Cleaning House: Starting with my Heart!
Here is a very up close and personal article I wrote for Help Club for Moms. It’s a look inside the typically unblogged, un-glamorous realities of daily life. It’s geared toward moms for the ministry, but there’s some real truth and real talk for everyone!
“Who could ever find a wife like this one— she is a woman of strength and mighty valor! She’s full of wealth and wisdom. The price paid for her was greater than many jewels. Her husband has entrusted his heart to her, for she brings him the rich spoils of victory.” Proverbs 31:10-11 (TPT)
“Let the wife make the husband glad to come home, and let him make her sorry to see him leave.” Martin Luther
I met and married my husband five years after becoming an adoptive mom. We struggled to learn how to live together, find family rhythms and agree on how to keep our home. I had long before disregarded my obsessive cleanliness to focus on my son’s unique needs, and my husband felt anxious in any degree of disorder.
My husband has told me he doesn’t feel valued when he comes home to disorder. I felt unseen for my work in and outside the home and became offended. This is exactly what the Devil wants to do, mama! Our enemy prowls around our un-unified, discontented homes like a lion, looking for opportunities to steal, kill and destroy.
You can take a big step to clean your house of bitterness, discontentedness and hurt right now, no matter your circumstances. It always starts in your own heart. I recently had a breakthrough in this area.
During a time of prayer and fasting, God graciously let me see that the pride, twisted perspective, and self-justification I was holding on to was hindering growth and happiness in me, our marriage and our home life. The words of Jesus instructed me: “Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it” (Matt 10:39).
As an act of worship, I decided to put aside my pain, preferences, and even my values to serve my husband’s. I felt an unexpected joy surge through me when I committed to making my husband’s values my first priority and putting my own aside completely.
I started practicing Help Club’s “5 o’clock pick-up” and the “Focus 15”, in which you set a timer for just 15 minutes and quickly pick up the house with your kids, – and it worked. (Click here to learn more about that.) My husband came home one day and told me how peaceful, valued and happy he was to be home. I was exhausted from hustling the entire day to get to that one 5 o’clock moment, but the delight of the Lord overpowered my fatigue. It always takes extra energy to start new habits, especially when you’re re-training your heart and mind.
Dear friend, when you operate in God’s order for your life (Jesus, spouse, children, home, and then everything else), you clear the pipeline for His happiness to flow through you freely. You truly find yourself!
Let’s Pray: Thank you Jesus for helping me find You when I lose sight. Show me if there are any areas in my heart, marriage, family or home that I need to surrender to you, and help me surrender them. Help me to lay down my own preferences the way You did and find peace that surpasses understanding in You, Jesus. Amen.
With love,
Kacy Ladd and the Help Club for Moms team
Read along with us at helpclubformoms.com