Being sentimental is not just clutter in our lives or the enemy of neatness in our homes. We choose what we save or collect for purposes that only we may know. Objects evoke memories but they can be useful, too!
We’ve just passed Mother’s Day and Father’s day is now approaching. It is a sentimental time of year for many with lots of memories of those that have passed. I love items in my home reminding me of my dad and mom, my grandparents, and friends. When they are used or noticed on a shelf, they inspire stories to be told to younger family members that may not have known them.
More to sentiment than stuff
There is more to sentiment than stuff. Actions can evoke memories as well. I love making bread. Kneading the dough takes me back to my grandma’s kitchen when I was very young listening to her stories of the grandmother that taught her how to bake bread. My grandmother was a teacher in the early twentieth-century and taught in rural one-room schoolhouses. She used our time together in the kitchen to reinforce math and science principles I had learned in school.
Grandma’s rocking chair sits in my home. Sitting in that chair and holding my grandchildren, I remember seeing her kneeling at that same chair and speaking my name in prayer to the Lord. Her prayers and the memory of her faithfulness still inspire and carry me through days of joy and trial. I strive to follow her example.
Keepsakes inspire actions
Objects in our homes don’t just remind us of those that have passed. They bring to mind those we love when we cannot be together. I love drinking tea from a pretty mug that I received from my sister-in-love. I was staying in their home as a stopover on my way to the beach. She had placed a gift bag on the nightstand with a mug, some teas, and a precious note. Every time I use that mug, I breathe a prayer of blessing for her.
On my sewing cabinet sits a cross-stitch picture “Sew in Love” stitched for me by another sister-in-love. It reminds me of the common love we have for crafting and for family. She is prayed over almost daily when I go to work in my home office.
Artwork created by my grandchildren on our annual family vacation to the beach hangs on the bulletin board above my desk, and their photos sit on my piano. My heart swells with love and I whisper a prayer every time I look at them.
Sentiment can inspire faithfulness
Sentimental items are only clutter or junk if they don’t inspire us to be more faithful, more caring, and more thoughtful. Find Us Faithful by Steve Green states, “O may all who come behind us find us faithful,…” We need to follow the faith of those that went before us and share their faithfulness with those coming behind us. If the opportunities to share are opened by using a plate of grandma’s or reading the notes in an ancestor’s Bible, those objects contribute to our life not clutter it.
Do your sentimental items create clutter or inspire you? Don’t give in to the temptation to get rid of all your memorabilia in the current trend of minimalism. Hang on to gifts and legacy items that inspire you to be faithful in the life you walk before your family and the world. Use that inspiration to guide the next generations into a life of faithfulness.
My heart for home includes a love of family and faith history, and you aren’t in my home long before you spot items that inspire that love. Teapots encourage hospitality and conversation. Books display my interest in homemaking–both vintage and modern. Handmade items and furniture pieces remind me of God’s faithfulness through the generations of our family.
What would we learn about you from your home? How do sentimental items inspire you? What captures your heart? I hope as we journey together as homemakers I can learn from you, too!
Sharing my heart for home,
