Last Updated on May 13, 2024
I’m sure it has crossed your mind at some point: This toilet only gets dirty again. My kids wear their clothes and toss them in the hamper (or don’t) again. These beds and dishes will be back to this state in less than 12 hours.
But I’ll never forget the “aha” I had while reading Becoming a Woman Who Pleases God, by Pat Ennis and Lisa Tatlock, professors of Home Economics at The Master’s College.
You’ll remember how Jesus promises in John 14 that He’s preparing a place for us. Can you imagine a place ready for you, prepared specifically for how you’re created?
You could probably learn a lot about yourself just by going in. “Oh, yeah, that’s perfect for me!” It would be rejuvenating just to be there. Dinner might be already made, a roaring fire crackling in a fireplace, (probably a pre-scrubbed toilet), your favorite people gathered around the table to laugh with you and encourage you.
Probably not unlike the presidential suite of a five-star hotel—but even better, replacing the anonymous guest-feel with the peaceful sense of home. You’d feel welcomed, embraced, ready to face your day.
This book helped me to understand that I’m creating a “prepared place” in my home. My tangible work: Scrubbing, mixing cupcakes, cleaning up assorted body fluids, cuddling, and kissing boo-boos, gives my family intangible resources for the good works God has prepared in advance for them to do (Ephesians 2:10).
It gives them a snapshot of heaven, and of God’s care for them.
Though feminism did some notable things for us as women, one of the ways it sold us short was to subtract value from what people really do gain at home, and from some of the servant-level tasks homemaking entails.
Jesus set the example of laying down His glory and His rights to put Himself right in the middle of our muck—not unlike toilet-scrubbing—with the hope and joy before Him of sitting next to God.
In God’s upside-down kingdom of the last being first, the greatest being the servant, this seems very fitting.
“If I then, the Lord and the Teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.” – John 13:14
