The Devout Homemaker: Finding God in Ordinary Life

Join me for a 10 week series, The Devout Homemaker, where we dive into St. Francis De Sales book, Introduction to a Devout Life, and apply the wisdom he shares to our own lives.

Series Layout

• Episode 1: Devotion (Part 1: Ch. 1-3)
• Episode 2: Humility & Abjection (Part III: Ch. 4-6)
• Episode 3: Patience (Part III: Ch. 3)
• Episode 4: Gentleness (Part III: Ch. 8-9)
• Episode 5: Simplicity, Peace, & Anxiety (Part III: Ch. 10, Part IV: Ch. 11)
• Episode 6: Detachment & Poverty of Spirit (Part III: Ch. 14, Part I: Ch. 17, 26)
• Episode 7: Charity (Part III: Ch. 1-2, 15)
• Episode 8: Recollection / Interior Prayer (Part II, Ch. 1-5)
• Episode 9: Mortification & Sacrifice (Part III, Ch. 23, Part IV Ch. 11)
• Episode 10: Perseverance & Faithfulness (Part V)

Please note: I currently do not have a timeline for these episodes and when they will be published. Realistically, with homeschooling and caring for my home and five small children, I will most likely not have a new blog post and video out every week. I may also have other videos (food from scratch, homeschool Q&A, homemaking encouragement) between episodes. Thank you for your patience and understanding.

Introduction

We spend so much time thinking about how to make our homes beautiful, how to make meals from scratch, how to keep the laundry moving, how to educate our children, how to keep the garden alive, how to get everyone where they need to go.

And all of those things are good. But sometimes I wonder if we can become so focused on doing homemaking well that we forget the deeper purpose of homemaking altogether.

The goal shouldn’t simply be to have a beautiful home or even to become a particularly good homemaker.

The goal is holiness, to be a saint.

And that changes the way we look at every thing. A sink full of dishes isn’t merely a sink full of dishes. A toddler asking for the hundredth glass of water isn’t merely an interruption. A loaf of bread rising on the counter isn’t merely something we’re making for dinner. These ordinary things can become part of our life with God. And this is where I want to begin this new series.

I want to spend some time exploring the virtues—not simply as abstract qualities that we admire, but as things that actually transform the way we live as wives, mothers, and homemakers.

In order to do this, we are going to dive into the wisdom of St. Francis de Sales and his beautiful work, Introduction to the Devout Life. One of the things I love most about St. Francis de Sales is that he doesn’t speak about holiness as though it belongs only to monks, nuns, priests, or people who have the freedom to spend hours in prayer every day. He speaks to people living ordinary lives, people like you and me.

And his message is essentially this:

You can become holy right where God has placed you.

What Is Devotion?

St. Francis begins Introduction to the Devout Life by explaining what devotion actually is. And I think this is important because we can have a very strange idea of what a “devout woman” looks like.

Perhaps we picture a woman who never loses her patience, who is calm and fills her home with the love of Christ and never anger. Maybe we picture someone whose house is perfectly ordered and organized, who has hours of uninterrupted prayer. A woman who seems to have mastered every spiritual discipline.

And then we look at our own lives—with the noise, children fighting, little sleep and even less prayer time, laundry and dishes piled up, and many to-do’s and unfinished projects—and think, “Well, I am certainly not very devout.”

But St. Francis gives us a different picture. Devotion is not simply doing more religious things. It is a life turned toward God. It is loving God and seeking to live for Him.

“All true and living devotion presupposes the love of God, and indeed, it is neither more nor less than a very real love of God, though not always of the same kind. For while that love is shining on the soul, we call it grace, which makes us acceptable to God’s divine majesty; when it strengthens us to do well, it is called charity; but when it attains its fullest perfection, in which it not only leads us to do well, but to act carefully, diligently, and promptly, then it is called devotion.” P.1, Ch. 1

And that means devotion has to reach into the ordinary parts of our lives. It has to reach the kitchen, the nursery, the garden, the laundry room, the bathrooms.

It has to reach the way we speak to our husbands, the way we discipline our children, what we do when nobody is watching.

“…devotion is simply a spiritual activity and liveliness by means of which divine love works in us and causes us to work quickly and with love. And just as charity leads us to a general practice of all God’s commandments, so devotion leads us to practice them readily and diligently.” P.1, Ch. 1

Because if our spiritual life exists only during our morning prayer, but disappears the moment someone spills milk on the floor, then we have separated our spiritual life from our actual life. And God doesn’t ask us to live two lives. He asks us to give Him our whole life.

Holiness Doesn’t Require a Different Life

I think this is one of the great temptations for women who desire a deeper spiritual life. We imagine that if only our circumstances were different, we could finally become holy. If the children were older or the baby slept through the night. If only we had a quieter house, weren’t homeschooling, had more time, weren’t constantly cooking, or even if our house were more organized. Then we would have time for God.

But what if the opposite is true? What if God is inviting us to encounter Him here? Not in the imaginary life we wish we had, but in the life we actually have. The baby wakes up. The toddler needs help. The bread needs kneading. The garden needs harvesting. Dinner needs to be made. The laundry needs folding. And somewhere in the middle of all of that, God is asking, Will you love Me here?

“The world, looking on, sees that devout people fast, watch and pray, endure injury patiently, minister to the sick and poor, restrain their temper, check and subdue their passions, deny themselves in all sensual indulgence, and do many other things which in themselves are hard and difficult. But the world sees nothing of that inward, heartfelt devotion which makes all these actions pleasant and easy.” P.1, Ch. 2

The Homemaker’s Hidden Life

One of the things I think women can struggle with is the hiddenness of our work. So much of what a mother does disappears. You make breakfast. It’s eaten. You clean the kitchen. Someone comes along and makes it dirty again. You fold the clothes. They are worn. You wash them. And tomorrow the basket is full again. You teach your children something. Six months later, you may not even remember teaching it. It can feel as though we’re constantly working without ever arriving.

But perhaps this is precisely where the spiritual life becomes beautiful. Because hidden work can become an offering. The world often asks, “What did you accomplish?” But the Christian asks, “Whom did I love?”

That changes everything. Perhaps the clean kitchen isn’t the accomplishment, rather the love with which you cleaned it is the offering. Or that the meal isn’t the important thing, rather the love poured into preparing it is. Perhaps homeschooling isn’t simply about completing lessons, rather, it is about patiently forming souls.

“A different exercise of devotion is required of each – the noble, the artisan, the servant, the prince, the maiden, and the wife. And furthermore, such practice must be modified according to the strength, the calling, and the duties of each individual…But true devotion does better still, for it not only does not hinder any vocation or duty, but it adorns and beautifies it.” P.1, Ch. 3

From the Garden

This is something I have been thinking about in my own garden lately. At the end of summer, there is this beautiful transition happening. Everything seems to be giving its final abundance. The tomatoes are heavy on the vines. The herbs are flourishing. The apples begin to ripen. The garden is slowly moving toward autumn.

And I think there is something almost holy about this rhythm. We plant, wait, water, weed, harvest. And eventually, we have something to give.

The garden reminds us that ordinary faithfulness produces fruit—usually slowly and usually invisibly. And isn’t motherhood much the same? We don’t see the fruit every day. We teach the same virtue again, correct the same behavior again, pray the same prayers, make another meal, wash another load of laundry. Everyday we begin again, and again, and again. But God sees the faithfulness.

A Recipe for the Ordinary

So for this first episode, I wanted to make something that feels like this season. Something rustic and beautiful. Something that uses what we might actually find around the farmhouse in late summer and early autumn. I’m making a roasted garlic, onion, and tomato soup with whole wheat bread. You will also see me making sourdough maple whole wheat donuts. Both recipes can be found in my new Autumn Harvest Dinner ebook!

So as I prepare this, I want to think about something very simple: Can I offer this to God? Not because roasted vegetables is inherently holy, but because love can be placed into ordinary things. I can make this meal with gratitude. I can make it for my family. And this difficulty can become an act of service. And I can remember that God is not absent from this kitchen. He is here.

Devotion Changes the Way We See Our Work

This is where I think devotion becomes so practical for homemakers. Once we begin to see our work as part of our vocation, we stop asking only, “How much can I get done?” and we begin asking, “How can I love through what I am doing?”

Those are very different questions. One can leave us frantic. The other can make even an ordinary task meaningful.

Instead of, “I have to make dinner,” it becomes, “I have an opportunity to feed my family.” Instead of, “I have to clean this kitchen again,” it becomes, “I can make this place welcoming for the people God has entrusted to me.” Instead of, “I have to deal with this child’s behavior again,” it becomes, “I have another opportunity to practice patience and teach this little soul.”

And suddenly the ordinary work hasn’t changed. We have changed the way we see it.

But What About Prayer?

Now, I don’t want to take this idea too far. Because sometimes Christians can hear this message and think, “Well, if all of my work can be prayer, then I don’t really need to stop and pray.”

But we do.

We need actual prayer, silence, Scripture, the Sacraments. We need time alone with God, intentionally turning our hearts toward Him. Because we cannot continually offer our lives to someone we never take the time to know.

“The two poles which support the steps are types of prayer, which seeks the love of God, and the sacraments, which confer that love.” P.1, Ch. 2

The answer isn’t to eliminate prayer and call everything prayer. The answer is to let prayer overflow into everything else. Begin the day with God. Return to Him throughout the day. And then let that relationship shape the way you work.

“Another man considers himself devout because he repeats many prayers daily, although at the same time he does not refrain from all manner of angry, irritating, conceited, or insulting speeches among his family and friends….meanwhile all these people are called religious, but they are in no true sense really devout.” P.1, Ch. 1

A Small Practice for This Week

So I want to give you a very simple practice for this first episode. Choose one ordinary household task that you do every single day. Maybe it’s washing dishes, making breakfast, folding laundry. Maybe it’s making the bed, wiping off the table. And for one week, every time you do that task, intentionally offer it to God.

You don’t have to say a long prayer. Just, “Lord, I offer this to You,” or, “Jesus, I do this for love of You.”

And then do the task. That’s it.

Don’t wait until you feel holy, until you feel peaceful, until you have the perfect morning routine. Begin in the middle of ordinary life.

Becoming a Devout Homemaker

I think sometimes we want holiness to feel extraordinary. But perhaps most of our holiness will be incredibly ordinary. It will look like getting up, making breakfast, praying, teaching, cleaning, cooking, apologizing when we lose our patience, trying again, loving our husband, comforting our child, going back to prayer, and beginning again.

And perhaps, years from now, we’ll look back and realize that God was forming us through thousands upon thousands of tiny acts of love. The kitchen. The garden. The laundry. The dinner table. The bedtime prayers. The quiet sacrifices nobody saw.

These weren’t distractions from our vocation. They were the place where our vocation was lived.

And so that is where I want to begin this series. Not with a perfect homemaker. Not with a woman who has mastered everything. But with an ordinary woman asking God to make her faithful.

Because devotion isn’t about making our lives look extraordinary. It’s about allowing God to make our ordinary lives holy.

And perhaps that is one of the greatest gifts we can give our families: not a perfect home, not a perfect schedule, not perfectly executed meals, but a mother who is learning, day after day, to love God in the middle of ordinary life.

That is the kind of home I want to build. And that is the kind of homemaker I want to become.

A devout homemaker—not because my home is perfect, but because I am learning to make my whole life an offering to God.

Continue the Series

• Episode 2: Humility & Abjection (Part III: Ch. 4-6)
• Episode 3: Patience (Part III: Ch. 3)
• Episode 4: Gentleness (Part III: Ch. 8-9)
• Episode 5: Simplicity, Peace, & Anxiety (Part III: Ch. 10, Part IV: Ch. 11)
• Episode 6: Detachment & Poverty of Spirit (Part III: Ch. 14, Part I: Ch. 17, 26)
• Episode 7: Charity (Part III: Ch. 1-2, 15)
• Episode 8: Recollection / Interior Prayer (Part II, Ch. 1-5)
• Episode 9: Mortification & Sacrifice (Part III, Ch. 23, Part IV Ch. 11)
• Episode 10: Perseverance & Faithfulness (Part V)

Related Posts

• From My Garden to Gethsemane
• 4 Walls That Hold Up My Home
• A Homemaker’s Rule of Life for Lasting Discipline