A Radiant Home

“She looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children rise up and call her blessed.”
— Proverbs 31:27-28 (ESV)

Dearest Daughters,

When you hear the word “home,” what rises in your heart?

For me, it’s not just a word; it’s a feeling. A deep, almost painful tug, like something written into our very bones. After a long trip, a hard day, or even a hospital stay, all I can think about is home. There’s something magnetic about it, so powerful that the word “homesick” has been invented just to describe the ache we feel when we’re away from it too long.

We remember the laughter around the dinner table, the comfort of familiar routines, the scent of dinner on the stove, the way the walls hold our stories. Home is where we feel safe. It’s where we belong. It’s where we are most ourselves.

So, my daughters, there is another ache in my heart that I want to describe: If home is such a sacred and vital place, why is the word “homemaker” spoken with so much discomfort, even disdain, in this world around us? This truly grieves to me.

If you say you spend 2,000 hours a year in an office cubicle, staring at spreadsheets, people will nod approvingly. Say you wear a paper cap and rubber gloves to press buttons on an x-ray machine, or clean the teeth of strangers all day, and they’ll commend your discipline and your contribution to society.

But if you say you are a full-time wife and mother? Say you are a keeper of the home? An awkward hush falls. A shadow of pity or confusion flickers across faces. Just a housewife? Only a homemaker?

As if you’ve given up.

Daughters, never forget: you haven’t given up anything! You have taken up something holy.

I don’t say this because I’m bitter that homemaking has been demeaned. I say it because I love being a woman! I love being your mother. I love creating a beautiful space for peace and welcome. I love the behind-the-scenes steady work of nurturing life and light in our home. And I believe, with all my heart, that this work, done in faith and love, is a sacred calling.

Recovering the dignity and mission of womanhood is not drudgery to me. It’s delight.

I truly believe that in the beautiful symphony of life, family, community, and faith, we women have been entrusted with a powerful anthem. We are privileged to bring the Kingdom of Heaven into kitchens, into laundry rooms, into bedtime prayers and warm plates passed around the table. We are honored to keep the flame burning day after faithful day.

You see, the problem is not the calling itself. It’s the caricature. The distortion. The counterfeit that turns biblical submission into subjugation or paints homemaking as small, dull, or regressive. These lies shrink something beautiful into something bitter—and that, my dear ones, is what we must resist.

I pray you will see the home for what it really is: a sanctuary. A garden. A training ground. A holy outpost of heaven in a weary world. And I want you to know that to tend that space with love, wisdom, and joy is no small thing.

It is legacy. It is strength. It is purpose.

Let’s redeem the word “homemaker,” not merely with nostalgia, but with vision! Let’s lift it up where it belongs, not in pride, but in peace. Let’s show the world that a woman who loves her home, who creates beauty, who serves with laughter and tears and open arms is not less. She is more.

More than the world can measure. More than earthly culture will ever understand.

And her joy? Her purpose? It is waiting to be rediscovered. Let that joy shine through you, and let everything you do in and for your home and family be radiant with God’s purpose.

With all my love,

Mom