[00:00:00] Christine: Hi friend, welcome back to the milspouse mastermind show. I’m so excited to dive into this concept of home with you today.

We’re on the second part of our series on home is where the military sends us. And we’re talking about how we create the feeling of home, regardless of where we’re stationed or how long we’ll be there.

[00:00:23] If you are feeling homesick or like something’s missing. Or you’re just ready to start loving where you live. This is the episode for you.

Now, before we dive in, can you help me out by knowing what your favorite episodes have been and what you want to discuss. I want to know what is most meaningful to you and how I can help you thrive as military spouse.

[00:00:52] So what can you do to let me know? Well, you can go share it on your Instagram, screenshot it in your episodes, tag me in it. So I know you can head over to our Facebook group, the milspouse mastermind community on Facebook. And send me a message in there, or just send me an email.

[00:01:15] hello at milspousemastermind.com. Let me know so that I can continue to help you and more military spouses like you, and help us all move towards the people that we want to be. I’m excited about bringing more helpful content to you and helping us all on our journeys.

[00:02:27] Okay. So today we are talking all about home. If you have gone on to our website and downloaded the growth wheel, you know that there are 10 core areas that make up a life of health and wholeness. Yes. Caring for ourselves is a huge part of having a healthy and whole life, a life of purpose, a life of joy, a life impact.

[00:02:57] Our relationships are a huge part of that wheel and our purpose or our contribution. What we do every day is a huge part of that growth wheel. One area that we don’t talk about quite so much is home. How we care for and cultivate our home. Last week, we talked about practical things we can do to make our space feel like home.

[00:03:28] Things like painting the walls, putting curtains up, hanging the pictures on the walls, having furniture that we can use in multiple spaces and in multiple configurations. Decorating with the things that reflect who we are. But today we’re going to talk about another element of creating a life giving home. Now what in the world is that?

[00:03:56] Well, I had the same question and it essentially boiled down to realizing that I wanted a home that was more than a house, more than just a place that we ate and slept, but I didn’t really have words for what that concept was and what I wanted our home to be. I figured there’s this element of hospitality, but to be honest, my idea of hospitality in the home had more to do with, you know, having the beautiful decor and throwing lavish parties with lots of people, lots of food having like all this seasonally-themed decor.

[00:04:41] That I didn’t have anywhere to store and didn’t really make sense for my life as a military spouse on the move and with three young kids at home, but in my current season, I was trying to figure out what home actually was and how to cultivate it in a practical way. In the military lifestyle. I stumbled on the book, the Life Giving Home: Creating a Place of Belonging and Becoming by Sally Clarkson and Sarah Clarkson. And it spoke to exactly the thing that I wanted to cultivate in our house. And I’ll say that I did not agree with everything in the book, but there were so many great nuggets, especially with regards to figuring out this concept of home in a season of frequent moves.

[00:05:40] Sally writes, Having a place and time to rest, to be encouraged and to find hope and healing is one of the most powerful gifts of a life giving home. So I started thinking about this concept of a life giving home. Home is more than just a place to eat and sleep. And for many of us to follow our passions and our purposes.

[00:06:07] It’s about the atmosphere that we’re creating. It’s about the traditions and practices that we want to incorporate in our lives. And it’s about how we want to use the physical space that we live in. No matter where we live, I want my children to experience home, to be both an expression of who we are as a family and a place that offers comfort and familiarity in our ever-changing lifestyle.

[00:06:36] The more that I thought about this, the more I realized I wanted this to be a place where others feel this sense of home as well. Now as military spouses, we know that a house is usually only for a defined period of time. Each house is going to be different, and each move is going to lead us to different relationships, to different experiences, different challenges. But home is something that can remain constant across time.

[00:07:16] It’s not really tied to a specific location. It’s a place where I can cultivate encouragement, belonging, and rest. And as Sally writes in the book, all great works of life must be planned in order to make them productive, useful, and flourishing. In other words, home doesn’t happen by accident.

[00:07:48] The more that we plan for and cultivate home, the more we create a space for flourishing, for life, for thriving, for belonging, for a space that allows us to explore this journey to who we are becoming.

Now I totally get it. You know, when we are in this place of feeling like we are barely making it through the day that we are just sweeping the floors for a hundred time, that it takes all that we have to just get dinner on the table.

[00:08:26] It’s really hard to think about how to be intentional with where we live to think about anything more than how we get through the next day or a week or more. We can feel too busy and too overwhelmed to create anything. When we have littles at home, it can feel all-encompassing and the faster we clean, the faster they make messes.

[00:08:53] I totally get it. This is my life, but here’s the deal. Again, we have a choice. We can wait for a quote unquote, better time to be intentional with creating home or. Uh, less busy. I don’t know that that actually happens. We just think there’ll be a less busy season of life. We can wait until we don’t have littles at home, or, you know, we wait until the spouses not to be.

[00:09:23] not TDY not deployed or we’re not going to be moving or we’re going to be working less hours. We have this idea that, oh, if I just wait till the forever home, or I just wait till any number of external factors. Right. But if our goal is to create a space of belonging, of becoming, if we want to create this essence of a life giving home, The best time is to start right now with figuring out what it is that we want the essence of our home to be and how we take baby steps towards making that a reality, whether you’re in a rental, you’re going to be somewhere for five, 10 years.

[00:10:12] You’re going to be somewhere for 10 months, whatever it is, we can create the essence of home. And we can start that today. So. What are some practical things we can do to start creating the essence of home? Well, the first thing might sound a little bit obvious, but we start by determining the type of space we want to create.

[00:10:38] So home is both a reflection of the people that live there, and an opportunity to become whatever it is you want to make of it. Your home can be a place of belonging, a place where people can be seen, heard, and known.

In our culture, it’s very common for home to be seen as a place for people to relax a place of retreat, a haven from the frantic world around us.

[00:11:13] And those are all wonderful things for home to be. But the more that I started thinking about what type of home I wanted to create, you know? Yes. The traditions. Yes. The feeling. But I wanted it to be more than just a place for me and my family. I wanted that element of home to be reflected in all of the people that come into our home.

[00:11:42] So if you step into my home and then I want you to feel that. Of relaxation of rest of safety, of that sense of being a safe haven. So the question that each of us has to ask ourselves is what is the essence of home that we want to create? What is the feeling that we want inside of our house and how can we practically take steps toward that?

[00:12:14] So for me, and what I got out of the book was creating a statement of home and what I wanted our home to look like. And I’ll tell you my statement in a minute, kind of this mantra, just to remind me of what home I want to create, but before we talk about that, I want to save. This is about setting an intention, not about an accomplishment.

[00:12:49] It’s about progress, not perfection. Because while this is my intent, I fall far short of this on a regular basis. I have three littles at home. I have my side hustle and my marketing work, but I continue to try to orient my life around the idea that home. To be a place of blessing, both for my family and for all those who step into our home.

[00:13:22] So let me go ahead and read you my home mantra. And then I’ll talk about two things that helped me on that. Okay. So the first step is to determine the type of space you want to create. What do you want home to be? What is the essence of home to you? What are the characteristics of your home? How do you want people to feel inside your home?

[00:13:55] What rhythms and traditions do you want to establish? What do you want people to say? Stepping into your home. And how can you be begin to intentionally incorporate elements of that into your every day, week life rhythms? As I so often say, a lot of this just comes down to taking the time to reflect on what you want so that you can move for forward with intentionality.

[00:14:31] So the first step is figuring out what you want home to be and how you can create this feeling regardless of where you’re living. Now. The second step is a little, counter-intuitive, probably not what you’re thinking. Because once you have identified what you want home to be, the second step is actually to practice self-care, because if you want to create.

[00:14:59] A space that is life giving. You cannot pour from an empty cup. So you have to do the things that will care for yourself, so that you can be a source of encouragement to those who step into your home. I want to cultivate a life-giving home that is a space of encouragement and rest and belonging and becoming for the people inside my home.

[00:15:34] Then that starts with self-care. So, what does that look like? That means that I am practicing having a thankful mindset. That means I am working on my spiritual, emotional, and physical health. That means that I am choosing to prioritize the things that matter and give myself proper rest, proper nutrition and proper exercise.

[00:16:01] Now, again, this is progress, not perfection. I fail all the time. But again, now that I know what I want, and I’m intentionally making choices that lead me to the outcome I ultimately want. If I don’t have that end goal in mind, then I just let life happen. I get frustrated. I get overwhelmed. And I get bogged down because I don’t understand the bigger picture.

[00:16:39] I don’t know what needs to change and I don’t have a reason for it to change. But when I know that I am trying to create a life-giving home, because I know it is going to be a blessing to myself, to my family and to those around me. Then it gives me that extra reason to properly care for myself because I know that it is going to benefit me.

[00:17:09] I know that is going to benefit my family. And I know that it is going to benefit all those iconic in contact with. So I have to know what it is that I really want the essence of home to be. Then I have to care for myself so that I have something to give. And then the third step is to start small and create a space for simple acts of hospitality.

[00:17:43] Now let’s unpack this a little more because I, as I shared earlier, this idea that I had in my head of what hospitality was and these lavish parties and all the themed decor, that was not part of my life. Um, it can feel overwhelming. Hospitality can be a scary word. It makes me think of Martha Stewart and Pinterest moms.

[00:18:07] And I will never be any of those things. It’s not about putting on a show. It’s not about having it looking, looking like you have it altogether, right? It’s about having an open, welcoming home. It’s about choosing to engage with others and simply. How we live our lives and wanting to create eight, a space where people feel comfortable.

[00:18:39] I don’t have to have the large house. I don’t even have to really invite people into the house itself. It can sometimes be as simple as inviting people to your yard. I remember a few years back. I, uh, first heard I was listening to podcast and I heard, um, Kristin, oh, what’s her last name? Anyway, she has the turquoise table and they did an interview all about the turquoise table.

[00:19:10] And the idea of the turquoise table is that you have this picnic table, you set the picnic table in your front yard and she had painted her. Table turquoise. So that’s where the name came about. She’s now written a book about this, but the idea is just to have a gathering space for people to come together and feel this sense of belonging and becoming of encouragement and doing a life together.

[00:19:43] At the time I did not have a big front yard. I did not have a table. It was not turquoise, but this idea of ordinary acts of hospitality that bless others as a part of our house and the home, we went to create that stuck with. And the other thing that stuck with me as I was listening to her talk was the idea that we have to create space for it in our schedule.

[00:20:15] We have to have the margin and our schedule if we want to make this a part of our life. And when I did my deep dive into who I wanted to be, what I valued and what I wanted my life to look like. This was something that was important to me. And I realized that I think I’ve shared before on this podcast, I’m a chronic over-committer.

[00:20:39] And I had to make significant changes in my schedule to start having margin for the things that mattered to me. Things like having a life giving. So, what does that practically look like? Well, for me in that season, it was opening up my home once a month and having people over for coffee, we called it coffee club.

[00:21:06] And once a month, moms would come over. They’d bring their kids, their kids would destroy the playroom. Mama says would sit around and I would make lattes and we’d all sit around and just have a relaxing morning together. People could just feel at home in my house. Now, fast forward to our next duty station.

[00:21:29] And I didn’t have a great playroom set up at the time. And I was in the middle of having another baby. And this idea of Coffee hospitality went on the back burner. But if you have listened to more than a couple of shows, you know, that coffee is huge to me. And it’s one of the ways that I love to share joy with others, that I love to use my love of coffee to just light others up and to make them feel at home.

[00:22:02] Now we are in a new location, a new season and COVID heads. And I’m wondering, how do I transfer this into COVID life? Well, fortunately for where we live. The transmission rates were really low. And so earlier this year I decided we were going to do something outdoors because I had this idea of the turquoise table in the back of my head.

[00:22:29] And how could I combine these ideas?  Try to picture our houses are not like normal houses. The side of the house actually faces the street. So the front of my house faces my neighbor’s back porch and my back porch faces that neighbor’s front door. So we have these sideways facing houses, but on my back porch, we have created this whole back patio area with seating.

[00:22:56] We have a tarp as the roof of our patio. And I was like, Hey, we can gather outdoors in small groups, still have coffee, and really create this place of belonging. So now I have back patio coffee mornings, where I would do. Put the word out, Hey, I’m turning on the espresso maker today. I’m making lattes. If anybody wants to come over, we have the trampoline and the Playhouse and the kids can run around and just come over and I’ll make you a cup of coffee, as simple as that.

[00:23:32] So. So choosing to make your home a place of belonging, doesn’t have to be some fancy thing. It just means figuring out what you want, the essence of your home to be, how you want people to feel inside and then taking the. To get you there. It’s not just about opening up your home to other people. That is definitely a part of it, but sometimes it just means that I need the space to sit and talk with my girls about their day.

[00:24:07] It just means having one person over for coffee or be known as the person who I don’t care. If you show up at my door and my house is not put together. If it’s not. There was a season of my life where I didn’t want people coming over and less, my house was clean, but you know what? I’ve come to the realization that I want people to be comfortable.

[00:24:30] And if they feel like they don’t measure up, when they step into my home, then it makes them feel worse about their home. And I just want it to be a place where people feel like it’s a real home that they don’t feel like they have to be any certain way, but that they just receive encouragement and joy and belonging.

[00:24:55] When they come into my home, sometimes it just means like I’m gonna throw some chili in the crockpot and invite a neighbor over. Uh, they’re all very small things, but they are doorways to more conversations, more connection, more flourishing. And the more that we thrive and help others thrive as military spouses, the more these very simple, intentional acts can change the world.

[00:25:30] So the first thing is to determine what you want your home to be. Put the self-care rhythms in place to help you be able to do the things that you want to do with your home, and then create the margin in your schedule for simple acts of hospitality.

So what does our home look like? Well, to help me figure it out. What I wanted our home to be. I made my own home mantra. And I’m going to share that with you today to get you started on your journey to figuring out what you want your home to be. This is by no means what your home should look like, or the type of home you even want to create. And some simply to give you an idea.

[00:26:25] And as I said earlier, I fall far short of that. All the time. It is a continual work and price in progress. But the thing is, I know where I want to go. And every day I can choose to align more of my priorities with what I have stated that I actually want our home to be. And every day we go closer towards the type of house we want, the type of home we want to.

[00:26:58] So I know I’ve said this I’m going to share. I actually am. Now our home reflects the generosity of God in our home. The whispers of God’s love are heard. Regularly. Love is expressed. Forgiveness is practiced. Grace is given and peace is stocked. Our home is a place of refuge and belonging. Our home is a place where the weary find rest.

[00:27:26] The lonely find friendship and the grieving find comfort. Our home is a place of flourishing and growth. In our home we find nourishment, inspiration, purpose, guidance, challenge, support, and encouragement for the journey. Home is where we can be rooted and deeply known.

So your statement, if you choose to create one may be similar or it may be completely different. The important, the important thing is to view home with intentionality. If we never take the time to figure out what our home is more than just a place to eat and sleep, we miss the opportunity to make it about so much more.

I hope that you found this episode encouraging. If you are struggling with feeling like you’re just existing. If you have a house, think about making it into a home, think about what you want the essence of home to be and what kind of feeling you want to create, and then invite others. We were made for connection, for collaboration, for belonging, we are hard wired for it. We are better together. And if you are willing to step outside your comfort zone and make that space, if you are willing to invite a neighbor in to.

[00:29:09] The new person in your squadron and, and get to know them on a deeper level, you could make a huge impact in their lives and the ripple effects of that go on and on. You are capable of doing this regardless of whether you feel pulled in all directions, regardless of the, if you just have littles at home, you can ha host a play date with another family.

[00:29:38] It doesn’t have to be perfect. Your home doesn’t have to be perfect. You don’t even have to serve them any food, just show up and use what you have to serve others and see. It does for you and for that person until next week, may you live filled, fueled and full of joy.