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Making a Beautiful Home by Rayia Soderberg

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I’m always inspired by women like my friend, Rayia Soderberg, who make all things beautiful.  No matter where she goes, Rayia leaves a trail of beauty and inspiration behind her. So as you can imagine, I’m delighted to have her on the blog today.

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Making a Beautiful Home
By Rayia Soderberg

“And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us,
And establish the work of our hands for us;
Yes, establish the work is our hands.”
Psalm 90:17

The Bible is filled from beginning to end with creation, design and beauty. God delighting in His people and expressing it through glorious creation. Gifting us with wonder and designs too amazing for us to comprehend.

Dwellings are important to God, as we see so clearly in the Old Testament when he gave very specific instructions for the design and building of his tabernacle and temple. Every detail and item not only served a purpose, but were made to be beautiful.

He gave Adam and Eve a garden as the very first home here on earth and Jesus said he is preparing a place for us in heaven. He has and is still creating home for us. Because of that, I believe creation, design and beauty is important work for Christians.

It is one of the many ways we can emulate our heavenly Father. As wives and mothers we have the privilege of creating a world within the world for our families. Each as unique and personal as the people in them. It is no small task. God created for six days and rested. He knows it is hard but good work. During the sunniest of times, this can be a challenging task. During difficult times it can seem like an impossible one. Right now the world is under quarantine. Everyone is home. Dwellings have become multipurpose, serving as school, workplace and the hub for all activities. Our worlds all just got much smaller. Many of us are stretched thinner than we are used too!

I think now more than ever the above verse is a very important one. We need the beauty of the Lord to be upon us and establish the work of our hands. The work we do now matters perhaps more then ever. We are creating memories and experiences for our children that will leave impressions for many years to come.

How many of us have grandparents that went through the Depression and have stories of their parents creating beauty, joy and memories out of next to nothing. The impression it made on their lives and the lives of their children lives on. Crepe paper flowers dipped in wax for Christmas. Sheets of Jello cut out in fun shapes because it made an otherwise uneventful birthday, something special. Every meal shared around a set table. Dresses and quilts made from flour sacks became treasures. The stories go on and on. Mothers creating as lovely a world as possible with whatever they had. What a wonderful example to us!

Following in their footsteps and giving our children sweet and beautiful memories from this historical time will be a part of who they are and how they see the world. Creating a peaceful and lovely home in the midst of worldwide fear and uncertainty, is a tremendous witness to our children and those around us.

“Strength and dignity are her clothing; and she smiles at the future.” Proverbs 31:25

“She looks well to the ways of her household, and eats not the bread of idleness.” Proverbs 31:27

Not sure where to start or even if you can? God delights to answer prayers!
Ask God to establish the work of your hands, and show you how you can create a beautiful home that glorifies him and blesses your family during these difficult days.

One of the many ways to create a beautiful home is with decor. I love decorating and creating beautiful spaces and would love to share some fun and practical ways for you to decorate, design and create beauty during quarantine.

1. Get the kids involved!
In my experience kids really enjoy being a part of decorating and creating. Rotate children on weeknights and have each one in turn set the table “all pretty.” Get out your nice things and enjoy using them!
Maybe let your preteen decorate the mantle. Or try decorating their own room. Now is also great time for kids to create art! Buy cheap frames and have a whole gallery wall of “quarantine art.”

2. Get colorful!
Bring out the colors and patterns. Color naturally brightens a mood and lifts the spirits! Now is a great time to experiment with new colors and go crazy in your space. For some, going crazy might mean adding one color to their neutral decor, and that’s just fine.

This quarantine won’t last forever so don’t feel the need to keep things bright and colorful if that’s not your natural bent, but I think you’ll find it helps for now.

And get flowers! As many as you can afford. They brighten up any space! Faux or real plants help bring the outdoors in and can keep a room from feeling stuffy.

3. Rearrange and refresh!
Keep things fresh and try rearranging your furniture and decor. Everyone is home all the time, so things can start to feel cramped and tired. A reset feels fresh and fun, even if you don’t keep it that way long term. Some ideas for furniture arrangements would be…moving your beds so you have a better view out your window when you wake up. I did this and love it! Arrange the living room furniture to maximize conversation space. Try putting a small table in your living room so there is always a space for creativity even if others are playing a game or watching TV.

Also remember to make room for the kids (and husbands) who are now at home. They don’t want to feel like they don’t have a place to work or play. Make sure there is space for them to be creative too. The only thing worse than being quarantined in your home is being quarantined in a museum!

4. Ask your husband!
This is probably something you’ve all done before, but now is a great time to ask again. If he’s home all the time now, he may have some new ideas or thoughts that would be a blessing to him. He may not, but I bet he’d appreciate being asked anyway. Designing/planning a master bedroom makeover can be a fun thing to do together!

5. Get those house projects done!
Not only will your homes look and feel better but you will love seeing the finished product and how great to cross things off your list!
Paint that room or deck you’ve been putting off. Sew some new pillow covers. Change out the curtains. Hang that gallery wall. Wallpaper (add or remove). Switch out the 90’s faucets in your bathroom. Refinish that piece of furniture. Or make your children something special just for them.

6. Start designing and decorating your home!
If you’ve been putting it off because you don’t have money right now to do the home the way you want to, stop letting that stop you. Your circumstances probably won’t change that much in the next few years, but your kids will. Start creating and designing a space right now, with whatever budget you have! Beautiful doesn’t mean expensive, new or perfect. A beautiful home is a home filled with love and care. Some of the loveliest homes I’ve been in are simple, but personal and thoughtful. They don’t look like they are straight out of a magazine, nor do they look like a giant yard-sale heap. They look like they have been thoughtfully created with love and everyone feels comfortable and welcome in them.

If you don’t know where to start, ask yourself how you would like your home to feel (bright, airy, fresh, cozy, warm, inviting). Then look for examples of different styles (traditional, modern, farmhouse, eclectic, Scandinavian, minimalist) on Pinterest and explore. If you are on a tight budget, search “decorating on a budget” and you will find a host a great ideas to get you started.

7. Have fun with it!
Don’t get caught up on decorating rules. Now is a great time to experiment and play around with ideas , try that thing you’ve always wanted to try and have a good laugh at any mistakes. Work hard, love your family and smile at the future. You are doing kingdom work!

I hope those ideas spark some inspiration and help keep you motivated during quarantine.

May the Beauty of the Lord shine upon you and establish the good and faithful work of your hands!

Love,
Rayia

Factoring out God by Lisa Leidenfrost

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Lisa is a good friend, a good teacher, a servant of all, and faithful prayer partner. She has always been faithful to point me to Christ and to encourage me to keep my eyes on Him  in any trial.

Having Lisa Leidenfrost on the blog makes me happy because you will get to be encouraged by her wise words too!

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Factoring out God
by Lisa Leidenfrost

What is fear? It is waking up and finding out that you are surrounded by a ruthless gang bent on your demise. Israel was in such a position when Syria surrounded them.

“Therefore he (the king of Syria) sent horses and chariots and a great army there, and they came by night and surrounded the city. And when the servant of the man of God arose early and went out, there was an army, surrounding the city with horses and chariots. And his servant said to him, “Alas, my master! What shall we do?” So he answered, “Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” And Elilsha prayed, and said, “Lord, I pray, open his eyes that he may see.” Then the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw. And behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.” 2 Kings 6:14-17

When the army surrounded them, Elisha’s servant, Gehazi, took a look at the dire situation before them and feared based upon what he could see and what he predicted would happen to them next. But he missed one vital part of the equation, in that when he assessed the situation, he had factored out God. Without God, yes it was a very dire situation and they were about to be slaughtered. But more was going on than Gehazi could see. There was an invisible army with them all the time that completely outnumbered the enemy. Because Elisha knew this, he told Gehazi not to fear. After this, Elisha prayed that God would open up Gehazi’s eyes, and he saw a mountain full of horses and chariots of fire all around that had been invisible. And that great army was on their side!

God puts us in situations where we need to exercise our faith, which causes us to grow. If we could see how a situation will work out, it is no longer faith. In a hard providence, when faith is at work, a person will see the unseen power of God that is our help and refuge. This causes us to have peace instead of panic. In faith, we believe that God hears us when we call out to Him and that He will bring the needed help even when we cannot see it. In faith we believe that God is not only all powerful and sovereign, but that He loves us and has our good in mind. Faith pleases God because it focuses beyond the trial onto the Lord in heaven.

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Heb. 1:1

“But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” Heb. 11:6

We rest on God knowing He is really in control and that He is the unseen force that will help us in every situation.

Lisa
Note: This article was first published on Lisa’s blog They That Wait. It was reposted here with the author’s permission.

Fearful or Faithful by Nancy Wilson

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I am again grateful to have my dear friend Nancy Wilson on the blog. Today she brings to us, older women, much needed words of encouragement. I trust that this good charge will yield good fruit in our lives.

IMG_8479Fearful or Faithful
by Nancy Wilson

During these troublesome days, we should consider how we can best turn a profit on our time in our homes while we wait for life to return to normal. Remember the ultimate purpose of trials in the Christian’s life is to bring glory to God by stewarding the trial with faith and obedience. Trials reveal how we are doing. Is your faith strong or weak? Are you fearful or faithful? Is your faith suffering from its own coronavirus? Has it gotten a little sickly? Or are you standing firm, undaunted and joyful in these trying circumstances? Would your husband describe you as fearful or faithful? Do you shrink back in fear or do you trust God and trust your husband to lead you through uncertain times?

Older women can either drift into fearfulness or they can grow into more and more faithfulness. We have the tendency of excusing fearfulness (in ourselves or in other older women) because of age or situation or health conditions. But our faith is not based on our own resources, situation, or condition. Our faith is based on the unchanging character of our Maker.

We all know that as we age, we grow physically weaker. We gradually get flabby and weak. There were those decades where we could coast on our youthful stamina and strength, but those days are behind us. No more coasting.

But there is another kind of weakness which can commonly come with age, another kind of flabbiness as we grow old, and that is spiritual flabbiness. If we are not being pressed to apply the Scriptures to our lives, if we are not being diligent to be obedient Christians, our faith and our obedience weaken. Much like our beauty, our zeal fades. We can indulge in a little cowardice or give our husbands less respect and sloppy obedience. If life gets too cushy, too comfortable, too easy, we become squishy soft. We can coast. We can spend too much time tracking our physical ailments and miss the signs of an ailing faith. This softness leads to fearfulness, and fearfulness leads to anxiety, and anxiety leads to faithlessness and compromise. A soft fearful faith is a hard heart. So God sends us some trials to wake us up and strengthen our walk with Him.

“Therefore, we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day” (2 Cor. 4:16). There is no reason for us to allow our spirits to decay like our bodies do! Paul says we are being renewed every day, so there is no sense in losing heart, even if our bodies are falling apart. The important thing is that our faith can grow and flourish, even in our old age.

In Romans 5:3-4 has the encouragement we need. “But we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope.“ When a trial comes, we must choose to glory in it. We must choose to rejoice in the opportunity God is giving us to trust Him. We know it is from His hand, no matter who brought it to us. And as we do this, God blesses us with the fruit of patience. We learn to endure trouble. And that gives us something money can’t buy: character. And with character comes hope. Verse 5 says, “Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy spirit who was given to us.”

All our troubles and trials are working on our behalf because God is behind it all, pouring out His love into our hearts and causing us to become women of faith. We must cooperate with what He is doing, and we must have an eager expectation of how He is going to use it all to His glory in our lives. Our husbands should be able to call us faithful women. They should be able to benefit firsthand from our cheerful obedience to God’s Word.

“Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband safely doth trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life.” (Prov. 31:10-12).

A note in my Geneva Study Bible says a virtuous wife is literally a wife of valor. Are you a wife of valor, willing to face danger with courage? A virtuous wife does not shrink back in fear. She goes forward by faith, not trusting in her own resources, but trusting the Lord. We may be physically weak, we may feel very weak, but in Christ we are strong. We should pray that God will increase our strength and increase our faith.

This is the kind of older women the church needs. Think of how our children and grandchildren will benefit if we are women of valor! So let’s determine to pray for boldness and wisdom. Let’s demonstrate faithful and cheerful obedience to God. Pandemic or not, let’s lift our voices and sing hymns.

Faithful Obedience by Elise Warner

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Elise is one of the of those women that does the hard things with a tender heart. She and her husband have been close friends to my children and they all say that she is a very special friend, a loyal friend, a godly friend. Today I’m honored to have her share with us in our series, Faithful Obedience.

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Perfect Grace and Blueberry Muffins
by Elise Warner

My whole body shivered uncontrollably as I curled up on my side, trying to position the pillow perfectly to cradle my neck without putting any pressure on the screaming nerves and muscles. My husband gently placed the heat pack on my shoulders as he has countless times over the course of our relationship. I smiled, but I wanted to cry. Not this week, Lord. Not this week. Why now? It was Josiah’s first week of medical school. And it wasn’t going according to plan.

If you were a fly on the wall of my home, you would quickly realize that I have a thing for charts. There is a wall calendar, a daily planner, a work to-do list, and an ideal daily schedule in the room with me as I write. My brain craves order. And while that is not a sin, control has often been my idol—an idol that is never satisfied and leaves me filled with anxiety as I try to predict what the next day, month, year will hold.

I was nineteen when the subtle theme of needing to surrender and trust my God became a resounding cymbal. Now I like to joke with my family that my stubborn do-it-all attitude meant God needed to slap me upside the head to stop me from running off a cliff. And he did it through a pinched nerve in my neck that set off a chain reaction leaving me bed-ridden for a short time and physically limited for, well, seven years now.

Josiah and I spent the weeks leading up to the start of medical school carefully preparing. We wrote down principles, guidelines, and (of course) schedules to help us navigate this new season. I thought we were ready. That I had everything in place to control how this week would go. I had even planned out what I needed to pack for his lunches and how I would make him blueberry muffins for his first day as a surprise breakfast item. I had everything ready, all my ducks in a row, and I was going to make starting school easy for my husband.

Instead, I spent the first three days in worst pain than I have been in for over a year—exhausted, unable to stomach much food, barely able to hold my five month old without feeling sick. I got behind in my Bible reading—little boxes left unchecked. The idea of blueberry muffins was laughable. I needed my husband to put our daughter down, rock her, play with her while his pile of schoolwork loomed large on the desk in our room.

Thursday I woke up feeling physically better. Spiritually, I was grumpy. I struggled to pray out my frustration, to confess my anxiety, to find gratitude, to believe that the Lord could work through me. How can I be a good mom if I can’t even play with my daughter? How can I be a good wife, run a hospitable home, bake those stupid muffins if I am so easily debilitated? I grudgingly opened my Bible, knowing that I needed to preach truth to myself. I checked my reading plan to see what I needed to catch up on. 2 Corinthians.

“So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” 2 Corinthians 4:16-18.

“But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly in my weakness that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” 2 Corinthians 12: 9-10

How gracious is our Lord? He uses my small trial to topple my idol over and over. And when I come back to him broken, frustrated, and confused—he always meets me and reminds me of the kind of God I am learning to surrender to. His grace is always enough. He will do far more with my weakness than I can ever do with my plans and schedules. He is my strength, my shield, my keeper, my redeemer. And when he demands that I surrender and trust him, he is doing it for my own good so that he can bring me more and more into the light of His glory. To surrender to him is to be made strong.

I don’t know if my head injury will ever be healed—if I will ever be able to play a game of volleyball or go on a run without meeting pain the next morning or if I will ever be able to do a small morning workout without wondering if it will throw my daily plans out the window. I wish that I could entirely predict what will cause a horrible episode like this week. I pray that one day it will simply be gone. But even more than I wish for healing, I wish that I never forgot His promises. I wish that I could wake up one day and never doubt His goodness, never question whether I really should trust Him. I pray that I will be a woman filled with peace and freedom, knowing that my God is in control. My flesh and heart fail me daily. But God’s grace. God’s grace never fails and never runs out. It meets me in my need through His Word, pointing me outward and upward towards Him. It meets me in my daughter and husband and all the gifts I have to rejoice in. It meets me in medicine and doctors and heat packs. When I faithfully open my eyes to find his grace, it overwhelms every aspect of my life. Even in blueberry muffins baked just a few days late.

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Don’t know where to find a plan that will help you start, keep up, and finish reading the Bible? Find us here! We would love for you to join us!

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