The Ministry of the Ordinary: Finding the Sacred in the Mundane Rhythms of Homemaking
I was folding laundry at 10:30 on a Tuesday night and the pile was still half full. The toddler had gone to bed with a marker on her cheek and the second-grader had left her spelling worksheet on the kitchen table and the middle-schooler had forgotten his baseball cleats in the living room again. I picked up a tiny sock and thought this is my whole life. Folding the same socks and wiping the same counter and finding the same cleats in the same spot. And then I thought maybe that is the point.
I almost did not write this because I have been sitting with something about homemaking that I am still learning. The way I have divided my life into spiritual work and housework. The way I have treated the dishes and the laundry and the meal prep as obstacles to the real work of discipleship instead of the place where discipleship happens.
How to Find Peace in a Chaotic Home LDS
The thing that changed my thinking was a Tuesday afternoon when I was washing the same pan I had washed the night before. I had scrubbed it clean after dinner and now it was sitting in the sink again with egg stuck to the bottom and I felt the weight of the repetition. Every day the same tasks and the same mess and the same pan.
I stood there with my hands in the hot water and I thought about Alma 37:6.
By small and simple things are great things brought to pass (Alma 37:6).
I had read that verse a hundred times and I had always applied it to big things. Missionary work and temple work and the growth of the Church. But standing at the sink with the pan in my hands I wondered if it applied to this too. The small and simple act of washing a pan so my family could eat again, folding a shirt so my daughter could wear it to school, wiping the counter so the kitchen felt like a place of peace instead of chaos.
I started paying attention to what happened when I treated the chore as an offering instead of an interruption. The pan did not take any less time to wash. But something shifted in me while I was washing it.
Making a Home a Sanctuary LDS
I used to think a sanctuary was a place that was clean and quiet and still. A room with soft lighting and no toys on the floor and nothing out of place. I would look at my living room with the Lego bricks and the art supplies and the half-eaten snack on the coffee table and I would think this is not a sanctuary. This is a disaster.
But I have been rethinking what sanctuary means. The temple is a place of order and peace but it is also a place of work. There are people cleaning and organizing and preparing behind the scenes. The peace does not come from the absence of activity. It comes from the presence of purpose.
I think about the home the same way now. I used to think the sanctuary was the house after the kids go to bed when everything is finally still. But I have started to see the sanctuary as the house at 5:00 PM when the toddler is crying and the dinner is burning and the teenager needs a ride and the second-grader needs help with homework and the middle-schooler has lost his cleats again. That is the sanctuary. Because that is where the work of the gospel is actually happening.
I wrote about this in The Low-Pressure Home: Sanctuary Over Showroom and I keep coming back to the same idea. A home does not have to look like a showroom to feel like a sanctuary. It just has to feel like love.
LDS Perspective on Homemaking and Spirituality
Here is what I have been learning. The repetitive nature of housework is not a distraction from spiritual growth. I have started to see it as the shape of spiritual growth. The same way we pray every day and read scripture every day and take the sacrament every week, we wash the same dishes and fold the same laundry and wipe the same counters. The repetition is the refinement.
I started doing something small. When I fold my daughter's shirt I say a quiet prayer for her. Washing the pan, I think about the meal we shared and the people around the table. Picking up the baseball cleats from the living room, I thank God for a son who loves the game enough to leave them there. The chore becomes a prayer and the repetition becomes a rhythm and the rhythm becomes a kind of worship.
It does not work every time. Some days I just want the laundry to be done so I can sit down. But on the days when I remember to turn the task into an offering, something shifts. The work feels lighter. The home feels holier.
Teaching Children Faith Through Daily Chores
The kids notice when I treat the work differently. The second-grader asked me one day why I was humming while I did the dishes. I told her I was thinking about how lucky we were to have food to eat and dishes to wash. She picked up a spoon and started drying it and she hummed too.
I am not saying chores become magical when you pray over them. But I am saying the children learn more from how I do the work than from anything I say about it. When I grumble through the laundry they learn that housework is a burden. When I treat it as a quiet offering they learn something different. They learn that the work of the home is holy.
Frequently Asked Questions
How can I feel the Spirit while doing mundane chores like laundry or dishes?
Try turning the chore into a prayer. As you handle a family member's belongings or prepare their food, offer a silent prayer for them or express gratitude for their presence in your life. When the task becomes an act of love, it becomes a spiritual practice.
What is the difference between a perfect home and a spiritual home?
A perfect home focuses on how things look. A spiritual home focuses on how people feel. One is about the absence of mess and the other is about the presence of love. You can have both on a good day but if you have to choose, choose the love.
How do I deal with the feeling that I am wasting my spiritual potential on housework?
There is no such thing as secular work for a disciple of Christ. Every act of service, no matter how small or repetitive, is a way of refining your character and serving your family. The work of the home is the foundation. Everything else builds on top of it.
What if I just do not want to do the chores today?
Then do not do them. Give yourself grace. The laundry will still be there tomorrow and the dishes will still be in the sink and the world will keep turning. The ministry of the ordinary includes the days when you rest. That is part of the rhythm too.
I finished folding the laundry at 11:00 and the pile was finally gone. The tiny sock was on top of the stack and I picked it up one more time and I thought about the small feet that would wear it tomorrow and the small hands that would need holding and the small moments that make up a life. The pan will be in the sink again in the morning and the cleats will be in the living room again by evening. And I will be there, washing and folding and picking up, trying to remember that this is the work He gave me to do.
with love, Melissa