In a recent issue of the Reformation Herald, we spoke of the blessings of having an orderly home. But before we discuss some practical steps in the making of an organized home, we need to understand and apply a strong foundation-principle. That is LOVE! Without this ingredient, an organized home will be a prison, not a palace. Love is what will motivate us to want order and to work for it consistently. Love will help keep the balance, so that we are not only focused on order but on people and their heart needs. Love will enable us to use order to help people, not use people to have order. This is vital. I believe this is why God has described Heaven’s first law as being order and love. They must be intertwined; in fact, true love and true order ARE intertwined.

“Cleanliness and order are Christian duties, yet even these may be carried too far and made the one essential, while matters of greater importance are neglected. Those who neglect the interests of the children for these considerations are tithing the mint and cummin, while they neglect the weightier matters of the law - justice, mercy, and the love of God.”1

“Mutual kindness and forbearance will make home a paradise and attract holy angels into the family circle.”2

Who sets the atmosphere or the tone of the home? Mom does, much like the thermostat of the furnace that controls the temperature of your house. How can we make our homes like a paradise when there are many things to test our patience?

“In the family, fathers and mothers should ever present before their children the example they wish to be imitated. They should manifest one to the other a tender respect in word, and look, and action. They should make it manifest that the Holy Spirit is controlling them, by representing to their children the character of Jesus Christ. The powers of imitation are strong; and in childhood and youth, when this faculty is most active, a perfect pattern should be set before the young. Children should have confidence in their parents, and thus take in the lessons they would inculcate. Parents should make manifest in their daily life what it is to love God supremely and their neighbor as themselves. Where religion is a practical thing in the home, great good is accomplished. Religion will lead the parents to do the very work God designed should be done in the home. Children will be brought up in the fear and admonition of the Lord.”3

“If fathers and mothers love the Bible and talk of the lessons Christ has given; if they love Jesus and make Him the theme of conversation, a heavenly atmosphere will pervade the home. As the wax receives the impress of the seal, so the soul will receive and retain the moral image of God. By beholding, we become changed. If we allow the mind to dwell upon the imperfections and moral deformities of others, we ourselves shall become depraved in character, and mentally one-sided and unbalanced. But if the mind dwells upon the perfect life of Christ, and the thoughts and conversation are centered upon Him, we shall be changed to the same image.”4

“By a faithful discharge of duty you may make this a happy year for your children. Home should be to them the most attractive place on earth; and it may be made such by kind words and deeds, and, underlying all, a steadfast adherence to the right. Fathers and mothers, teach your children that the only way to be truly happy is to love and fear God; and emphasize this lesson by your example. Let the children see that the peace of Christ rules in your hearts, and that His love controls your lives.”5

“The mother can and should do much toward controlling her nerves and mind when depressed; even when she is sick, she can, if she only schools herself, be pleasant and cheerful, and can bear more noise than she would once have thought possible. She should not make the children feel her infirmities and cloud their young, sensitive minds by her depression of spirits, causing them to feel that the house is a tomb and the mother’s room the most dismal place in the world. The mind and nerves gain tone and strength by the exercise of the will. The power of the will in many cases will prove a potent soother of the nerves.”6

“Parents, when you feel fretful, you should not commit so great a sin as to poison the whole family with this dangerous irritability. At such times set a double watch over yourselves, and resolve in your heart not to offend with your lips, that you will utter only pleasant, cheerful words. Say to yourselves: ‘I will not mar the happiness of my children by a fretful word.’ By thus controlling yourselves, you will grow stronger. Your nervous system will not be so sensitive. You will be strengthened by the principles of right. The consciousness that you are faithfully discharging your duty will strengthen you. Angels of God will smile upon your efforts and help you. When you feel impatient, you too often think the cause is in your children, and you blame them when they do not deserve it. At another time they might do the very same things and all would be acceptable and right. Children know, and mark, and feel these irregularities, and they are not always the same. At times they are somewhat prepared to meet changeable moods, and at other times they are nervous and fretful, and cannot bear censure. Their spirit rises up in rebellion against it. Parents want all due allowance made for their state of mind, yet do not always see the necessity of making the same allowance for their poor children. They excuse in themselves that which, if seen in their children who have not their years of experience and discipline, they would highly censure. Some parents are of a nervous temperament, and when fatigued with labor or oppressed with care, they do not preserve a calm state of mind, but manifest to those who should be dearest to them on earth, a fretfulness and lack of forbearance which displeases God and brings a cloud over the family. Children, in their troubles, should often be soothed with tender sympathy.”7

Ask the Lord to grant you His love in your heart and in your home, so that His Spirit is manifest in all that you do and create there. Ask Him to help with your family, that each would want to be part of creating a little Heaven on Earth.

May the Lord help you and answer that prayer. Amen.