We took an interesting trip during a recent Relief Society lesson.\u00a0 A member of the presidency was teaching about how to make our homes like the temple.<\/p>\n
The very first aspect introduced was cleanliness.\u00a0 It went around the room for a while that it was SOOOO important to have a clean house.\u00a0 It was stated clearly that you can\u2019t possibly feel the spirit in a messy environment.\u00a0 Tempers tend to flare, and when mom ain\u2019t happy, no one is happy.\u00a0 Some of us can afford hired help to do it for us, others just can\u2019t function unless everything is in its place.\u00a0 And so it went.<\/p>\n
After a while, some brave soul spoke up saying that kids make things very tricky.\u00a0 It\u2019s more important to love being a mother and spend time with family, not cleaning, or ranting about cleaning.\u00a0 Sisters began agreeing with that idea as well.\u00a0 It isn\u2019t important to be perfect.\u00a0 It\u2019s good enough if the house is merely tidy.<\/p>\n
Then the discussion shifted to not having enough time to enjoy home; the invasion of video games blasting in the family room, dangers of the Internet, raunchy music, and those blasted earbuds that make us yell at our children.\u00a0 So many time wasters, and family separators.<\/p>\n
So, what is the verdict? \u00a0Where the temple is beautifully pristine, and gloriously separate from the world, an escape for us as we enter its walls, our homes must be livable and spirit-filled at the same time.\u00a0 Why do we beat ourselves up to be \u201cperfect\u201d?\u00a0 Because the bottom line is our homes will be more like temples as soon as we allow ourselves to be \u201cimperfect\u201d, and focus on love, patience, acceptance, and real life families.<\/p>\n
I found it absolutely fascinating that even though we think cleanliness is the answer, we settle down and realize that it isn\u2019t the first answer we should consider.\u00a0 Do we feel the need to rationalize ourselves out of guilt? Or do we lower our standards?\u00a0 No.\u00a0 We just need to recognize what really matters.\u00a0 Thank goodness the discussion wandered to a better topic of showing kindness, love, and service in the household.\u00a0 The spirit of the home comes forth.\u00a0 If it\u2019s clean too, that is merely a bonus.<\/p>\n
Most people were adamant that a woman is still overworked and must have more help in the home.\u00a0 I\u2019m pretty sure there were multiple under-the-breath comments still stuck on how clean a house really needs to be.\u00a0 Are we really that dissatisfied with ourselves?<\/p>\n
We ran out of time while we were still listing our failings. \u00a0Isn\u2019t that always the case? \u00a0We hadn\u2019t quite made it to the point where we could pat ourselves on the back for creating some sort of haven.\u00a0 Our homes must have some redeeming quality to them, right?<\/p>\n
What do you think?\u00a0 What qualities or practices bring your home closer to the level of a temple?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We took an interesting trip during a recent Relief Society lesson.\u00a0 A member of the presidency was teaching about how to make our homes like the temple. The very first aspect introduced was cleanliness.\u00a0 It went around the room for a while that it was SOOOO important to have a clean house.\u00a0 It was stated […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[477],"tags":[388,50,413,619,177],"class_list":["post-2325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family-2","tag-attitude","tag-families","tag-home","tag-motherhood","tag-temple"],"yoast_head":"\n