Contentment in homemaking, motherhood, marriage, and life in general. What a beautifully freeing potential! The possibilities are endless if we can embrace contentment where we are at. But how? And why? This is the story of the beginning of my journey and my heart behind this blog. 

Hey there! I’m Hannah. I’ve been married to my husband Kyle for seven years and together we have four beautiful children ranging in ages from newborn to twin five year olds. I’m blessed to stay home with our children and attempt to create an atmosphere of peace and grace in our home in the process. 

Growing up I lived in one of the most breathtaking settings imaginable- a rural cranberry marsh on hundreds of acres in a house set on the side of a privately owned bluff. Yep. You read that right! Talk about a dream setting to grow up in! At least I certainly thought so the twenty years I lived there before marrying my husband. When my husband and I married we were young, in love, and broke 🙂 Which meant moving to a town and renting a tiny little duplex complete with noisy neighbors. Shocking to this girl’s system is an understatement! I was happy enough though, I was married to my sweet Kyle and this living arrangement of being in a dirty, noisy town was only temporary… Right??

Fast forward to year two of our marriage. We were the proud new parents of twin boys! I was graduating from UW Green Bay (online) with my bachelors degree and we had just moved into another rental in town to accommodate our growing family. At this point there was a decision to be made… I had my degree and a possible career path. Pursuing that meant dual income and maybe finally that house in the country! Room to breathe and the “ideal” setting in which to raise children which I myself had experienced. This was surely the right path to take right? So I started working part-time. And you know what? I was miserable. Sure, we had more money, but the pain in my heart leaving my precious boys every morning was horrible. Maybe, just maybe this working away from my children thing in order to help give them the “ideal growing setting” wasn’t so great after all… Then I found out we were expecting again. How exciting! I couldn’t wait to meet this precious little life growing inside me and the idea of leaving a newborn to work was so difficult to imagine. So home I came to stay full time. 

And nine months later our precious daughter was born. 

I was living my dream, right? I had three adorable children and I got to stay home with them. But here’s the thing… they were all two and under. And I was EXHAUSTED. Sure, I was home with my children but I was feeling as though I spent less quality time with my children by the end of the day than if I was working out of the home. How was this even possible? I exhaustedly jumped from one task to another. Cleaning dishes, nursing a baby, keeping twin two year olds from wrecking everything in the home (and each other), and somehow trying to keep the house from looking like a bomb went off.

Around that time I started hearing the term minimalism and how it had positively impacted the lives of many mothers. I was becoming desperate and figured why not?? So I began pursuing a version of minimalism. Now I want to stop here. Minimalism was a very positive change in our home and in my homemaking and is something I’m still pursuing (that’s a story for another time). But here’s what I discovered. Minimalism couldn’t fix all the frustrations of motherhood. A perfectly clean home couldn’t provide me with joy in my motherhood and homemaking. The newest decorations, the cutest baby clothes, nice furniture, a non-rusty car… none of these things could bring the joy and peace I felt was so deeply missing from my motherhood. So what was missing?? One word. Contentment. Peace and satisfaction with the situation and circumstances in which God had placed me. Contentment with where God led me and my family. With our home. Our finances. The hand me down furniture and clothing. The rusty car. None of these things mattered or compared to the JOY of a motherhood and life rooted in the truth of God’s word and the pursuit of the things that matter to Him. He is the one that brings peace and satisfaction. And when I started trusting that He truly is a Good Father who places us exactly where we need to be for our growth and His glory… well the freedom that brings is incredible. Once I released control, I could start being thankful for the things He provided and content in the settings in which He  placed me. 

Which leads me to today! How can I continue to pursue contentment in the reality of life when the world is screaming more is better? I don’t want more, I want to slow down to nurture and enjoy the blessings the Lord has so lavishly placed in my life. 

I’d love to have you join me on this journey as we seek to apply these ideas to motherhood, homemaking, and personal growth! Let’s lean in and do this, the rewards are too great to be ignored.