Homemaking is never this grandiose, beautiful, and aesthetic lifestyle we dream up as young women looking forward to having a home.

That kind of homemaking is only found in magazines, fiction books, and perhaps on Instagram LOL!

Homemaking is beautiful. I must say though that it is not as grand as it is often portrayed probably half the time… or more. Homemaking is hard work.

Often, homemaking is repetitive, monotonous, and even boring sometimes. It is also time-consuming and not as rewarding as we would like.

The problem with homemaking is that when you think you are done and lie down for a good night’s sleep, you will have to wake up the next day and do it all over again.

As if this is not enough, you have the onlooker who cannot seem to understand why you won’t just pay someone to do what you are doing and instead, engage in a more fulfilling activity that’s at least more rewarding. Or even better, get a corporate job and leave the homemaking to a house help or house manager.

Having been a stay-at-home homemaker for 15+ years, I want to throw in my two cents and share how I have found joy in the ordinary mundane lifestyle of a SAHM homemaker.

I trust that these 7 points will be a blessing, helping you experience joy as you serve God, your husband, your children, and those around you.

Do not neglect your Quiet Time with the Lord

When there’s a lot to be done, one of the things that will often suffer is our time with the Lord in the Word and prayer.

Now that we can’t see God physically, we imagine he is not the priority. The priority might be dealing with what’s on my plate in terms of priorities and what I see perhaps going wrong at the moment.

We forget that the source of our strength and fulfillment is the Lord himself. We lose bearing of the fact that clarity of understanding why we’re doing what we’re doing comes from him.

Our minds fail to recall that true joy comes from our knowing Jesus and continuing in a loving relationship with him.

When we lose sight of who God is to us, the result will be struggle, distress, and disillusionment.

Those around us will be victims of our bouts of rage, irritability, and foul mood.

Only God can fill your cup of inner joy, peace, and tranquility. Only he can help you to rise above the monotony and weariness of your work to help you keep at it with a melody in your heart.

Have you been neglecting your walk with God?

You are forfeiting so much! Make Quiet Time with God your ultimate priority.

I have made it my custom to wake up early every morning to spend time with God in the Word and prayer. This has been a game-changer, helping me experience God’s hand at work as I do my chores.

If you’re wondering how to have an effective Quiet Time or Personal Devotion with the Lord, you can read all about it in this blog here. I trust it will be helpful to you.

Be clear about your calling and purpose in life

Part of what brings disillusionment in a woman’s life is when they have no clarity of what they are living for. Without clarity of your purpose, the stay-at-home mom life might be the worst kind of life to live.

You might occupy yourself with cooking, laundry, tidying up, and caring for babies and teenagers. When that season of your life is over, you will feel like a zombie: Clueless, purposeless, and rudderless!

Knowing your calling and purpose helps you define why you do what you do. It will help you do your chores with a greater sense of purpose, knowing that your impact goes beyond the present, reaching many more beyond you when you are long gone from the earth.

You’ll wake up with a sense of anticipation. You will extend grace to yourself when you fail. You will view the recipients of your labor differently, knowing you are preparing them for eternity.

Our calling and purpose help us go beyond ourselves to view life with our eyes focused on eternity rather than focusing on our immediate circumstances. This will help us make more solid decisions based on truth rather than our present reality.

If you are wondering what your purpose in life is, this blog post here will help you to discover your purpose and calling.

Keeping these words by the apostle Paul of old in mind will be very helpful as you pursue your call and purpose because that purpose exists. God already ordained it.

“We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (Ephesians 2:10)

Embrace disruptions and interruptions with grace

I am one given to perfectionism and ensuring everything is in place. Having a family and children shook this part of my personality to the core.

I soon realized that life will not always afford me the luxury of a well-planned day without interruption and disruption to my well-crafted program. Children do not come with discipline and order software installed!

At one point, I wondered whether it was worth it to plan when I’d find myself constantly interrupted. This was until I realized it was important to plan but I also needed to learn to embrace disruptions and interruptions.

I had to learn what it meant for Jesus to be Lord over my times and seasons. I had to learn to entrust every moment of each day to him, knowing he could allow it to go differently than how I’d planned.

The interruptions and disruptions often looked like guests popping in unannounced, my little one disrupting my sleeping pattern, a huge spill in the kitchen that took me 30 minutes to sort, a chore that took twice as much time as I had allocated… and the list could go on and on.

Learning to relax and trust that God is at work in all these, helping me to embrace what he is doing rather than what I think is important doesn’t come easy.

I’m still on the journey of graciously embracing disruptions and interruptions as ways God will use to help me align more with what he is doing and what he wants to accomplish in and through me. Perhaps these are what we need to remain humble and malleable.

Find a creative outlet for your gifts, talents, and Skills

One sure way of beating boredom, or experiencing the little pockets of delight and excitement for a homemaker is engaging in doing something you enjoy.

God has endowed us with gifts and talents that he wants to use to minister to others for his glory. For some, these gifts and talents are waiting to be discovered.

As we pray, I trust God can lead us as mothers to take a little time out of our schedule to engage in an activity we look forward to doing each day.

Skills we learn along the way are also a wonderful way of using our time. As we begin an activity, we long to see it completed. In the process, we find ourselves delighting in each moment of our day because of the anticipation we have due to a project we’re longing to finish.

Knitting, crocheting, weaving mats, and working with beads to make jewelry are skills I learned during different seasons as a homemaker. I enjoyed these skills and added to this fact was that some of them would be very therapeutic.

One of my creative outlets has been sharing my recipes on my YouTube channel. You can find it here. The kitchen has become my creative space.

Sharing recipes has sparked my creativity, making cooking and hospitality a joy and a delight.

Think about how you can creatively use your gifts, talents, and skills in a way that would bring you joy and fulfillment. I trust that God will show you how. It might just form the highlight of your day, making the stay-at-home life less of a drudgery.

Take Rest seriously

Not many moms I know take rest seriously.

There’s always a lot to do. We feel like something will go wrong if we take time off to take it easy and rest.

I am guilty as charged when it comes to not taking rest seriously. I tend to be a doer. I want every single minute to be fruitfully and productively occupied. If this doesn’t happen, I feel lazy. I imagine I’m not using my time wisely.

If you are like me, taking time to rest feels like a sin.

God demonstrated by example in the scriptures that he worked for 6 days, creating the universe and everything in it. He then rested on the 7^th day.

Even with the understanding that rest in the New Testament is knowing God through his Son Jesus Christ, we also learn that the principle of rest for the physical body remains.

To be productive and fruitful, we must let our bodies rest and rejuvenate as we continue the homemaking journey.

In the recent past, I’ve noticed a sudden surge of knowledge and information on mental health in many circles today. Could this be because many of us are not taking physical rest seriously?

Depending on your season, you and I may not have the luxury of a full day of rest. Doubtless, we can learn to work with snippets of time in our day or week.

Taking a little nap during the day, reading a book, taking a walk down a quiet country road, perhaps having nails or hair done, etc. might be activities that could present little opportunities for refreshing and rest.

You could also take a Sunday afternoon off after church to engage in a fun activity as a family.

Find what works in your context to help you feel rested to serve your family and household better.

Constantly remember your why

I began by saying that the SAHM life can appear boring. You might feel like you are getting nothing done. You will often feel left out by your “progressive” peers while you are “wasting” your life away at home.

Remind yourself that your lifestyle is a choice, not a compulsion. Many will try to discourage you but you must trust the Lord to remain on track.

Some of the women out there are suffering anguish in those corporate offices. Their lives might be more monotonous than yours. The pressure to perform is oppressive. They may not be having it as easy as they make it sound.

You however need a higher point of reference that keeps you going. You need a solid why of why you are doing what you are doing.

Your why is the big picture that will keep you doing what you are doing.

This big picture will affirm your conviction of why you have embraced the stay-at-home mom life.

It will go beyond what others think or say, helping you remain on course.

It will also help you find joy and delight in washing those dishes repetitively, for instance, wiping the little noses constantly, dealing with soiled clothes, doing the laundry, and hearing chattering little voices around you day after day.

After studying the Scriptures and understanding that it was God’s will for me to be home full-time, I soon realized my why would feature prominently, especially when in doubt.

I knew one of the reasons God led me this way was to raise our children to be godly offspring by training them. I needed to offer my daughters leadership by example.

I knew it wasn’t enough to teach and train them what to do. They needed to see me live what I was telling them every day.

The ordinary and mundane took on a new purpose. I realized that it was in the ordinary and mundane that I would train valuable lessons in walking with God, walking in integrity, passing on values and skills, and walking the talk.

It was important for my children to see godliness modeled before them. My presence was key in this process.

What is your why? It will breathe life and vitality into your ordinary and mundane.

Learn to deal with the tyranny of the urgent

This seventh point was nonexistent until a few days ago when I was talking to a close friend.

After listening to me for a few minutes, she immediately recommended The Tyranny of the Urgent book by Charles E. Hummel.

Knowing my problem might be facing another mama reading this, I thought to include this last point.

As my friend explained, dealing with the tyranny of the urgent is about learning to prioritize what is important over what is urgent.

The urgent often screams for our attention so much that it causes us to say no to what is important to deal with what is urgent.

I lead the ministry wing of a Christian ministry that ministers to women. This often makes me very busy.

We realized that I was slowly neglecting what was important, even what seemed mundane and ordinary, for what looked more progressive such as reaching many women with the truth of God’s Word.

Finding joy in the mundane and ordinary is about having your priorities right. It is finding joy in the fact that you are doing the right thing, at the right time, and for the glory of God.

It is learning to embrace your life as a SAHM with all that comes with it as a priority. It is about learning to embrace every mundane task as your lot from the Lord, believing that he is accomplishing a greater purpose in this.

It is about learning to say no to the glamorous and saying yes to God’s will in a particular season of your life.

This is what I am learning about dealing with the tyranny of the urgent, trusting God to help me embrace the ordinary and mundane as part of my expression of the stay-at-home mom life. I pray this will be helpful to you too.

How to Find Joy in the Ordinary and Mundane as a Stay-at-home Homemaker

Do not neglect your Quiet Time with the Lord

Be clear about your calling and purpose in life

Embrace disruptions and interruptions with grace

Find a creative outlet for your gifts, talents, and Skills

Take Rest seriously

Constantly remember your why

Learn to deal with the tyranny of the urgent

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