The Beautiful Life

Making your home a place of refuge

We’re in week 5 of the book study over at Passionate Homemaking. This week is all about making your home a place of refuge. For some of us, it means inviting someone to stay for an extended visit. For others, it’s having a guest room always available for someone coming in from out of town. Those are great things to aspire to, but it can also be an overwhelming thought for someone like me. In the midst of homeschooling three young children, working from home, keeping up with the housework, etc. it can be enough to push me over the edge. I’m an introvert, and I need time alone to feel like myself. So how can I make my home a place of refuge?

Well, for starters, our home should be a place of refuge for my family. I want my family to always be glad to come home. Practically speaking, keeping the house tidy and having something in the pot for dinner go a long way. But even more important is my attitude. Am I making each person in my family feel welcome, safe, secure in our home? Am I showing love in my actions and words? When my husband comes home from work, am I distracted and grumpy, or do I take the time to put down what I am doing, and reconnect after a long day? When my children are sad or frustrated, do I say “just a minute” and spend another half hour on the computer? Or do I stop what I am doing and take the time to make eye contact and give them a hug?

What about others outside of our immediate family? I can invite a newcomer over for lunch after church, or a sister to eat cookies and hang out in the middle of a busy week at school. I can take a meal to a grieving widow, or a new mom. A break from loneliness, from boredom, from busy-ness, from stress, from the pressures of life. Refuge.

And it’s not just our homes that become places of refuge, but we ourselves become a refuge. Christ is our refuge, and because He lives in us, we can be a refuge to others.

“But let all who take refuge in you rejoice; let them ever sing for joy. Spread your protection over them, so that those who love your name may exult in you.” –Psalm 5:11

2 Comments to Making your home a place of refuge