“Keep the home fires burning.”
That used to be just a saying to me. For warmth, I would simply flick a switch or turn a knob. Until we got a fireplace insert to heat our home.
Then I learned about the realities of waking up in a cold house and starting a fire, about kinds of wood and kindling, and about coals staying warm in ashes for a long time. I learned about keeping the wood box filled and how important it is to keep adding wood to the fire throughout the day, every day.
It’s not such a big deal for us, because when we forget or when it’s very cold, we have an oil furnace as back up. Many people throughout the world and throughout history have or had no such luxury.
This week cold weather arrived and we’re again burning wood night and day. Once again I’m learning all these things over again. Keeping the home fires burning literally is an unending task that cannot be forgotten even for a few hours. But it’s worth the effort to have a warm cosy home and everyone gathered around the fire.
Keeping the home fires burning in the figurative sense is similar: a never-ending task that cannot be forgotten but that is so very, very important. Without it our homes will grow cold and wither.
So let’s turn our energies to loving our husbands and children (Titus 2) by keeping the home fires burning. May God bless us all as we work on this, day after day, for His glory and the good of our families, churches, and countries.
For more encouragement, visit Better Mom Monday, Encourage One Another Wednesday, Women Living Well Wednesdays, Works For Me Wednesday , Wisdom Wednesdays, Raising Homemakers.
Such sweet words and a great reminder. 🙂
As someone who grew up in a house with a wood Vermont Castings stove, I can relate, on a literal level! I remember waking most mornings to my dad scraping out the old coals and tossing in armfuls of fresh wood in the woodbox by the stove. On a figurative level, I think you are right on about the home fires. Just as we can’t fail to attend our fires if that’s our heat source, we cannot forget to tend our families faithfully and constantly.
Wow, that’s a lovely memory you have! Once you’ve experienced something like heating by wood fires, it changes the way you think about things.
When we decided to buy our fireplace insert, we were hoping to save money; now we’re finding all these other benefits.
What a beautiful comparison! I recently was on vaca where electric heat was used and I missed my woodstove heat! LOL! Thank you for linking up at Simply Helping Him this week! Blessings!
We love our stoves, Annie Kate. I appreciate the analogy to keeping our relationships vital and strong. It takes work each and every day, doesn’t it!
I’m always glad to see you share at DRAH! Blessings to you all 🙂