By Rachel
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Homemaking has been a crucial part of the family unit for as long as people have existed. It is in the home where we begin and end our days. Where some of our favorite memories are made and we feel most comfortable. Homemaking is simply creating the environment and the physical space for all of this to take place. Think of the ways a mother plans out her day to benefit her family and make a day goes as smooth as possible. She makes sure breakfast is made in the morning. She delegates chores to herself and her children to make sure basic household needs are met, like dishes, laundry, pet or livestock care. The world has tried to degrade women who wish to be homemakers and label them as “oppressed”. But deep down, or not so deep down for some of us, most women have a longing to be exactly what we are told has oppressed women for centuries. We long to wake up every morning to a husband who works to provides for us, and children to care for. We long to live like the proverbs 31 women who is looked up to by so many in the church. The women who works so hard to make her house a home for her family. This is a God given longing. It’s what he created us for. Just look at the creation story in Genesis 2. God created Eve to be the help meet for Adam. Eve was the first homemaker, and all women after her were created to fulfill that in their own lives. Because it’s what women were created for it’s what we naturally long for.
This longing is hard enough for married women today, because culture pushes them to have jobs outside of the home and “contribute to society”. But it’s even harder for the unmarried women with no children. If you are single right now and your only ambition in life is to be a homemaker than hear me. You are not alone. I am right there with you. I am single, not currently dating anyone and my biggest dream is to be a stay at home homeschool mom and homemaker. I know how hard that is. I remember realizing this was what I wanted while I was in college. I was majoring in interior design and was surrounded by girls who had great ambitions to work at design firms in big cities like Dallas or Houston. These girls all seemed so excited when they toured firms or listened to our professors talk about the professional design world. As hard as I tried to channel this same passion for interior design I couldn’t. What I loved about interior design was learning how create a home for my future family. I found building codes and electrical plans interesting but I was missing the passion.
I spent so many hours in prayer trying to find a passion for my major but I couldn’t. So I changed what I was praying and starting asking God what I was made to be passionate about. The more I leaned into this prayer, the more I started revisiting dreams from my childhood. As a little girl I love the Little House on the Prairie book series and romanticized the thought of having my own family and living on a farm. I was fascinated by the old way of life and simple living of the American Pioneers and wished I could have that same life where my main job was to care for my family and make a home.
This was a hard realization because it was so looked down on. I attended a Christian college, but even there I was surrounded by people who didn’t understand the God given desire to be a homemaker. Students and professors would ask me what I wanted to do once I graduated and I would tell them I really just wanted to be a mom and homemaker. Usually the response to this would be “Ok but what to you want to do?” This was so discouraging and made me feel like my dreams were invalid. I felt stuck in a world I didn’t want to be in and as if I was born in the wrong time period. And to make matters worse, I was single. There wasn’t even the option of just getting married and proving to everyone that my dreams were attainable. But try as I might, I could not shake the desire. The more I prayed, the more passionate I became about it.
If this is where you are then let this be an encouragement to you. I am still single. I am still not dating anyone, but I feel like I am closer to my dreams of being a homemaker than I ever have been. How did I get to this place? First of all, I evaluated my life and got rid of anything that hindering me from becoming a homemaker, and started preparing for the day I become a homemaker. For me this looked like leaving college. College was not getting me anywhere I wanted to be and I was piling up student loans that I couldn’t pay for. Not only that, but it was also taking up all my time. I wanted to start focusing on how to make my dreams a reality but couldn’t because school was extremely demanding and took all my time. People kept telling me to just get the degree and move on, but that made no sense to me. College is supposed to prepare you for your future but nothing about it was preparing me for mine so I made the decision to leave and start preparing for the day I would be a homemaker.
Start Living Like There is a Tomorrow
They tell you to live like there’s no tomorrow but in the case of homemaking that is awful advise. While no, nothing is promised, odds are there will tomorrow. And if a homemaker does not prepare for the next day/season, her home will suffer for it. The same is true for us single women waiting to become homemakers. If we start preparing now for what is we desire in the future it will bless our future families immensely. So after leaving college I decided to start living like there is a tomorrow and get ready for that day.
Start Becoming Financially Stable
College wasn’t preparing me for the life I wanted so I left and decided to focus on what would prepare me. Being a stay at home mom is extremely important to me. My mom stayed at home with my siblings and I growing up and I want to be able to do this one day for my own family. In order to do this I know my future husband and I will need to be financially stable enough for it to be possible. College was costing me money and hindering me from making any so I left and started full time nannying. I highly recommend nannying to any single girl who loves kids and wants to be a stay at home mom one day. First of all because it gives you experience with kids and gives you an inside to the world of parenting. You get to learn a lot about good vs. bad parenting and how you want to raise your own kids one day. Secondly, it makes money. I’m able to both save up money and pay off the loans I have from college. Saving money and not just making it is important because being financially stable enough to stay at home when the time comes is important to me. This is another reason I recommend nannying. People will pay good money for you to watch their kids.
I also recommend looking into ways you can make money on your own. I would love to still be bringing in a little income once I am a homemaker without it hindering my ability to stay at home. This could be starting your own business. I know it sounds big and scary but it’s really not as scary as it sounds. Think about what you are good at, what you enjoy, and what you are passionate about. Then start brainstorming how you could make money off of this. I love baking. I always have. So I started a from home baking business. It’s nothing extravagant but it’s fun for me and it makes a little income on the side. It’s also not my main source of income so there is no pressure to make it crazy successful but it’s something I know I’ll always enjoy and be capable of so it’s a good option for extra money.
I am also an aspiring dog breeder. It’s no secret that I love dogs. I’ve always wanted to breed and I was given the opportunity a couple of years ago to get started on this dream. My family needed farm dogs for our growing homestead and I got to pick out the breed and convinced my parents to let me breed them. I’m only at the beginning of this journey but it will be another way I will be able to make money from home.
Start Learning the Skills you Want to Have as a Homemaker
How do you want to run your household when you have one? Do you want a weekly cleaning schedule? A monthly budget? How do you want your family to eat? Do you want to feed your family organically and make your own bread and grow your own food? These will all be important to your family one day so why not start figuring them out now? Even if it is not your own, you have some type of household right now. I live with three other single girls. It can be hard because I don’t get to do whatever I want to my house. I share it other girls who live in the same space, so I don’t get to decorate however I want. I have to arrange my kitchen around not just my needs and preferences but the needs and preferences of them too. So this can be hard I know, but you can at the very least start thinking about these types of things. I still get to plan out my own eating schedule and I do lots of the cleaning in my house. I can start learning how to make nutritious food and meal prep for busy weeks. I am extremely passionate about how and what we eats affects so much of our lives and can start learning now how I want to feed my family someday. I would love to grow my own food and make my own bread one day for my family, but I don’t have to wait to do that. I can learn how to do all of that now. All you have to do is decide what you want to do and then learn how to do it. With youtube and Pinterest it’s actually really easier than ever to learn pretty much anything.
Work on Yourself
This is probably the hardest but it’s so important. One of the jobs of a homemaker is to be the spiritual keeper of your home. God designed husbands to be the spiritual leaders yes, but wives get to follow the lead of their husbands and become the keepers of their home’s spiritual atmosphere. This is perhaps the most important responsibility of a homemaker. You get to set the spiritual atmosphere in your home. The atmosphere your kids will be raised in, your guests will experience, and your husband will come home to. It’s impossible to set a good spiritual atmosphere if you are struggling with setting that same atmosphere in your heart. Everything we do flows from our hearts. So if we expect to have good results everywhere else in our lives then we have to figure out how to be right in our hearts. Right with ourselves and right with the Lord. Are you at rest in your heart with who you are and is God at rest with who you are in your heart? It’s a hard question to ask and an even harder question to work through but it’s so important. You have to live like there is a tomorrow in this because at the end of the day if you still don’t know how to make bread once you are married it’s not that big of a deal. But if your heart is not in the right place it will affect your family and your homemaking.
As hard as they can be, your single years are a sweet invitation from God to let him work on your heart and get you to a healthy place where you are able to be a good spiritual keeper for your home. Rest in knowing that we will always be on this journey and it’s not just for us single girls, but be inspired to let the Lord better you and equip you for what’s to come. Do this by asking the hard questions like what trauma or heart postures do I have that will hinder me in being a good homemaker/spiritual keeper? Don’t be afraid to go deep. There is no place you could go where God won’t shed his light and healing on. I highly recommend to every girl single or not to read through Captivating by John and Stasi Eldredge. It’s a good read and helps you understand your femininity, which will in turn help you heal any wounds in your heart that could hinder your ability to be a Godly homemaker.
Stay Hopeful
It’s hard I know. That yearning to be a homemaker can feel crushing. Especially when all your friends are there and you are not. I get it. I see you. I’m there with you. But God also see’s you. God put that desire in you, and it’s not in vain. I know this because the closer I get to God and the more I lean into him, the stronger this yearning becomes. It can be so hard to understand His timing but just trust him. He has never led me astray and he won’t lead you astray. As long as you are making him your first priority and desire, everything else will one day fall into place. Being married is not the end goal ladies. Christ is the end goal. look to him and ask him to become the first desire of your heart. Once you are there all your other goals will either grow dim or fall in line with his will. He does not give your heart desires just to tease you. He gives them to you and invites you to bring them to him and let him grow them into something beautiful. So give your dreams and desire to him, then live in the hope that there is a tomorrow, and it is in the hands of Jesus. And it will be more than you could ever hope for.
