I have to take a quick detour as I introduce today’s post. This is a guest post written by my oldest daughter, who got married over the summer. The most important thing is that she demonstrates a biblical wisdom here that brings great joy to her daddy and me. But for the sake of those who have been reading around here about unschooling, I’d like to point out that even before we officially began unschooling, I refrained from using formal writing instruction for her. (She loved writing stories, and I didn’t want to squash that by making “writing” something she viewed as a chore.) As you can see, our more organic approach was more than adequate.

Do you ever feel like others have a purpose that’s so much clearer than yours? Like yours is so much more vague and ambiguous—or even unimportant—in comparison?

This is something I’ve struggled with recently as I discuss femininity and homemaking with other ladies from my church. They’re absolutely lovely ladies, older women whom I hope to be like when I grow up and whose households are full of beauty and happy husbands and joyful children.

Meanwhile, I’ve only been married for three months and I’m the one woman in the group who doesn’t have any kids yet.

Naturally, the conversation skews toward how women fulfill their roles in “having dominion over the earth and subduing it” alongside their husband in the context of having babies and raising children. And there is nothing wrong with that!

But sometimes it can be easy to lose sight of the purpose in homemaking when you don’t have children yet—or can’t have children at all, or have no children left at home—so today I want to provide some encouragement to other childless homemakers as a reminder to all of us that our work has value even while there are no children in our homes.

Making a loving home for our husbands

“The older women likewise…admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed.” – Titus 2:3-4

When we dream of shaping a home in which to raise up children, it can sometimes be easy to forget that our homes are not only a means by which to bless and provide for children but also a means by which we bless and express love toward our husbands.

This is especially obvious to me when I do our laundry. When I do the laundry, it provides my husband with clean clothes that are not only neatly folded but also put in their proper places so that he can easily find what he needs when he needs it. The “mundane” task of doing the laundry is a means by which we equip our husbands for the work they’re called to, fulfilling our purpose as their helpmeets and expressing our love for our husbands in joyfully fulfilling their needs.

This is true of every part of homemaking. When we keep our homes clean and tidy, we provide a safe and lovely home for our husbands. When we beautify the house, we add beauty and joy to the space our husbands come home to every night. When we prepare meals, we provide for our husband’s everyday needs and show our love through that.

Homemaking is an act of love and a blessing to our husbands.

Shaping an industrious home

In that Titus 2 passage, women are called to be “discreet…homemakers,” and we are warned elsewhere in Scripture that women are to keep busy in their own homes so as not to fall into gossip or idleness (Tim. 5:11-14). Besides this, a look at the Proverbs 31 woman shows a wife who is prudent and hard-working, bringing increase to her household not only through the raising up of children (though that is, obviously, a very worthy increase and one that is also mentioned!) but also in the production of goods and in business savvy; she brings financial increase to her household as well as spiritual increase.

Homemaking is the work that God has called us to. The wise woman builds up her house (Prov. 14:1) in the understanding that her home is the home base from which she fulfills the dominion mandate alongside her husband and strengthens him to do the same. This is true even if you and your husband are charging forward with this mission as the only members of your family unit!

As we build up our homes, it ought to be with a mind toward godly increase in whatever task God has set before us—whether raising children or growing a business from home, growing a profitable garden, serving our neighbors and others who experience our hospitality, growing in wisdom, etc.

Of course, all things should be properly ordered. A woman’s own house and family are her first biblical responsibility, and a biblical wife operates in submission to her husband. Follow your husband’s guidelines for the home and operate in a manner deserving of his trust as the Proverbs 31 woman has the trust of her husband (v. 11).

Likewise, all things should be pursued with a biblical attitude of “seeking first the kingdom of God,” remembering that “every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights,” and trusting that all we need shall be added to us apart from our own efforts; if we’re motivated to seek increase for its own sake, something is wrong!

But to seek this sort of increase in a biblical manner is one means by which we “have dominion over the earth and subdue it,” and it enables us to bless those around us more freely and give with greater liberality.

Embracing our freedom to extend hospitality

“Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some have unwittingly entertained angels.” – Hebrews 13:2

“Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another… distributing to the needs of the saints, given to hospitality.” – Romans 12:10,13

Hospitality is a responsibility that we are called to take up as Christians—whether we have children or not—but those of us without children can often have greater freedom in fulfilling this call since our schedules are only filled with two people’s worth of events, only two people’s energy levels have to be taken into account, and only two (grown) people are responsible for the messes around our homes. Generally speaking, we have fewer challenges in the way of extending hospitality than mothers with children do, and we can serve those mothers—as well as others in the church and in our communities—through the opening of our homes to them and their children and the taking of some of the weight they carry (blessed though that weight may be, it is still weight).

Hospitality doesn’t stop at opening our homes, either. Hospitality extends to other means of making people welcome and inviting them into community with you, such as inviting others into discussion, hosting groups outside the home as well as in it, inviting people to join you for outings, etc. The same advantages of more energy and a freer schedule apply to these extensions of hospitality as well as those within the home.

One of my favorite things about keeping a home is that my sister’s youth game night can meet in my house and I can extend hospitality to her and her friends. I also love that I can easily invite the church ladies’ book club to meet at my house, despite the awkwardness of trying to figure out how to best serve women who do have children—and their children themselves—when I have little personal experience.

Hospitality isn’t always smooth; it takes practice—and sometimes different practice with different groups of people—but it is such a lovely thing that we can step up to this responsibility with such freedom, even as we stumble through the awkwardness and our own fumbling. We have relatively free rein to build up the skill of hospitality and bless others through the task of homemaking that we’ve been given.

Reflecting the Household of God

“Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.” – Eph. 5:22-33

One purpose of marriage—and, beyond that, of our households as a whole—is to reflect the relationship between Christ and the Church. Our households ought to be mirrors of the household of God.

If we wish for our households to continue in faithful reflection of God’s own, it begins with the relationship we have with our husbands—which we have ample time to strengthen while husband and wife are the only members of the household! Strengthening this foundation—practicing submission to and respect for our husbands, learning to love each other as we are called to do—not only fulfills this call in our marriages but also sets the tone for the marriage that our future children (or grown children, or other young people we minister to) will see and emulate.

Just as the household of God cannot grow in a healthy direction if the Church does not submit to Christ and the relationship between Christ and Church is hindered, our own households will not be able to grow in a godly manner if we are not pursuing the biblical pattern in our marriages first.

Preparing for children

This last point applies, obviously, to those of us who don’t have children yet and not to those who can’t have children or whose children have grown and gone. But if you’re in the “waiting” stage with me, look at your homemaking as preparation.

Stages of waiting are stages in which God prepares us for the next thing, whether we’re waiting for a husband, children, or some other change or blessing in our lives. Sometimes the next thing isn’t what we hope it will be and God surprises us with something we didn’t know we were preparing for. But often when we’re waiting and praying for a particular change, God is using that time to prepare us for our desire. As we are promised in Psalm 37:3-5 and Proverbs 16:3, God gives us the desires of our heart when we trust in Him, wait on Him, and commit our plans to His care.

In homemaking, we are preparing a home for children. We are not only preparing the physical space that our children will one day grow up in, but also the rhythms of life that they will be born into and that will shape the culture of our home both now—while we and our husbands are the only members of that culture—and in the future when new children are raised up in that culture.

Our children will see us get up in the morning to make ourselves a cup of tea and read our Bibles, they will see us diligently take on laundry day, they will see us persistently wash the dishes every night, they will see us prepare food for our houses each month. These are just examples from my own rhythms, and of course household rhythms will change with the changes to our households and our lives. But our children will see, and they will learn, and they will become part of those rhythms that we’re establishing and adjusting and re-establishing—whether we’ve developed our patterns intentionally or not.

So we must mind our rhythms. We must mind the culture of our homes. And we must be conscious of the rhythms and culture that we’re shaping, to develop cultures of diligence and hospitality that mirror the culture of the household of God. The atmosphere and practice of our homes ought to be shaped with intention to reflect the love and law of God for the edification of our whole families—our husbands, our future children, and ourselves—as well as all those who enter from without.