Time For Home
Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home.
~Edith Sitwell
Contentment must first be learned at home. If a girl is not content at home, she will not find contentment for very long in any one place. Contentment is having a deep, abiding sense of well-being and happiness, even when things around you are not ideal.
One way to gain the ability to be satisfied with life is to have a steadiness of purpose. Although it may rain when you wanted it fine, you are able to quickly find a substitute activity that will be useful and beneficial. Contentment sometimes depends upon your ability to be resourceful, a trait which can also be learned by substituting things when you do not have what you need. Being resourceful means finding different ways of doing things when other plans fail.
Steadiness can be achieved by sticking to something until it is completed, even if it cannot be done all at once. If this is not practiced, it may be more difficult to stay dedicated to other kinds of duties which require more commitment.
Many women are restless and unable to understand that there will be an end to some trying times in life, and they will not put up with any inconvenience or any boredom or any hardship. If they learn at home, they are much better prepared for life's ups and downs, and can be content, even when others around them are undependable, disloyal, rude, or ungrateful.
Contentment also means being able to accept where God has put you in your life. Are you a daughter, a wife, a mother, a grandmother? Do not run away from it and try to alter your life unnaturally. Contentment means to make the best of whatever you are, in whatever place in life you are.
Discontentment brings on uneasiness and instability. Discontent makes it difficult to settle down or concentrate on worthwhile things. Contentment means waiting out the boring or sad times, but staying to the same course you set out on. Many people, in moments of discontent, abandon their families or their interests, and go off in pursuit of happiness. Happiness is achieved by getting through those times when your life does not seem to be "going anywhere."
If you will learn contentment, you can save yourself and your family a lot of grief. I know some young ladies who live at home with their parents, and they are a great help to them. Although they have friends who are always changing addresses, changing room mates, changing mates, changing jobs, and in general living a life of continual turmoil, these girls can always be depended upon to be the same.
Although they reside in the home of their childhood, these grown daughters are by no means uninteresting. They find interests in many different things, such as helping the elderly, letterboxing when they have free time, rearranging the furniture at home, and decorating seasonally for their mother, entertaining, sewing and cooking, all which take enormous amounts of time. They have no want of money, because someone is always gifting them for a service they provided or for making something for them.
One of these girls raises sheep and collects the wool for felting. Her felted projects are so colorful and it is interesting to watch her do it when she visits us. These girls have learned to do so many things and sometimes take on new interests, but their basic relationships remain the same. They have a stable and predictable family loyalty that they will not violate by being discontent.
Some of their friends are restless girls who do not know what to do at home. They would be better off to be content and help their parents, who put a lot of effort into raising them, than to spend so much time and money pursuing things that are worthless and bring no tangible results.
Here are some scriptures that define contentment:
Philippians 4:11 - We are to be content in all circumstances, both when we have abundance, and when we do not.
First Timothy 6:6 - Godliness with contentment is "great gain."
First Timothy 6:8 - Two things we should be content with are food and clothing.
Hebrews 13:5 - Be content with what you have.
I think we can easily say, that these verses show that contentment is pleasing to God and that he blesses us even more when we are content. When we are content, we are careful with our possessions, careful with our bodies, careful with our relationships. That brings manifold rewards, in due time.
Being discontent is being out of step with the creator and the creation. Discontent is a false leader and has led many people away from the stability of their families. A foolish woman is discontent, and can cause the loss of her own home.
One reason that some daughters do not want to stay home and apply themselves to becoming creative home keepers is that they have not learned contentment. When they do not learn how to be content, they become restless, and unable to take home living seriously.
Contentment has to be developed by good training. A young woman can train herself to be content, by finding a need and filling it. She can look around and see many things that need to be done, and do them in a beautiful and personal way that reflects her love and her creativity. Gradually, as she learns to do things that make home life happy, she will develop contentment.
If the outside world is constantly tugging at her and she is listening to the voices of those who say that she cannot be fulfilled at home, she will become discontent. Once she begins spending more time away from the responsibilities of the home, or from her family, she becomes even more restless and detached. She will attach herself to other people and other things not meant for her.
Contentment is productive. It finds things to do that are constructive and not destructive. The discontented person is also destructive in that they waste time, waste money, waste talents, waste personal possessions, and waste life. The best thing to do is to become oblivious to the voices that call us away from the important work of the home and concentrate on the tasks available to you.
When young women develop contentment, they can have satisfied minds, free from disturbance and inner conflict. Women who sew or cook or putter around their homes, crafting and creating, tend to be more content at home.
Evening at Home by Edward John Poynter, 1796-1886
“So far as this world knows or can vision, there is no attainment more desirable than the happy and contented home."
