God in the little things?

It is so exciting that when you let Him, God will work in you and take you on a journey unlike any you could ever imagine - and one of the best things that I am discovering is that He even cares about the little things! God wants to be involved in EVERY aspect of our lives - so often we feel like we are doing nothing important keeping house, raising children and trying to be the wife and mother God wants us to be.  We think that God only cares about the "churchy" stuff, our prayer life, how many meetings we go, what we are doing to affect the community but the truth is God is interested in ALL of our lives, the words we speak, the jobs we do, the way we raise our children, the meals we cook. it seems unbelievable but it is true because it is all the little things that we do that add up to make us who we are!

This last year God has been teaching me, through books, through people I've met or spoken too and through blogs etc a lot about keeping house! Yes, He cares enough to teach us what we need to know - I'm not a natural housekeeper - some things have come as a surprise to me (such as having to clean cupboards out) as for the beginning of our marriage we had reason to move every year so things never got so "bad" to make me realise why exactly people did spring cleaning! Don't ask me how I thought these things stayed clean as I just didn't think about it lol.

Also with baby number 5, I am beginning to realise that it takes work and planning to have a household that runs smoothly and has a sense of order!

Here are some of the resources that have helped me with this recently

First we have the "Maxwells" I have both "Managers of their homes" and "Managers of their Chores" books and both have really helped me, the first taught me how and why scheduling is good and healthy (though we do only use schedules in a loose way) and the second has helped me realise what chores need doing in the house and how to get the children involved and how important it is to involve the children (this is still very much a work in progress)

I have also found the "Boyers" immensely helpful reading their books "Parenting from the heart" by Marilyn and "yes they're all ours" by Rick, also "Fun Projects for Hands on Character builidng" has given me lots of good ideas for doing things with the children. 

There are more resources too, we have enjoyed watching "The Duggars" and reading "20 and counting" to see how God has been working out His purposes in their busy lives and there have been many blogs that have encouraged me and given me ideas, not to mention friends that have shared with me and prayed for me. 

I still have so much to learn regarding the whole housekeeping, parenting, being a good wife journey but I am constantly learning and the best bit is that our God shows us the way and brings us into contact with the right people - He cares for ALL of our lives! 

I will share with you how God gave me the idea to "transform" our hallway recently too soon!