Gregoire - To Love, Honor, and Vacuum

If housework is driving you insane, you arent alone. But before you give up and let the cat litter take over, read this book and get ready for a whole new approach to home management.

San Diego Family

Practical advice on how to balance our priorities.

Christian Home and School

In To Love, Honor, and Vacuum, Sheila speaks to both the heart and habits of the woman who is wife and mother. The lessons in this book are biblical, doable, and affordable! I highly recommend it.

Margaret B. Buchanan, author of Famous Jerks of the Bible

To Love, Honor, and Vacuum is a wonderful, fun-to-read book filled with insight and practical hints for busy women of all ages. Highly recommended.

Linda Hall, best-selling author, Sadies Song

Sheila grabs every area of a womans life and helps to make sense of it. Not only does she address problems, she offers simple, biblical solutions in a succinct, easy-to-read way. Hats off to Sheila for a book well done.

Leanne Ely, New York Times best-selling author

To Love, Honor, and Vacuum: When You Feel More Like a Maid

Than a Wife and Mother, Revised and Expanded

2003, 2014 by Sheila Wray Gregoire

Published by Kregel Publications, a division of Kregel, Inc., 2450 Oak Industrial Dr. NE, Grand Rapids, MI 49505.

To protect the privacy of individuals who have shared their stories with the author, names and identifying details have been changed.

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Scripture quotations marked NRSV are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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To Keith,

who vacuums better than I do!

M y mother-in-law raised an amazing man.

From the very beginning of our marriage, my husband carried at least half of the household responsibilities. Our relationship has never been defined by his job or her job, but by an if it needs to be done, do it approach. For example:

When hes working out in the basement, he does laundry between sets.

While Im homeschooling the boys, I bake bread.

Dishwasher needs emptying? He does it.

Furniture needs to be moved? Ill give it my best shot with or without him.

We work together to make our house a home. Its the way its always been, and it works well for us both.

That is, it worked until last winter, when my husband had unexpected ACL surgery.

It was the result of a moment of glorywhile reliving his high school days in an alumni football game, taking the field in the green and gold of our alma mater one last time. Truth be told, he was a sight to behold. Watching him dive through the air and save a touchdown did wonders for our eleven-year-old marriage, reminding me of some of the reasons I was so attracted to him in the beginning. It helped me see my man through fresh eyes, and to appreciate his physical and mental determination to win. But midway through the second quarter, he hurt his knee, and what started out energizing our marriage ended up sucking the life out of me.

After he underwent an intense reconstructive surgery to fix an almost completely blown out ACL, I was left to take care of everything by myself.

My husband couldnt even get off the couch for the first few days post-op, so as I nursed and cared for him, I also had to maintain our home (clean, shop, do the budget, pay the bills, do the laundry), teach our boys, run my online ministry, take care of both our Labs, and meet a book deadline of my own.

I nearly lost my mind several times. I cant get it all done. I cant get it all done. I cant get it all done were the words filling my heart and mind each day.

Stress levels ran high, children were pushed to the side so Daddys more intense and immediate needs could be met, and I scrambled to keep our home presentable as friends and family brought meals to support us. I was so flustered by everything on my to-do list that I managed to forget a national radio-show interviewsomething totally out of character for meand had to beg my publisher for a book deadline extension. In short, I was a mess.

Then, about two weeks after my husbands surgery, it began to snow.

And snow. And snow. And twenty-three inches later, completely snowed in and unable to do anything related to the outside world for several days, our family began to have fun. We laughed, dug a trench to our neighbors house, and surrounded my husband as he hobbled over to share meals, play games, and throw snowballs. As the days went by, I began to see the good in all the bad.

Sometimes, what we call bad isnt really bad at all, but Gods perfect plan to prepare us for His purpose.

I had chosen Psalm 92:4 to pray for our family that year, and God was answering my prayers right before my eyes.

For you make me glad by your deeds, O L ORD ; I sing for joy at the works of your hands.

It came in the meals lovingly prepared by friends, in an unexpected opportunity to bless and serve my husband, in opportunities to teach my sons what real love looks like, and in simple evenings spent laughing as a familythe best medicine of all.

Its so easy to miss themthose moments of grace in the messbut they happen most often in our homes. The place of our biggest to-do list can provide space for our greatest good. If we dont stop to look for the good, life and its massive, never-ending list of things to accomplish will suffocate us, stuffing down the gift of difficult times. But it doesnt have to be that way.

In To Love, Honor, and Vacuum, Sheila helps us see the gift in the mess and the purpose in the list. If youve struggled, like I have, to find the blessing of serving through your home, youre in the right place. Be prepared to look at your life through a whole new lens, and come out on the other side more grateful than ever before.

Brooke McGlothlin

Cofounder of the MOB Society (for Mothers of Boys)

and author of Praying for Boys

February 2014

D iane is ready to snap. Ted never lifts a finger! she tells me.

Hell watch me struggle to get both kids in their snowsuits and out the door, and hell just say, Can you keep it down? Im trying to work. He is always going out with his friends. But I have to ask permission to leave, and he hardly ever agrees. Im just so tired. Every day, I clean up after them, I get dinner ready, I bathe the kids, I get them into bed, and I just want to collapse myself. But then he expects sex! How long do I have to put up with this?