Timely Tips on Tuesday: You and Your Home Atmosphere

I've been thinking about the calling we have as wives and mothers. It's a noble calling.  It's a role--a place--no one else can fill.  How we make our home will determine whether we enjoy our "work" or dread it, and want to flee.  I read several posts which were very encouraging this morning, including one entitled "The Art of Domesticity", over at "A Wise Woman Builds Her Home".


Reading these reminded me of the fact that we, as women, are the most influential factor in the atmosphere of our homes.  Please don't take that in a negative way!  That is a great opportunity! Taken positively, it gives us great freedom, great room for creativity, and opportunity to use all of who we are (our gifts, our personality, our love and our passions), which is often a woman's greatest desire and "reason" for leaving her home, and pour them into making our home a haven and place of beauty and love for our family! This is our place from where we can minister to the world and bless our family.

What is the atmosphere I'm setting?

 What are some small changes which I can make that will impact for good the atmosphere in my home?
Here are some questions to help you think through this aspect of being a wife, mother, homemaker, keeper at home:

• What is the atmosphere in our home when my husband returns each day?  What does he see, hear, feel? What could I do to make him look more forward to coming home? What attitude adjustments do I need to make so I can greet him with a smile?

• Who do I look my best for? What does my husband like to see me wearing? How could I bless him in my dress, hair, makeup?

• Are there simple adjustments I could make to create an ordered, calm, welcoming atmosphere before suppertime and when my husband comes home from work? (schedule naps, freshen up, take 15 minutes to pick up the main area of the house)

Many couples schedule "couch time"--15 minutes or so just for them to talk without interruption--when the husband comes home from work.  The children wait their turn--playing quietly in another area or in their rooms--while mommy and daddy have time together talking; this can make all the difference for a mom! 


Others prefer to have time together after the children are in bed.  This was my preference, as I preferred my husband to spend time with the children, giving me time to prepare, or finish preparing, supper. My husband also likes to do projects or be outside before supper, and he and the children could do that, leaving me to the blissful quiet of the kitchen.  I enjoyed the laughter and their time together, while it gave me the break I needed.  I also enjoyed putting quiet music on in the background, so this became quite therapeutic for me. Later, in the quiet after the kids were in bed, without interruption, we could talk about the day, and be together.


July is a good time for reviewing: a busy, but not as busy, time of the year, a time to review yearly goals, to evaluate progress.  It's a good time to reflect on "how I'm doing as a wife", how we can make adjustments to have a more harmonious home. Do I need to make corrections to my attitude and get rid of any bad habits I've fallen into, to focus on my husband and marriage more?


Our husbands come first, before our children.  As you are married for a number of years, and children consume your time and attention, it's easy to forget that.
Here are questions which help me:

• Do you look into your husband's eyes?
• What is important to him?  Are you doing those things especially?
• Are there areas that you know bug him, and are you determining to fix them? (Messy areas, habits of yours, things he's asked you to do, etc.)
• Are you making what he wants your first priority, after God's desires?
• Are you consciously trying to make him, and your home, happy?

Sometimes we get so busy, or tired, or whatever, that we put our husband on the back shelf, and expect him to help us and support us and the focus becomes "me".

"If there be therefore any consolation in Christ,

if any comfort of love,
if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies,
Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded,

having the same love,
being of one accord, of one mind.
Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory;
but in lowliness of mind

let each esteem other better than themselves.
Look not every man on his own things,

but every man also on the things of others.
Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus..."
Philippians 2:1-5
(read on in this passage of Scripture for further information
of what kind of attitude Christ had, that we should follow.)

May we strive intentionally to create an atmosphere that is pleasant, and a haven at home.