Home Environment

“Much is said about the drudgery and the confinement of the woman’s role in the home. In the perspective of the gospel it is not so. There is divinity in each new life. There is challenge in creating the environment in which a child can grow and develop. There is partnership between the man and woman in building a family which can last throughout the eternities”
~Spencer W. Kimball

Last week I was asked to teach the young women in our ward about Home Environment. This was a good topic for me to review and makes me want to do a better job at making our home a place my family wants to be. It was also a good reminder of the things I need to be sure to teach my children before they grow-up.

Here are some main points I talked about:


~If we make our dwellings clean and orderly, the Spirit of the Lord and our family members will want to be there.

~"The homemaker is healer, comforter, and counselor; architect, builder, and maintenance engineer of a learning and research center equal to any university; artist, sculptor, creator of the greatest masterpiece: a human being. How can any thinking person say that being a homemaker lacks challenge?"
(I LOVE this quote)

~"Another element of homemaking is an atmosphere of order and beauty. Order and cleanliness are the first steps toward beauty. Beauty is not synonymous with costly adornment or ostentatious show. It is found in the simplicity of line, in the light and shadow of our world. Above all, beauty is excellence, whether in the cultural arts or in personal character."

~"Another element of homemaking is creating an environment that stimulates continual growth and development. To make this kind of home, a woman must develop her mind and talents to a high degree of excellence and discipline. Part of the vision of the Restoration is that men and women continually grow, pushing back the curtains of darkness behind which lurk ignorance, superstition, and misunderstanding. The light of the gospel should dispel ignorance and lead us to seek more light."

~"Homemaking skills are becoming a lost art. I worry about this. When we lose the homemakers in a society, we create an emotional homelessness much like street homelessness, with similar problems of despair, drugs, immorality, and lack of self-worth. In a publication called The Family in America, Bryce Christensen writes that the number of homeless people on the street “does not begin to reveal the scope of homelessness in America. For since when did the word home signify merely physical shelter, or homelessness merely the lack of such shelter? … Home [signifies] not only shelter, but also emotional commitment, security, and belonging. Home has connoted not just a necessary roof and warm radiator, but a place sanctified by the abiding ties of wedlock, parenthood, and family obligation; a place demanding sacrifice and devotion, but promising loving care and warm acceptance.”

~"So we must teach homemaking skills, including practical ones such as cooking, sewing, budgeting, and beautifying. We must let young women know that homemaking skills are honorable and can help them spiritually as well as temporally. Making a home appealing physically will encourage loved ones to want to be there and will help create the kind of atmosphere that is conducive to the Spirit."

If anyone needs help creating a cozy home environment see Imagine Cozy. My sister Angela is very talented with this.