Some things just make me feel old-fashioned. Like kneading and baking homemade bread. It’s a good thing, really! I like to feel a little old school, embodying traditional family values, being ‘that’ mom who wears an apron and kisses her husband who walks relieved through the door after a hard day. I long for those moments and their aroma of home baked bread saturating the air with sounds of kids laughing and playing seeping into my kitchen from their rooms.
Maybe it sounds completely crazy and utterly outdated to many of you. I don’t know…maybe I’ve got an old soul or perhaps I simply long for slower days.
Whatever my reason, the old-fashioned kitchen scene is what I envision in my mind when I’m baking bread or mixing up a batch of cookies with my apron tied on waiting for my husband to come home while the girls read on the couch or play dolls in their room.
And you know what? While that’s the scene I long for, I confess it’s the kind I often actually attempt to emulate a times! I love lingering in the kitchen listening to the older girls chatter, waiting for him to come home and hug me, kneading the dough thinking and praying about each one of the bodies my loaf of bread will feed.
Yeah, some things simply make me feel old fashioned and, well, I like that. I suppose most people fanaticize about other more tantalizing aspects of modern life like traveling, extravagant cruises, romantic getaways or reaching career dreams. Me? I dream about folding sheets in peace, cleaning closets while calm kids watch as they learn the art of organization and about having time enough to bake bread for other families who need some food for encouragement.
I dream about fresh cut flowers on the countertop, sipping on a warm cup of coffee with a few spare moments to simply bask in the words of one of the many books sitting in the stack I’ve been longing to read.
I dream about all five of these girls waltzing down the stairs to sit on one of the chairs to chat with me about their day…and their dreams…while I share kitchen tips and cooking tricks.
I dream about an intact family with a man and a wife who look into each other’s equally yoked eyes with compassion for the concerns of the other as their hopes and dreams dance behind their loving stares. This woman and her husband love to linger together after all the kids have retreated to their rooms for the night. They embody an old-fashioned love like the kind I knead into my home-baked bread, every press and squeeze, each chuckle and challenge, massaging deeper intimacy into their marriage.
Are my dreams really all that old-fashioned?
I don’t know. Maybe these are the things many of us long for under the surface of our current culture’s fast pace family life. Maybe we all just long to slow down and rest in the kind of old fashioned values I dream about when I’m baking this bread…
Here’s the thing. We can make it happen in our own homes. We can love gently, we can linger in the kitchen, we can knead simplicity into the lives of our loved ones with kindness and compassion in moments embedded between all the crazy.
And my old fashioned dreams, all those ones I’ve been telling you about? The more I purposefully weave them into our reality, the more they begin to outline our daily experiences. While this fantasy life isn’t nearly always possible, it’s also not so far out of reach when I focus on what’s really important to this wife and mama on a mission to keep old-fashioned love alive!
That’s how I know we can all create something real from the life we live in quiet moments in our daydreams. I simply step out of the culture’s fast-paced ways and focus on what happens inside these walls. Then the old-fashioned happens! I relish in the moment when I give him the lunch I’ve prepared. My heart leaps when catch love in his eyes and relief in his arms after he comes home. My mother’s mind fills with purpose and peace as each girl gives me opportunity to nurture her the way only she needs it. And my hands rejoice when I knead and bake bread for the bodies I love.
God’s somehow taken some of my day dreams and nestled them neatly into my heart and home. It’s not nearly always slow and simple, but He certainly quenches my craving for an old-fashioned love around here. I’ll keep looking for ways and I’ll keep talking to Him about how to create the love and life He wants to create in me for all of them.
Oh, and that dream…the one with the man and the wife lingering after the kids have all retreated for the night. It’s real. Each night, whether we’re laughing or discussing life, I’m here lingering with the love of my life.
And all that….from my Homemade Loaf of Herb Bread that my man loves…..
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