Sorry it has taken me so long to circle back to this series.  I was on a little blogging hiatus for Jane’s birthday/birthday party, Marriage Encounter Weekend, and kicking off Lent.  It feels good to be back!

In case you’ve missed the previous three posts in the series, I’m revisiting our Family’s Rule of Life (based on Holly Pierlot’s book, A Mother’s Rule of Life).  Basically, a Rule of Life is an examination of your vocation and its essential duties so that you can put them into a proper schedule.  After my introduction post in the series, I jumped into what Holly Pierlot calls the “5 P’s”:

1. Prayer
2. Person
3. Partner
4. Parent
5. Provider

I’ve already looked at Prayer, Person, Partner, and Parent.  Today, we’re looking at the 5th and final “P”: Provider.  As Holly says, “the fifth P is really just about providing an orderly stage upon which all the drama of loving relationships must occur; we want the actors to focus on the performance, not on a messy, disorganized set.”  Today, we finally get to what I think is the fun stuff–putting together schedules, checklists, and establishing routines to keep our home a mini-paradise.

A Changed Mindset: From Overworked Servant to Custodian of Creation

As you might expect, Provider is all about providing for our family’s physical needs and being good stewards in managing our family’s resources.  As a stay-at-home mom, there’s a big temptation to allow caring for our family and financial concerns to take over.  Examining our roles as providers is all about making sure we’re being as effective as possible without allowing our obligations to take over our lives physically or financially.

To do that, Holly Pierlot writes that we need to acknowledge the beauty and goodness of our work in the home.  When we take off the glasses with which the world views our job at home, we can find countless challenges for our minds, bodies, and souls instead of a life of drudgery.  Working at home is only as monotonous and (un)challenging as we allow it to be!

I love Holly’s section in this chapter about our role as “custodian” or “manager” of creation just like Adam and Eve in Genesis:

What we have, be it a little or a lot, has been entrusted to us, for a twofold purpose: to preserve what we have and to administer it profitably.  Thus, not only are we to ensure that our home is cared for and kept in order, but we’re also called to improve it, to make it meet the real human needs of our family.  We don’t have the right to neglect our duties here, but are called to manage these resources, for they really belong to God.

When we view all of our tasks at home as work for God, it changes our mindset from being a life of drudgery to being “pretty close to a moral obligation” as a matter of justice.  When we are given the opportunity to care for our homes and children on a full-time basis, it is our responsibility to put in that full day’s work like we would outside of the home for another employer.

Finances, Almsgiving, and Tithing

I won’t say too much about this since there are so many resources available and books written on this subject.  However, I would recommend looking at Holly’s checklist and helpful questions to get your budget in order.

Philip and I have been working to streamline our finances, clean out our files, and plug everything into our new budgeting software called You Need a Budget (YNAB).  YNAB has been working very, very well for our budgeting style, and it is helping us to stay accountable to where we want and need to be financially.  We’re only a little more than a month in, but it has worked very well for us.  Having a budget forces us to decide what is a want and what is a need.  More often than not, the constraints of our budget blesses us by making us realize, “This is not something our family needs right now.”  The budget helps us to rely less on our material possessions for our comfort and pleasure and look for creative ways to entertain ourselves or connect.  Maybe I’ll write more about YNAB once we’re a few more months into the program.  So far, so good!

What better time than Lent to consider how your family is reaching out to your neighbors in need?

Holly Pierlot says that she gains perspective on how blessed she is by putting up a poster she made of pictures from National Geographic Magazine of people from third world countries living in abject poverty.  She walks away from looking at that poster simultaneously more grateful for what she has, more determined to give more of it away, and more determined to manage her resources well.

I love Holly’s definition of tithing.  She says:

…tithing is not only a means of giving God what belongs to him and exercising self-control, but is actually a real channel of grace to enable us to be satisfied with having our needs met, with a few little wants thrown in as gifts from the goodness of God

Making Our Home a Beautiful and Functional Paradise For Our Family

This is where things get really fun for us organizational Type A geeks!  Just like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, our home needs to be our own mini paradise that is both beautiful and functional.  To help us achieve that goal, Holly suggests doing a “room analysis” throughout the home.  I was so excited to perform a “room analysis” in our new home.  I busted out my trusty clipboard with looseleaf and answered these questions in every single room:

• What is this room’s purpose?
• What needs to be in this room to achieve that purpose?  Is there anything missing?  What needs to be removed?)
• How should the room be arranged to fit the purpose of the room?

Holly suggests having a “transfer room” to store all of the stuff that needs to find a home (or be donated) while you’re getting each room in order.  Instead of having an entire room, I brought a trash bag and 2 huge utility totes with me.  I told myself that I could only touch each object once, and they had 4 possible places to go:

• Somewhere in that room
• In my “donate” tote
• In my “relocate” tote (to go somewhere else in the house)
• Trash

That way, I wasn’t constantly leaving the space to throw things away, put them in another room, or toss in the donate bin.

Then, I created a project/repair list.  I added repairs that needed to made as well as dream projects I would love to complete someday down the road.  (The list is in our family binder and comes to our weekly family meeting.  We choose a repair/project we’d like to work on for the week or start budgeting money toward.)

Finally, I made a list of which chores needed to be completed in each room and who would do them.  I followed Holly’s recommendations to separate them by daily, weekly, (bi)monthly, seasonally, and annual chores.  (I’ll share those lists and schedules in a future post.)  Then, I decided when each chore would actually get done.  To help get the kids used to their new responsibilities, I created laminated picture chore charts for the kids’ rooms.  They have a separate set for their morning and evening jobs.  The other charts stay on the side of our refrigerator for easy reference.

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When I resume the series, I’ll share our family’s daily routine, weekly schedule, and chore charts (mine and the kids’ picture ones).  I started revising our Family Rule of Life in November, and it has become second nature.  I’ll finish out the series talking about the challenges to the Rule of Life and what Holly calls the “heart of the Rule.”