Family Before "Stuff"!

PHew. Just got back from bowling. Prince Charming, my brother, my friend, and I are on a Christian Bowling League. Im so excited to be back. I bowled on this league for two years and then took a year off because we added so many children. Well we still have a lot of children but we think we can still bowl... :) My mom came up there with the children tonight to watch us... I dont know if she will venture there again! LOL..she had a time of it. For the most part my children are great. But sometimes (especially with grandma!) they can really act up. Who knows.
Well anyway.
This is our week on the beauty of homemaking. Have you read the story of creation? Have you read the story of building the temple? Both of these stories stand out to me because they are detailed. God is detailed. God likes beauty. All you have to do is catch a butterfly. Examine her wings and all the colors. She is detailed and beautiful, just the way God made her. Using nature as an example. Everything in nature has a job, a purpose. Nature does not stray from the job God has given it, it simply does it. . This is what makes nature so orderly. It just does what its created to do. We as women have an important job. God has created us to instill order and beauty into our homes. If you cant walk across the floor to greet your husband after he has had a long day at the office then your home is not orderly or beautiful. If your children cant dance across the floor to a favorite song or cant find a place to sit and look at a book or change dolly's clothes or race thier cars then your home is not orderly or beautiful. I have been on massive clutter detail lately. This is hard for me because I am a sentimental junkie. But shouldn't my family be more important to me than stuff!?! I got rid of a lot of knick knacks and dust collectors because I want to display more pictures of my family and because I want my house to look more open and inviting. I got rid of closets full of stuffed animals because I want to make the childrens' closets accessible to them. They truly need to learn how to put away thier own clothes and pick out thier own clothes. Im moving into the school room/library next because I want it to be a place the children and I enjoy being. Soon the playroom will be just that... a playroom. We are moving the couch and TV out of there. There will be wide open space for the children to play. I dont have any sage advice on how to declutter other than to just do it! My house is a scary place right now. I have boxes and bags of stuff waiting to be picked up by freecyclers but I can see the end result and I have to tell you I am positively giddy! Decluttering is what has happened as I decided to put my family before "stuff". Before I understood this concept we had piles of "stuff" everywhere. Im not going for the perfect house. Just a nice, comfortable, inviting house. A house we enjoy occupying and cant wait to ask friends to join us. A house where family comes before material possesions. A house that is beautiful and orderly and God-honoring!

Proverbs 31:27 She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness.