Recently in our home we began practicing “blessing hour”. I noticed other women and homemakers practicing this within their home and although I never saw a full explanation of what blessing hour actually was, I was able to take a good guess based off of the content I saw. Moms and kids blasting worship and picking up before their Dad came home from work. Homeschool families jamming out while tidying up or doing chores before they jumped into their day. In the end, the goal was clear: set aside some time to care for your home (in other words, bless it).

In the past, cleaning our home with a toddler and two full-time working parents looked like keeping up with the basics when it was absolutely necessary or binge-stress-cleaning an hour before company was to arrive. As you can imagine, and maybe even relate, this did not fare well for us. It often led to tension or arguments directly before company arrived- definitely not ideal!! In addition, for me as the keeper of our home, this often meant weekends were spent checking off the to-do list. I spent Friday and Saturdays cleaning the house and catching up on the week’s tasks while Sunday was for church and grocery shopping. I never felt like there was time to rest.

This system was simply not blessing our family, so when I started my maternity leave with James we decided to give blessing hour a go. Partially this was due to my husband being aware of my mental health postpartum. He knows there are two things that make me crazy- a cluttered kitchen and dirty floors.

I explained my idea of blessing hour to him and before we knew it we were tag teaming our house with our newborn in the wrap and our two year old working right beside us. We blast worship and divvy up the work. Roman, our oldest, assists however he can and has since gotten his own toddler-size cleaning supply set. Sometimes he even asks for blessing hour!

Do we always do it for an hour? Definitely not. Like I said we have a two year old and a newborn at home so let’s be realistic. Sometimes it’s a quick ten minute tidy and sometimes it’s an hour or more. We call for blessing hour as needed throughout the week, but when Thursday and Friday come around we plan for it. This allows us to honor the Sabbath together for the first time ever- without the pressure of being productive! I have finally felt capable of turning my mom brain off, shutting down the to-do list, and resting with my family through Saturday evening.

The rest and peace that has come over our home since starting this has truly been a blessing to us. I pray you find your own “blessing hour” norm and experience that same rest that is so needed in our busy world.