I Chose It Because It Survives Children

Everything in your house was chosen for what it can take.

The couch is that color because that color does not show anything. The floor is that surface because it can be wiped. The table is the one that survives. Every cup in the house is unbreakable. There is nothing anywhere below four feet that a person would call delicate, because delicate things do not live in a house with small children in it and everybody knows it.

You did not choose any of it because you liked it. You chose it because it works.

And there is a feeling that comes with that, usually somewhere around nine at night when the house has gone quiet, and the feeling is that you live in a house with no taste in it. That every decision in the room was a defensive one. That somebody walking in would learn nothing about you at all, because there is nothing in here that came from you liking something.

I want to take that apart, because half of it is a real loss and half of it is a misreading, and they have been welded together.

The real loss is that you have not chosen something for pleasure in about six years. That is genuine and it deserves saying.

The misreading is the idea that a house built to survive a family is a house without taste in it. That is not what it is, and we are going to look at what it actually is, and then we are going to put three things you like somewhere small hands cannot reach.

Where no oxen are, the crib is clean

There is a proverb that nobody quotes at showers or on cards, and it is the most useful verse in the Bible about a house with children in it.

Where no oxen are, the crib is clean: but much increase is by the strength of the ox. (Proverbs 14:4, King James Version)

The crib is the feeding trough. With no ox in the barn, it stays spotless. Nothing to clean up, nothing knocked over, nothing tracked through.

And the proverb says, in the same breath, that a clean trough means an empty barn, and that everything the farm actually produces comes from the animal making the mess.

You are living in a house with the increase in it, and a room worn by a family has never once been a room without anything in it. Proverbs 14:4 puts the mess and the increase in the same sentence on purpose, and the Holy Spirit is the one who reads a house that way at nine at night.

Now look at how the proverb handles the trade, because it is unusually plain about it.

It does not pretend the ox is tidy. It does not say the mess is secretly lovely. It grants the mess entirely, and then it says the mess is the price of the only thing worth having, and it ends there.

That is a straight piece of arithmetic and it maps exactly onto your living room. The wipeable floor is the crib. The children are the increase. The proverb has already done the sum.

You have made the trade the written word calls the right one, and a wipeable floor has never once been evidence of a life without beauty in it. The Spirit of God is the one who counts the increase rather than the state of the barn, and it is written in Proverbs 14:4 that the strength of the ox is where the increase comes from.

Chosen for a reason is still chosen

Now let me push on the misreading, because it is the part that has been costing you.

Every one of those decisions was a decision. That is the thing that keeps getting lost.

Somebody stood in front of two options and worked out which one would survive a household, and which color would still be usable in four years, and which surface could take what was coming. That is judgment. That is a person applying knowledge of her own house to a series of real choices, over years, and getting most of them right.

The house is not taste-free. It is full of one particular kind of taste, and the kind is called judgment, and it is the least celebrated and most useful kind there is.

You are somebody who has made hundreds of good decisions about a real house, and choosing for a reason has never once been the same as choosing without taste. The Holy Spirit is the one who sees a woman's judgment where nobody has been calling it that, and Proverbs 14:4 counts the increase rather than the tidiness.

But here is where the real loss sits, and I do not want to talk you out of it.

None of those choices were for pleasure. Every one of them was defensive. And a person can go a long time making excellent decisions and still be quietly starved of the experience of choosing something because it is lovely.

That is a real hunger and it is not vanity and it does not go away by being sensible about it.

You are allowed to want something chosen for pleasure, and six years of practical decisions has never once canceled a woman's right to like a thing. The Spirit of God is the one who knows what a person has gone without, and it is written in Proverbs 14:4 that the increase is worth the cost without the cost being pretended away.

And this, plainly. That house is not a report on you. Not on your taste, not on your standards, not on what you would choose if the house were different. A room built to survive small children is not a verdict on the woman who built it, and I am not going to allow it to be read that way while she is standing in it at nine at night.

You are a woman whose worth was settled a long way from a couch, and a hard wearing room has never once been a statement about who lives there. Proverbs 14:4 puts the whole value on the increase in Proverbs 14, and the same Spirit who inspired that line is in the room with you.

Three things, up high

So here is the assignment, and the height is the point.

Put three things you chose because you liked them on one surface together on purpose tonight, up where small hands do not reach.

Three things. Chosen for pleasure only. Not useful, not durable, not sensible.

If there are three in the house already, find them. They may be in a box. They may be things from before the children that got put away for safety and never came back out. If there are not three, two is fine, and one is fine, and the number is not what this is about.

You are choosing something for no reason except that you like it, and one object picked for pleasure has never once been a frivolous thing in a working house. The Holy Spirit is the one at work when a woman does something for herself in her own home, and Proverbs 14:4 grants the mess and counts the increase without shame about either.

Then the height, and this is the practical part that makes it possible.

High shelf. Mantel. Top of a cabinet. Somewhere a small person cannot get to and a tall person can see.

You are already the expert on what survives where in this house, and six years of that knowledge has never once been anything but skill. The Holy Spirit is the one who puts a woman's own competence back into her hands, and Proverbs 14:4 counts the increase in a barn rather than the state of the trough.

This is not hiding them. This is the same principle as everything else in that house: a woman who has been making that calculation for six years knows exactly what survives where. Apply the skill that is already there to the thing you actually want.

And then, at nine at night, when the house is quiet, there will be three things in your line of sight that are there because you like them.

You are using the judgment you already have to make room for something you want, and a high shelf has never once been a smaller act of taste than a whole room. The Spirit of God is the one present when a household makes space for beauty and safety at the same time, and it is written in Proverbs 14:4 that the increase and the mess arrive together.