Is your home always perfectly curated and clean as if it were straight out of a Southern Home magazine? Because mine is….

…..not.

With a lot of little children in our home (including a capital T-toddler, as I like to say), it all gets messy quick. There is a lot of life lived in the Mefford home.

If left to itself, each room and hallway would be a disaster zone by the end of day 1, because there are plenty of sweet, grimy little fingers touching counters, dirty feet that patter down the hallway, and clothes and books that get strewn all over the floor because someone got distracted by the squirrel outside. And this mom doesn’t have time to follow everyone around picking and cleaning up all day- that is not my focus each and every day, because there is much more to life than trying to contain and control the mess.

So, does that mean I just let it go, and blame it on the season of life since I’m outnumbered by a lot of little people during the day? While that is an understandable temptation, I would argue that it’s not one to give in to for most women.

Learning to keep a home requires intentionality and wisdom (see Proverbs 24: 3-4; Proverbs 14:1). It’s a skill that we have to learn (see Titus 2). And Matthew 25: 14-30 also implies that our homes are something that God entrusts to us, and He expects us to be good stewards of them.

But how?

While some women are simply lazy and don’t want to take care of their things, I think that this is an oversimplified explanation for many Christian women who struggle with letting a messy home go. From what I’ve seen and experienced, a lot of times, this boils down to mindset and approach. These women can tend to overcomplicate something, that (good news) really can be very simple.

The Perfectionist Mindset

Believe it or not, some women who have messy homes are perfectionists. They have an all-or-nothing mindset, and if they can’t do the massive deep clean in one fail swoop, then it doesn’t happen. It’s put off for another day, another week, and before they know it, months go by and the grime is thick, the dust piled high, and the clutter overwhelming.

This is a demoralizing way to approach the home, because then it leads one to think that they are just simply messy - and it will probably always be that way.

I have some bad news, and good news to share about this.

Bad news first: If a woman puts off stewarding the home until life slows down, she is no longer outnumbered, and she’s got the extra time and energy to overhaul the home– she will probably always be that way. One obvious reason is that life doesn’t slow down, but the other big (and not-so-obvious) reason that it boils down to is mindset.

The perfectionistic mindset overcomplicates managing a home. It’s impossible to “finish” the job, because the home is cyclical, as our world is. The sun rises and sets, the clothes get put on and taken off, and people need to eat. The home is for the people that we love, and people move things around and use what’s in the home. So the perfectionistic mindset of finishing a job, and calling it done, is not aligned with reality.

The Good (& Counterintuitive) News

This is counterintuitive to many, but the amount of time, energy, and mental bandwidth that we think we need to take care of the home is actually much less than we think.

Yes, it takes time. But it's not complicated.

If we want to have a tidy, hospitable, and a peaceful home for all who walk in (family included), it boils down to having a handful of simple, little habits and rhythms that help us cultivate a home like that. That’s it. We plod away little-by-little, with habits that help us faithfully steward our homes– for the glory of God, and the joy of our people.

This has been a wonderful epiphany for me over the years, because I can do bite-sized habits. I may not be able to dust the fans every week, but I can follow a rhythm of the day that helps me get a nourishing dinner on the table, laundry done, and the rooms relatively clean & tidy so that we can enjoy our home as a family. And bonus- I’m no longer embarrassed if my mom or mother-in-law were to haphazardly drop by (if that says anything).

If you would like some inspiration for some little habits that can help you manage your home, in this week’s episode I share the 7 simple habits that help me keep a clean & tidy home, even with six children aged ten and under. If that would bless you, you can watch that below.

May the Lord bless you and the good works of your hands this week.

"A branch cannot bring forth fruit unless it receive nourishment from the vine." — Thomas Watson