to make a big meaty lasagna only to find out that one kid is allergic to tomatoes and Mom is a vegetarian! Ask other women for their hospitality tips. Many women like to share what they do to make their home welcoming, so ask those around you how they do it! Remember, it's not about your home, it's about your heart At the end of the day your candles don't matter.

We are doing a little mini series right now on hospitality. In the last episode, we took a look at hospitality in the Old Testament and why it was important to them. We have to start first with the Old Testament because their view of hostility greatly influenced those in the New Testament and the early church. In the next episode, we will dive into practical ideas for hospitality but first, let's do a little deep dive into the New Testament! Listen in: Listen to the Podcast: You can find all the links and notes for this episode below! And don't forget to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes Right click here and save-as to download this episode to your computer. Any discussion of Biblical hospitality, must first naturally start with the Bible. Yesterday we dove into the Old Testament to find out what it has to say on hospitality and now today we will find out how the early Church in the New Testament practiced and modeled hospitality. While Biblical hospitality is not a high priority for most modern western churches, it was vital to the growth, stability, and daily life of the early Church! "Hospitality is becoming an almost forgotten Christian virtue in our style of life today, particularly in big cities with their rampant crime on the streets, their locked-in apartments and all their affluent, urban and bourgeois devices which attempt to create privacy in our homes and our lives. In the New Testament, however, hospitality was a distinctive mark of Christians and Christian communities." ~ Hospitality Commands, pg 6 Hospitality in the New Testament The Greek word for hospitality that is used in the New Testament is philoxenia which literally means "Love for Strangers". Each time we are commanded to practice hospitality, God is literally commanding us to have and show love for others! Love is a central theme of the Bible. We are to love God {Deuteronomy 10:12}, love our neighbors {Luke 10:27}, and kove strangers {Philippians 2:3-4}. And at the root of hospitality is love. By practicing hospitality we are showing love for those in God's Church, love for strangers, neighbors, and unbelievers, and most of all, love for God by obeying his commands. "The Christian practice of hospitality was not viewed simply as a means of overcoming a practical problem. Theological statements by different authors in the New Testament show that it was frequently viewed as the concrete expression of Christian love." ~ Hospitality Commands, pg 16 Serving those in the Church We have a clear call from Paul to serve those within our Church and practice hospitality. "Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality." ~ Romans 12:13 Practically, this serving and contributing to the needs of the saints can take on many different forms. It can mean bringing a meal to a family who just had a baby. It can mean inviting new people at Church to your home for dinner. It can mean donating money and time to the Church's emergency fund. Later in this series we will get into practical ways we can serve through hospitality. Serving Unbelievers & Strangers While one component of hospitality is serving those in the Church, another aspect is serving unbelievers and strangers! As Abraham found out, you should never neglect to show hospitality because you never know who you are serving! Here is a clear command to practice hospitality to strangers "Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares." ~ Hebrews 13:2 Serve Without Complaining God surly knows our hearts! He wants us to serve Him with joy and humility. He is not merely concerned with our external actions but also the state of our hearts. He knows that we can tend to act selfishly or serve while complaining. So he issued this command: "Show hospitality to one another without grumbling." ~ 1 Peter 4:9 We must be careful to not complain when extending hospitality when you think about the cost of food and extendi...

In the last episode we discussed ways in which we can serve within our homes. Today we are going to kick off a little mini series on hospitality. When looking at practicing Biblical hospitality, lets begin at the beginning, in the Old Testament. Listen to the Podcast: You can find all the links and notes for this episode below! And don't forget to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes Right click here and save-as to download this episode to your computer. Hospitality in the Old Testament The Old Testament culture is very different from ours. As people traveled through the land {and often through very dry desert areas} there were no McDonald's or Starbucks' to stop at when they got tired or thirsty. When their feet were caked with mud and dried dust, they had nowhere to turn expect to houses they passed. Travelers often relied on the kindness of strangers for survival and they took the call of serving strangers seriously! "When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. The stranger who sojourns with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God." ~ Leviticus 19:33–34 In no uncertain terms, God commanded the Israelites to care for and love the strangers and travelers among them! Maybe they didn't understand why God would issue this strong calling but all they knew was that God commanded it…and they should obey! "For the people of God in the Old Testament the duty of hospitality came right from the center of who God was. I am the Lord your God who made a home for you and brought you there with all my might and all my soul. Therefore, you shall love the stranger as yourself. You shall be holy as I am holy (Leviticus 19:1). Your values shall mirror my values." ~ Strategic Hospitality fromDesiring God Blog Learning From the Father of Our Faith Abraham, the man called righteous because of his faith {James 2:23}, was a great example of hospitality that we can follow! Often the focus of this scene from Genesis 18:1-16 is that of Sarah who is promised to bear a son. While that is a profitable teaching from this passage, something else is illustrated as well: Abraham's willing and eager heart to extend hospitality to these three men {who turn out to be angels & the Lord}. *Note: I recently heard a fantastic sermon on this scene that really describes Abraham's willingness to serve. I highly recommend you listen to it as Pastor Phil Layton can describe it much more effectively than I can. You can hear the message HERE {and in fact, he is currently going through a fantastic series on Genesis right now}.* A few things to notice from this passage: Abraham Ran "When he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself to the earth" ~ Genesis 18:2b This was an unusual thing for a middle eastern man of that time. He "girded his loins" and RAN to greet these strangers approaching their homestead. Abraham and Sarah were old by this point and in fact Sarah was past menopause. It's would have been very unusual to see an old grey haired man pull up his robe and literally run to greet strangers on the road – but that is exactly what Abraham did! He was eager to share hospitality with these strangers! Abraham Called Them Lord Calling someone Lord was a sign of respect. Abraham was a wealthy man and yet he called himself a servant to these strangers and ran to wash their feet – a humbling act of service! To wash someone's feet was to make yourself lower in status to that person {which is one reason it was so shocking that Jesus would wash the apostles feet {John 13:1-17}. "O Lord, if I have found favor in your sight, do not pass by your servant. Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree" ~ Genesis 18:3-4 Photo by paukrus Abraham's Hospitality Was Generous "And Abraham went quickly into the tent to Sarah and said, "Quick!