“People will forget what you said, forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” ~Maya Angelou

After my husband passed away from brain cancer, I was left wondering what would become of me. I had lived with the identity of a wife and partner for so many years. Separate from the deep grief and lament, I now had to embrace not just a new way of living, but a new way of thinking about myself.

I was still a homeschooling mama, still a homemaker, but now, a widow–a moniker no one wants. We had just moved into a new home in a rural space, with no connections or friends to call ours. I felt alone, lost, untethered. Should we move closer to family? Should I downsize and find something more manageable? What of the farm animals? What of income? What of our sorrow?

What I longed for–more than anything it seemed, was home–a place where I knew who I was and to whom I belonged, a place that remembered me, that was rest to me, where beauty and hope could grow, even if all I could offer it were ashes of a former life. Surprisingly, it was in this longing that I felt a strong, magnetic pull to entrench deep roots right into the place where I stood–these four walls, they would accept me, whatever my new identity, sadness and all.

So I set about cultivating place and slowly, with grace and uncertainty, began to find my identity as a placemaker. I also came to realize, it had always been with me.

We don’t often hear about the idea of cultivating place, but I think homeschooling mamas know it intrinsically, even if they are unaware. While we all choose moments uniquely shaped for our family, we all ultimately believe that we are home to our children, and the best place of rest and goodness for them, comes from home.

To cultivate place isn’t just about the things we bring into our living spaces. It isn’t just the flowers on the countertop or the candle burning on the kitchen table. Creating place isn’t only the soft throw blanket on our favorite chair or our collection of well-worn but beloved books in the basket by the bed for morning time. These pieces of our lives are lovely things and they add to and enhance our spaces while bringing comfort and warmth to our daily moments. The art of placemaking extends beyond ourselves, really. It’s a spiritual practice of hope–it is the naming, the knowing, the remembering that we exist beyond ourselves and ultimately point to a Creator. It is the calling to branch out roots and pull from the soil where we are planted, regardless of season or inclement weather. It is an invitation to till the garden bed of our souls as well as those whom we’ve been called to steward. It is an offering to extend hospitality, to embrace community, and to indwell kinship.

As homeschooling mamas, we are daily about the business of naming and knowing our children and tending to their hearts and minds. Because we are all made in the image of a Creator, we know this magnetic pull towards what is good, and even what is sacred, even though we don’t often acknowledge it. The world would have us exist in rush and hurry and speed, anathema themes to our souls. And yet here we are, here you are, here I am, choosing to take up the calling of sacrality within the four walls we call home. These places are indeed sacred, as we gently plant the seeds of rest, hope, beauty, and peace. Our identities, our remembrances, our knowings, are planted, watered, and can flourish here.

Keeping a home well, cultivating place, makes sense to us as mothers, very much in the way love makes sense to us. We tend, we care, we serve, we nurture, and on most days–or at least our better ones–we do not count the cost. With gentle hearts we love our stewarded souls, so we take the time to bring in wildflowers from the field, we generate sensorial invitations to smells, textures, and sounds that whisper to us remembrances of Eden. We open windows and let our ears listen for birds and allow our eyes to take in light that brushes away temporal darkness. We touch and embrace, laugh and smile, not just to remind ourselves that we’re alive, but that we were made with higher purpose. Our homes, our places, are inviting us to reflect that purpose.

In a fast-paced world, in a season of heartache, in a chapter of uncertainty, home is still within us as mothers. We are the placemakers. We are the reflectors of what is good. We can answer the longing to put down roots, regardless of whether or not we believe the place to be perfect. On this side, nothing ever is. We can free our hearts from the searching for bigger homes, Instagram-worthy living rooms, and release the visions of crumb-free countertops, furniture that hasn’t succumbed to puppy chewings, or the toddler juice stains on the rug. All of it is evidence that we have created a space for acceptance, for living, for belonging. 

Because we are loved, we can love, and also create place for love. When we see home through the lens of this love, we see that every space has some particular sparkle, regardless of its size, shape, condition, or geographical location. We need only to use it as a wellspring for the wonders required of us as mothers. We use it for our own belonging, for a place that remembers us and those we love. We use it with purpose to reflect hope for those that are sheltered by its four walls and those to whom cross our path. 

By cultivating place, we offer hope in this hurried, rushing world. An identity of belonging.

And what if hope could be the greatest gift we give?

*Originally written for a homeschool publication*