Book Club: Jesus is the King of Our Home

For Week 4 of the Secrets of the Sacred Heart Book Club, Liz Pardi explores how Jesus can lighten our loads if only we allow Him to.

Chapter 9: Dedicate your home (and school and workplace) to Jesus

Promise #9 – I will bless every place in which an image of my heart is exposed and honored.

There’s a line in chapter 9 of Emily Jaminet’s Secrets of the Sacred Heart that couldn’t have described the fruits of our Sacred Heart enthronement any more perfectly. “Through [the enthronement], we … learn how to navigate living in the world.”

When my husband and I enthroned our home almost five years ago, we’d been married for a little over a year and were new parents. Everything felt like chaos. We each had a strong desire to pursue the things we were passionate about, but he was stuck in a job he disliked and I found it stressful to balance motherhood with other pursuits. We both felt this daunting sense of confusion and despair.

How were we supposed to nurture the important areas of our lives like prayer, relationships and the pursuit our dreams while also maintaining a home, building a family and staying on top of what seemed like a million other things? Living in this world felt too heavy and complex.

Enthroning Jesus as the king of our home was not at all an overnight fix. More often than not, God’s most fruitful work in our lives is a slow process. But over the next several years, my husband and I were graced with this undeniable sense of clarity. Without any strenuous effort on our part, our goals came clearly into focus and things that facilitated us achieving those goals began falling into place.

Navigating faith, marriage, parenthood and all other areas no longer seemed messy and daunting. It all became rightly ordered and even exciting because Jesus was the head of our home and lives.

Of course, it’s still a daily battle because in this busy world, we’re pulled in hundreds of different directions. Taking that breath and reminding myself that amidst the chaos, Christ is in control requires effort I don’t always want to slow down for. When I do, though, I can relax and relinquish control.

I love the comment from the business owner in Secrets of the Sacred Heart who said she realized “that weight was not for me to carry alone, that I shouldn’t become anxious and stressed.” That’s the beauty of enthroning Christ’s Sacred Heart. He lightens our loads if only we allow him to. Emily writes:

By welcoming Jesus as king, we unite ourselves to his reign of love, Jesus doesn’t rule with the iron fist of control; rather, he leads us with his blazing heart of love.

This is exactly what my husband and I were so desperately in need of prior to enthroning our home: leadership. We had been quickly thrown into adulthood and didn’t at all feel ready for it. Thankfully, Jesus came in and blessed all our efforts, showing us what goals to pursue committedly and what to release from our lives.

Ironically, we just moved into a new house, are in the midst of a huge remodel and are expecting our fourth baby three months from now. But because Jesus is the king of our home, I feel a sense of clarity amidst all this clutter. His reign provides so much joy, direction, and protection and our family is so truly blessed by it day after day.