Heaven At Home: A Review

I love staying at home, and I love being married to my wonderful husband, and I love being a mommy. We have a peaceful homelife. So imagine the surprise on my husband’s face when my box arrived containing the books that I purchased with Christmas money. He pulled out Heaven At Home by Ginger Plowman and got a look of questioning on his face. ”Don’t we have a heavenly home?” he asked. ”Of course we do! It looked like a good read,” was my reply. I don’t know that he believed me. 

Honestly, I ordered the book to be a sort of tool in my workbench of life. Pastors have vast libraries that they use all the time. Why not pastors’ wives? I saw it recommended on Shepherd Press’ website and my thought was, “I really enjoyed and have learned much from Shepherding a Child’s Heart.  Maybe this is another good one to!” I didn’t think I had much to learn by way of making a home peaceful for my family. I could read it over and then recommend it to those who really needed it. Right?

Wrong. I was so wrong. Now before you go and start disqualifying me as a pastor’s wife, let me clarify that we do, indeed, have a wonderful home. We are striving to please God in all that we do. My life is fairly organized, our home is not a health hazard and no one has called the cops on our kids. But, nevertheless, we claim to have mastered nothing. Ginger Plowman had so many good reminders that I needed to take to heart. There were no earth shattering doctrines to learn.  No new philosophies to consider. But sometimes it is good to just sit back and listen to another godly individual put a different twist on something you already know. Or remind you again, that glorifying God should be your ultimate purpose in life. 

I appreciated Ginger’s honesty as she humbly admitted her own struggles in various aspects of her life. For sometime now, we’ve looked at “high-profile Christians” as people with no fault or no struggles. It is encouraging to know that other people suffer with sin. Whether they be wrong priorities in the home (e.g. the phone, email or the web), wrong attitudes (with spouses, children and others), failing to see the great responsibility God has given to us mothers, being a control freak, being consistent in discipline, having an organized home and a structured day, or being hospitable, Ginger covers these with kindness and gentleness. 

This book is easy to work though. It contains only 221 pages and I found myself laughing and crying through it. It is both convicting and challenging. Plowman gives practical, godly advice that will prompt you to want to change to be more Christ-like so that you can establish a piece of “heaven on earth” for God’s glory.