Come on Home
You know what’s really special? When one of your favorite authors is truly one of your favorite friends! My friend, Jessica Smartt, writes in a style that just gets me. Or I get her. I don’t know — but I love all of her books. And her most recent, COME ON HOME, may be my very favorite. Enjoy this honest, funny, heart-warming excerpt — then enter to win a copy below!
An excerpt from Come On Home, by Jessica Smartt
The last time we were at a concert of our favorite singer, Andrew Peterson, he said, “Now I’m going to play you a song I wrote for my wife.” That piqued my interest. He rarely mentions his wife in his songs, so I thought, “Wow! I can’t wait to hear this. I wonder what sort of love song this will be.” I was a little bummed to realize the name of the song was “Planting Trees.” This is not a great start, I thought. Is there anything more un-sexy than tree-planting? Planting anything is the worst. It looks good in Magnolia Magazine but when you (and not Joanna Gaines) are the one out there getting ridiculously hot and sticky and dirty, trying to hack away at ground that is suddenly the density of a bowling ball, you realize what God meant when he told Adam the ground was cursed. Thanks, Adam.
Last summer my husband and I got in an argument about what size hole one should dig to plant a tomato seedling. Hot tip for wives: if your husband works in the landscaping business, he does not like it when you “ask him questions” about the size of the hole he dug for a tomato plant. Tuck that one away. The point is, apparently the size of a hole needed for a minuscule tomato plant is way bigger than you thought it needed to be. Even with that expert hole-digging, our tomato plants were a grave disappointment, and the cucumbers so bitter even the chickens wouldn’t eat them. This year we paid the professionals and ordered from our local CSA. Frankly, I have lost patience with gardening. You plant something, go to all that work, and *maybe* you get a good crop? Maybe you don’t! You just have to wait and hope.
And then to plant a tree! My, you won’t see the fruit of all that work for years! In fact, depending on your age, and the tree’s age, and the conditions of the weather and soil and other Landscapery Things, it may actually be your kids, or your grandkids, or the people who buy your house later who finally get to eat good peach cobbler. What I am saying is that you spend all this time and sweat and money to plant something in the ground that you may never actually see the fruit of. To be honest with you, I’m shocked there are so many trees in the world.
Back to Andrew Peterson’s wife. The more I thought about it, I wonder if instead of being disappointed by a song written in her honor about digging holes and watching branches grow, perhaps she actually felt very seen.
Building a strong family, as evidently Andrew’s wife has learned, involves hard, painful, sweaty labor, all the while understanding that you might not be enjoying shade in that corner of the yard for a decade or more. What hope! What perspective! The reason I’m bad at gardening is the same reason I struggle with parenting: It is not natural for me to take the long view.
Taking the long view of things is essential for strong-family-building. Building a strong family involves taking your time and dumping it into things that, like gardening, aren’t fun, don’t give you immediate satisfaction but, we hope, might grow into something really, really beautiful. There are so many of these small tasks inherent in every day of being a good mother. I know you are already doing this. Do it more. Don’t give up.
One opportunity I have every day to lay down my time is what we call in our home “Morning Time.” This is a part of our homeschooling where we read a devotional, a history book, a science book, and a novel. In the circles of Really Wise Homeschooling Mothers, it is an accepted fact that Morning Time is about the best thing you can do in your homeschool. The thing you will look back and love more than anything. I am taking this fact by faith, because every, single, day I do not want to do morning time. I am never in the mood to do morning time. It feels like a waste. It is so long. An hour or more of my life when at least a hundred tasks are calling me. Where I sit in morning time, I have a direct view of the kitchen island which is undoubtedly scattered with Things I Want To Clean Up. Then there are emails, appointments, things to order, texts I want to write. I have to sit down, try really hard to ignore the noise, and what feels like “waste” an hour reading about Galileo, butterflies et al. This is an act of faith. I am believing that in twenty years, Little Women is going to do something, mean something.
I don’t know what this looks like in your home. Isn’t is it exciting that it can look so different for all of us? God knows us, knows our talents and what our families need. But don’t be afraid to take that time and spend it planting trees, literally or figuratively. I will tell you that I cannot think of a time that I personally, looking back, regret investing myself into my home and my family. I’ve never regretted spending an afternoon organizing a closet. I don’t look back and think, “I wish I hadn’t made that meal special.” I don’t regret one date night or vacation. I’ve stopped and started a lot of chore and behavior systems in my day, but I don’t regret trying…
SEE BELOW FOR GIVEAWAY!
Jessica Smartt is the author of Memory-Making Mom and Let Them Be Kids. She lives in sunny North Carolina on a family farm with horses, chickens, and an ever-increasing number of cats. She and her husband, Todd, have three kids whom they homeschool. She is passionate about energizing everyday moms to save childhood and build close-knit families. Jessica loves bike rides, spinach quiche, a clean kitchen, being warm, national parks, and food that anyone else made.
Grab a copy of Come on Home on Amazon and find out more about Jessica here!
ENTER TO WIN A COPY OF COME ON HOME by answering one- or more of the following questions: (Note; Giveaway for US Mailing addresses only!)
- What is an area of family building that you are so glad you have invested in over the long run? (or maybe one that your parents invested in while raising you!)
- What is an area of family building that you are invested in currently? Something you are doing faithfully that you hope will pay off later?
- (For fun!) If you’re into actual gardening — what are invested in growing in your garden this summer?
Leave your comment below and I’ll choose TWO WINNERS next Wednesday (May 20th!
We have always prioritized traveling as a family… being in nature seeing God’s creation has kept our priorities straight. Last year with my breast cancer diagnosis at 34 years old, I was thankful we had those memories during a year of 6 surgeries, chemotherapy, and radiation. It was a rhythm we established and a year later, now that I’m no evidence of disease we have picked that habit back up. As I work through hormone therapy for 10 years, this is one thing that will continue to be a constant. The gift of memories as a family is invaluable. We pray each morning together as a family and do that wherever we are… it has set the tone for my boys as they go out into the world.
We have always had a vegetable garden. We are growing all kinds of organic vegetables and are seeing the fruit come as we prune and pour into those plants. We reference John 15:1-8.
#1) I was the oldest of three, so I believe that my parents tried very hard to be fair and honest with discipline, without showing anger, church on Sundays, and having everyone at the dinner table as often as possible.
#3) Tomatoes, we try every year to grow tomatoes with various results – some good years, some not. Learned a lot though, that tomatoes use up the nutrients in the soil and need them replenished. Sort of like children.
Gardening is something the kids and I do together. It has been all vegetables but I would like to invest in growing some flowers this year – just for something pretty!
We have a cabin four hours away and have driven there very often over the years as a family. The rule was no screens for the first hour and it helped us talk to one another. We have become a RV family and driving is something we do together. We are headed on our 3rd trip to the West Coast this summer from our home in PA. Lots of family time to talk and connect as we drive.
Our family has always spent a lot of time together. And now as most of my kids are teens and preteen, they still enjoy just spending time altogether. It has always been my desire for them to love family time and they seem to. I’m so thankful! I want it to be lifelong.
Family building – questions 1 & 2 are the same for me. Remembering to take pictures when we’re together is one of them; something I didn’t appreciate when I was young, but am so grateful that my mom insisted. She is now gone, and those pictures are priceless. We also have 6 grandchildren, ages 4 – 17, and we try to go to as many activities as possible (sports, concerts, plays, etc.) to show our support. Sometimes that means we go separate ways when more than one grandchild has something on the same day/time. They notice! It matters to them; they also notice most of the other sets of grandparents don’t show up, not even when it’s close to home. Another thing we do is to give the gift an experience together for birthdays and Christmas, rather than just things. They look forward to the adventures!
Lastly, the gardening – our buys schedules don’t allow time for that, so we just plant cherry tomatoes and buy other produce from local farm markets.
*our busy schedules, not buys!