Visit Gabi's website at www.anunhurriedliving.com and join Gabi and a community of homemakers over on Instagram at @anunhurriedliving

[00:05] Gabi: Welcome to the Hearth and Bloom podcast. This is a show where we have conversations about all things home while living a simple, unhurried life so you get greater peace, rest, and freedom in your day to day. I'm your host, Gabby Hobarer. After living on the hamster wheel of a hurried life for so many years, st and watching my health and relationship suffer, I chose to slow it all down, really focus on a life giving home, and live my moments with intention and purpose. What came from that shift was a restored life, a focus on my values, and greater rest and renewal in my daily living. I'm here to guide you to living a life unhurried so you gain the abundance and peace that you've been looking for. So let's get started. Well, hello, hello. Welcome to another episode of the Harson Bloom podcast. I'm super excited that you've joined me for another show, and so I hope that you'll take just a few minutes to whatever you're doing, whether you've popped earbuds in your ears while you're washing dishes or folding the laundry or you're just ready to take just a few minute break to sit down with a cup of tea. I hope you'll join me at the kitchen table for our conversation today. And one of the things I wanted to talk about, because it's kind of come up in my season right now, is the concept of a door. And I know it sounds kind of silly, but I'm always on pinterest looking for ideas for how to decorate my front porch. We live out in the country, although the city is kind of creeping in, and I have a small homestead, and I'm always looking for ways to kind of lighten and kind of dress up our front porch. There are two rocking chairs on the front porch. It's not a huge porch at all. Like, one day I'd love to have this dream wraparound porch, but for now, this is where we are. And it's a lovely little porch, but I'm always looking for ideas and ways to kind of just make it look more welcoming and just kind of fresher and pretty and lovely. But because I've been shopping for front porch decor for some time or some ideas for front porch decor, I've also kind of been shopping for front doors. I don't need a new front door, right? But then I think, oh, wouldn't it be lovely if I had this front door with this decor? And so I have this little secret pinterest board where I just am looking for ideas, even for front doors, but because I can't really find anything, I've kind of turned my attention over to what is behind the door, right, in our home. And I'm kind of in a season where I kind of am shifting a little bit of my interests in decor, interior decor, and furniture. And so we'll also have another pinterest board for that, just ideas when I can shop antique fairs or find something at a yard sale or something fun like that. And so always looking for ways to make my home just cozier and more welcoming and lovely. The Lord has called me to be a place maker, a homemaker. And I love cultivating space for the people that I love. I love cultivating just this space where you can come a respite from the outside world. It's just always been on my heart to do that. And so I have a lot of fun doing that. But it got me to thinking about front doors, about doors in general. We all have one. I can't imagine a house not having a front door because of course a door keeps intruders out and a door can also keep the people inside safe. And a door serves as a good boundary, right? A good barrier, if you will, from the things that are going on outside, the weather, the elements, potential danger. And it keeps everything on the inside dry and cozy and fiddly and safe and warm. So a door obviously serves a purpose and we really don't think much about it because every house has one, right? It's no big deal. But I recently found myself in conversation with someone for whom I have a deep affection. This person is of significant value to me. I love this person. And this individual was questioning my choice to not have a TV in our house and was making the argument that my son was deprived from really entertaining cartoons because of the fact that I didn't have a TV in the house. And my decision, and it was our decision when my husband was still living, to not have a TV in the house. I know is a little bit unconventional for some families. And please hear me when I say there is nothing wrong with the television. Okay? Full transparency. We do have a TV, but we don't have any cable or streaming service. And so like, if we want to watch a show or a movie or something, we either have to invest in the DVD, which thank goodness, they still sell DVDs for the moment, for the time of this recording anyway, they still sell DVDs. But we either have to invest in the DVD or we have to hook up a laptop. And because we don't have WiFi in our house either, that's another conversation for another show. We don't have WiFi in our house. We have to hook up an ethernet cable to a port. We do have Internet service, we just don't have WiFi. And we hook up our laptop with like 100 different cables and adapters and we've got cables running all over the place. And that's how we can stream, we can mirror a show or a movie onto the television in one room only that we have essentially and watch it that way. And sometimes that's just too much work. So we opt for a book or a read aloud or game of cards or something instead. But sometimes we do. Sometimes in the evenings, my son will watch a Curious George DVD or something that we he has a whole library of DVDs that have kind of been prescreened and watched 100 times, and he enjoys them. And so he'll go up and build his Legos or go up and construct something while he's watching this in the background. So please hear me when I say I'm not opposed to television. I'm not opposed to having a TV in your house. We just as a family, my husband really had the discernment to say, you know what? This really isn't serving us. What if we went without it for like, a month? And the month turned to like, six months and the six months turned to a year before we knew we were like, what are we doing with the TV? So for us personally, we have chosen not to have a TV. But returning to this conversation that I was having with this individual for whom I truly care for, I truly love, and this person was like, you're depriving your son. There are some really good cartoons out there. Well, I had to push back on that because there may be some really great cartoons out there, but I even look back at the cartoons that I watched when I was a girl. And as a believer. Now, I came to salvation when I was 16. I'd be happy to record an episode on my journey towards sanctification, but my salvation experience but when I came to salvation, the things of the world no longer had really any appeal to me. And while we're called to be of the world no, I'm sorry, we're called to be in the world. We're not called to be of the world. And I believe that the mark of a Christian, the fruit of a Christian, should be very significantly different from that of the world, of an unbeliever. One of the reasons that we chose to not have a television in our house was so that we can be the doorkeeper, the Safeguarder of you, if you will, of the content that comes into our house. There is a lot of I don't know if you have evaluated comedy these days, or at least it was maybe 1215 years ago. It's been 15 years since we've had, like, a normal TV. But back in the day, there were a couple of shows that I innocently, especially in my twenty s and thirty s, didn't really think much about, but shows that portray men or husbands as buffoons and fools. And they're essentially the comic relief of the show. And there's always a foil, right? And the foil is always the woman who is a strong woman and capable and intelligent, and she's the only one that can really get things right. And the husband is kind of like just the fool that's always and people laugh at that. People laugh at that. And there was a period of time where I thought it was kind of funny, too. But as you get older and you get wiser and hopefully wiser, but you get older and you reflect on the things that had interest to you or had value to you at one point in time, as I mature and grow older, I just think, wow, the things, they just don't appeal to me. And then when I remove the source of that viewing or that show or that comic relief, if you will, it's no longer even funny to me anymore because there really wasn't intrinsically anything funny about it to begin with. The idea that there is a I'm going to say this, okay, I'll get my tinfoil hat if you'd like me to, and I'm okay with that. But there is an agenda out there to break down strong men, to break down the husband, if you will, to break down the natural order, the hierarchy of things in this world, because if you can break a man down, you can break a family down. And so a lot of what we were seeing on television wasn't honoring what we believed to be the role of a husband and father and the way it was portrayed on television wasn't really something we wanted to bring into our home. And so we just decided that, well, let's just not have a TV. There's just not really anything good on anymore. And so we chose not to do that. We've raised our son without a television, with the exception of DVDs and things like that, and we've been happy with that. I've been happy with that. So this individual is challenging me on. He's really missing out on some really great cartoons, and we've tried a couple of the cartoons, and I don't know how you ladies feel about cartoons these days, and maybe they're okay. Sometimes we will watch a cartoon where I'm like, I really didn't like that. I really didn't. But what we put in front of our eyes, ladies, matters. The Bible says in Psalm 101, I will set no vile thing before my eyes. I hate the deeds of faithless men, they will not cling to me as mothers, as homemakers, as Homekeepers. I believe that we have a biblical responsibility to our children, the children that we have been called a steward, the home that we have been called to cultivate. And I believe that we serve a purpose and an intention in being a doorkeeper, if you will. We are the front door to our homes, to really even our children's hearts, to our children's minds. And what we set before them matters. What we set before our own eyes matters. And so the challenge, when I was pushing back against this individual with whom I again, I have a deep affection for this person, couldn't see why watching shows where men are denigrated, where the woman is the strong one. The man is the buffoon, if you will. It was funny to them. They didn't see anything wrong with that. And I just thought, oh, my dear one, this individual is much younger than I am. I thought, My dear one, there may not be anything wrong with it for you, but if you subtract yourself, see what the scripture says about a man's role in the home. And I am not advocating for this strong patriarchy that comes from a lot of the churches. Espouses, please hear me when I'm saying that I believe in biblical manhood. I believe in biblical womanhood. I believe in a rightful role because I don't want to usurp his role because it's not my role. And I'm not going to be really great at it. I'm going to be good at the thing that I've been called to do, which is to be a homekeeper, one that loves and provides nourishment and comfort and softness and I'm strong and capable. Friends, if you knew what I've had to do since my husband passed away, the tasks I've had to do around the house, the things that I've been so proud of myself, with my little YouTube channel and a power drill, I've been able to do some pretty awesome things that I didn't think I was capable of doing. So please know that I'm not saying that women shouldn't be doing the things that men can do and they aren't capable of doing the things that men can do. Yes, I believe that we are. But why would we want to when there's plenty of this, plenty of stuff that we have to do right, that we're responsible for? And one of the things I believe that we're responsible for is being that door keeper. We are the ones that are in charge of essentially dictating the culture and atmosphere of our home. And there is so much degradation of the family, of husbands, of even women, of right now. We live in a world where chaos reigns. And I'm going to be a little controversial here, but we live in a world where there's fluidity. You can be any gender, you can be any idea, you can be anything that you want to be. And I respect the individuals that are choosing that journey. But for my home, that's not where we are. We follow, obey and love the Scripture. And the scripture is very clear about my role as a wife and a mother, and I want to step into that. I find so much delight and fulfillment and satisfaction in stepping into the role that the Lord has called me to. Now, as believers, Bible says, Paul tells us that everything for the believer is permissible, but not everything is beneficial. And so for us in our family, it's permissible again. We can watch a movie, but it's not always beneficial. And because it's not always beneficial. And I know my son's heart. I know how he's wired. I know how he struggles with the intensity of an emotion or we can't even watch. So we are big Narnia fans and the BBC produced kind of like a miniseries of the different books. This is years ago. I bought the DVD to invest in it. And if you're familiar with Narnia, if you're familiar with The Chronicles of Narnia, the White Witch and The Lion witch in the Wardrobe is kind of an intense figure, right? Like, she just kind of has this ominous presence. And of course, the BBC did a fantastic job. It wasn't horribly dark or intense or wicked or there was almost comedy in the way the BBC portrayed her. But there's a scene in the BBC film where the music and the temperature of the colors on the screen and the atmosphere and the anticipation when Edmund is walking into the lair of the White Witch, that that scene alone, which seems innocuous to most people, startled. My son my son is nearly he's nearly twelve. He was so he's so tender hearted, but he was so impacted by that scene that we had to sleep at night lights because he was afraid the White Witch would come out of his closet, right? What does that tell me? I have to guard what he watches. The world is very dark out there, friends. Mamas. But the inside of our home should not be as believers. We should be a source of life and light and abundance in grace and mercy, where we can cherish our children and the ones that we love, our husbands. Where you come here into my home and this is a respite for you you can rest here. You can close the doors to everything that's going on out in the world and you can find a place to belong. Here. You can find a place of nourishment. Here you can find a place of love. Here you can come and step into a place where the weight of the world is not in you or on you or for you. Because here, in this small little place, you can be at rest. But in order for us to cultivate that, we've got to be the doorkeepers, right? Like we've got to be the front door to our house, to the houses of the hearts of our children, of ourselves, and make sure that I wouldn't let someone come off of the street and come in and impact a stranger. Come in and molest the heart and mind of anybody in my home, myself, my child, my husband, when he was here. Why would I want that stuff if I wouldn't allow a stranger to do it? Why am I going to essentially allow a gateway of TV, of Internet, of movies, of books, of magazines to come in and invade and molest the heart and mind of the people that live inside my home? I wouldn't do that. You wouldn't do that, right? And so this episode, really, because of the conversation that I had. I really felt that it needed to be kind of just put out there. That the role that we have mothers, the world denigrates homemaking, denigrates place making. Because women should be out there earning their keep and earning their value, and they have skills and they have my girls. When I worked outside of the home, when I stayed home for the first time and managed a home, and then my firstborn arrived, and then I was expecting my second. And girls, managing a home is a thousand times harder than managing anything I did outside. I didn't get paid for it. There's no financial compensation. But the emotional compensation, the biblical compensation in my soul and spirit, there is no price for what you do as a homemaker. There's no compensation that monetary, financial, that money can provide. And when you step into that role as a doorkeeper, as the one that cherishes and stewards, well, what has been given over to you for just a season to steward? My son is twelve, and I'm now at a point where I'm recognizing, oh Lord, I have such few years left. Who knows, maybe in 510 years when he's older, I will say, oh, I thought that's so silly. I thought that I had a short time. But he's still with me and I can still influence to some degree and still encourage and edify. But once he walks out of this haven that I work daily to create, the world is dark. We live outside of the Houston area, and Houston has tons of billboards. I can't even control what my son sets his eyes on as we're driving down the highways whenever we go into town. We don't go into town often, but when we do, I'm just like, oh, Marcy, I can't even control that right? I can't control what he sets his eyes on when we have to go into a shopping center or where we have to, or we spend time with friends at a beach or I can't control that stuff. What I can control and be a doorkeeper for is what comes into my home. So, ladies, I want to take this time to if you're sitting at the kitchen table with me, if you're processing all of this, please know I say this without any condemnation. I mean, I'm on a journey as well. If you have a TV in your house, that's fantastic. If you guys have set rules around Internet and around TikTok around and those things are not bad. I don't want to assign value to I don't want to assign a narrative of her story. Please know that's not what I'm doing. They're not inherently bad. I mean, I run a digital business. I'm a writer, I'm a copywriter, I'm a ghostwriter. I have a book coming out. I have a community that I'm investing in, women that want to be homemakers. So please know the Internet is not bad, TV is not bad. But I think that we have to have the awareness as women, as mothers, that what we bring into our house absolutely can influence and impact the hearts and minds of our children. And not just them, but ourselves as well. My mother used to tell me when I was younger, you are the company you keep. And I thought, that's not true when your parents and I'm still not. I'm in my mid forty s at the time, this recording. I'm in my mid forty s and I'm not even that far down the road, right? There's still more years. The Lord willing for me to live out my sanctification and to run my race. But I look back on my son and this young individual that I care deeply for and I just think, oh, I wish I could go in and just save you from all these things. I can't do that. Obviously, I know that ultimately you belong to the Lord and I'm here to just steward you for a short period of time. I get that. But one of the things that I do have a burden for is making sure that not only I teach you the scripture so that you can return to the ancient ways when you're in trouble, but so that you have a place to rest here, so that you have a place of abundance and nourishment where you are valued as an individual. Your opinions, your perspectives, yes, I treasure all of them. But we're leaving the outside world out and we're creating an inside world here. And so friends, my girls, this is who you are. If you're a homemaker, this is who you are. This is a role that you can step into today and evaluate what you bring into your home so that the hearts and minds of your children can be guarded until the appropriate season, until they're able to process things, until they're able to understand. And so they don't think the white witch is going to jump out of their closet until they can get to a point. And only you as the mother, you as parents can determine that. And only you know your child best. No one in the world knows the heart and mind of your child. But you as a mother and you as a father, you as, you as parents, we seek the Scripture for guidance. We, we turn to the scripture for guidance and then we apply in the best way, in our broken sinful selves, the best way that we can. We go in and apply those principles, those tenets. We ground our home, our lives, the instruction of our children, the admonition, the encouragement, the edification of our children in that place. But I really want to encourage you mothers to just evaluate what you bring into the home. You are a doorkeeper. You can decorate the outside, you can make things look pretty on the outside, but ultimately what is that that's coming inside? What is it that you're allowing inside that is influencing the heart and mind of your children? What is influencing you? I recently had a chance to go to Australia, and I came back really? Just I don't know. I loved it. It was a beautiful culture. The people there seemed and if you're listening to this and you're one of my girlfriends down under, that's beautiful. That's wonderful. I'm so glad that you're here. I loved my experience in your country. I'd never traveled internationally. I've never flown out of the country. Well, I have, but it wasn't for I went to a funeral and spent some time in Mexico and things like that. Mexico is a beautiful country as well, but I'd never flown this 30 hours trip to get out of the country. And I came back just feeling so encouraged because I thought, their culture is so free, they're so accepting we live here in this country, in the US. I feel like everybody's walking around so offended, so angry, and I just thought, how fun. But here's the thing, ladies. At the same time, I have to be very careful with where I place my attention and what I allow inside my own front door, because the values that I hold, whether in Australia, whether here, wherever, right, can also be, I can be persuaded by. But what I'm trying to get to is I think the culture here in the US very much values, puts a great deal of emphasis on bodies, right? On the female body. We see Hollywood, we see movies, and even in my almost 45 years, not quite 45, but almost 45 years of living, I as a mother, and I'm thin, right? If you ever see me in person or speaking at conference or convention, people would say, oh, why are you embarrassed about your body? I have my own body image issues, ladies. Like, I feel after childbirth that my ribs didn't go back to normal and I have a fluffy tummy. And I also struggle with keeping things outside so that I don't begrudge the body that the Lord gave me, and I try to fit it into a mold for which it was not designed to be. So even I can be influenced by the things that are on the outside, right? If I can be influenced and I have experience in the scripture, and I have experience in life, and I am out of your 40s are wonderful. If you're not there yet, you wait till you get there. They're so fun because you've now recognized and realized who you are and who you don't want to be, and you're just happy being. And it's just I think, wow, from here on out, it's going to be amazing, because now I don't care about what anybody thinks about, and that's something that my trip to Australia even kind of highlighted for me. I just thought, wow, I need to enjoy living more. But with that said, I still also have to be really cautious about what I bring in, because I can see the body of a 20 year old and think, well, I'm not that thin. I'm not. Oh, I remember the days when my tummy was super flat. But that woman hasn't delivered children, hasn't been delivered of children. I have. And so what does that mean? I'm not saying we don't care for our bodies. I'm not saying that we don't exercise and feed them well. But I can also compare myself to something that is in reality may not even be real, right? If I can do that with the skill set, the knowledge, the experience, the wisdom, the discernment and the scripture, why do we expect our children to be able to divide that in our homes especially? And so I want to wrap that up, but my hope is that, one, you don't feel condemnation from anything I just talked about, but two, that you actually feel edification, that you feel encouragement in your role as a doorkeeper to your home, to your heart and mind, and to that of your children. What a privilege, ladies. What a privilege, my girls, to just be that front door where we can protect and shelter and keep in. And then when we open the door, we can go out. The instruction that we've provided our children, we can send them out always with the door open for them. They can always come back, regardless of what they do, what they say. You are always welcome here. I will accept you for who you are and how you are. But in my home, I have to guard what comes in it because hearts and minds are at stake. And so, ladies, I want to leave with that. I know that it comes from a deep welling of desire and pursuit of holiness. I want what is good for you. I want what is good for me. And we are the doorkeepers of our homes. My prayer is that you bring in good things. That's it for now. Thanks so much for listening to that. I hope that was of encouragement to you. It was a reminder to me that in this conversation with this young individual, that I just thought, oh, you don't know what's out there, my friend. You don't know the darkness that's out there. There is a lot of good out there, too. Let's focus on the good things. Let's bring in the good things so that we can continue to cultivate a space that gives life and freedom and abundance and nourishment and comfort and safety and rest. If you haven't joined me on Instagram, I would love to connect with you there. Head over to Instagram and do you guys hear my baby chicks? We just got baby chicks. More baby chicks. If I needed more chickens. But we just got baby chicks and their little brooder boxes in here with. Me. So if you hear some cheaping back there and you've heard it through the whole episode, that's what it is. But I really want to invite you to connect with me on Instagram. And, yeah, just send me a DM. I'd love to hear how this episode impacted you. What are your thoughts? I'd love to hear from that. I'd love to hear from you about them. So send me a DM over on Instagram. My handle is at Nunhurried living. A nun living. And you can check out my website at an unhurriedliving.com. I'd love to connect with you in those places. I'll see you same time. Same place next week. Bye for now.