Your Home’s Atmosphere Matters

Proverbs 14:30 - A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones.

When you battle a chronic health or mental health issue you may find yourself home most of the time. How that home looks can influence where your emotional health falls.
 

• Is your home dark with all of your blinds and curtains closed not letting any sunlight in?
• Is your home staunch with no color and only a few things that are creative displayed?
• Is your home a reminder of what you started and didn’t finish as uncompleted projects pile up?
• Is your home blaring with the sound of the TV being on 24/7?
• Is your home a place where you proudly display pictures of your family on the wall, or are the pictures stuck in a closet somewhere?
• Is your home a place of congestion with everything strewn about in chaos with no order to it?

 
It’s important to create a peaceful, beautiful atmosphere around you.
 

1. Open up blinds and curtains to allow sunlight to filter in through the windows.
2. Decorate your home with clusters of flowers and decorations and change the theme every month or at least for each season.
3. If you’re unable to complete projects that you started, place them in large plastic containers with a sheet of paper taped on the cover with the projects listed and when they were started. Then place the container in a closet until you feel like working on it again.
4. Turn off the TV for most of the day and instead have soft music playing in the background.
5. Dig out the pictures of your family and proudly display them where you can see them and focus on the blessings you have. You can also display 4 X 6 pictures on your refrigerator.
6. Pick up the clutter in your home, especially unopened mail and unread magazines. Open your mail right after you receive it, and file it in an accordion file with months of the year listed or by categories such as bills to pay and letters to write. Keep magazines in the order you receive them on a bookshelf or inside a wooden basket.

 
Here are some other ideas on how to create a peaceful atmosphere in your home on goodhousekeeping.com in their article, “10 Real-Life Tricks for Creating a Calm, Peaceful Home,” such as giving everything in your entryway a home by installing hooks to hang coats on and making room in the entry closet for shoes and boots. Another of their ideas is to ensure that your day ends on a soothing, luxurious note by using fresh and soft sheets and blankets on your bed so you can relax into them at night.
 
The important thing to remember is to create an atmosphere in your home which allows you to look about and see beauty and organization. This change can be effective in lessoning the stress you have in your life. Also, as you work on your home you may find yourself excited once more to complete unfinished projects or read an article in one of your magazines you’d forgotten about.
 
But also give yourself a break. Things don’t have to be done perfectly in your home. A few areas of disorganization is okay. Just so long as it isn’t a theme in every room of your home. And don’t think that you have to finish everything overnight. Choose one room and then move on from there. Pretty soon you’ll begin to feel a sense of comfort and joy even inside your own home.
 
Having a peaceful heart, as the Bible verse above says, can give life to your body. Less stress equals a healthier heart and it may even add years to your life. Peace is a gift that God freely gives. It’s not something you can muster up in your own strength. God will give you the wisdom you need because your home’s atmosphere really does matter especially to God.

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