How Do You Face Tribulations as a Homemaker? | My Personal Struggle

Romans 5:3-4 WBMS
“And not this only, but also we glory in tribulations, witting that tribulation worketh patience, and patience proving, and proving hope.”

I will be the first to admit I don’t always handle trials with the grace, discernment and calm that we see from Yahusha, or even other people in the Scripture. And unfortunately, it always turns out that the tribulation is about my heart, not my actual physical reality or the worldly challenges I’m facing. So to fail at becoming patient, then reproved, then hopeful (as Romans 5 says), kind of feels like failure as a daughter of Yah. 

Failure then morphs into discouragement. And discouragement… breaks the spirit.

“A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.”
 (Proverbs 17:22, ESV)

A trial I’ve been facing for many years, is the hesitancy to host, entertain, and invite people over. Any time we’ve had guests in the last few years, it’s either been my husband’s brothers visiting in town, or his father making an excuse to pop in just to see his grandson (well sister Richelle did stop by, but not long enough to truly receive my hospitality, unfortunately). He has a few family members walking in repentance like us, but they aren’t close enough to pop up randomly. And so, we don’t ever fellowship with like-minded Brews, or have friends over, or do any type of hosting.

I think Yahuah has been trying to refine me in this area since I moved to Virginia. Our home (that I’ve written about a lot) was nice, in a nice area, with great access to the best of what the city had to offer. And yet the idea of inviting anyone over, even in “the perfect home”…gave me nausea. 

I have always felt like people will judge my home. And the truth is, they are. But the more important truth, is that their judgment is less important than the service they receive from me. And the best times I’ve had at other people’s homes, wasn’t in the houses with spiral staircases or crystal powder-room vanities. My best memories at other people’s homes happened when the hostess/host gave me all their attention, made me laugh, and held intimate conversation with me.

Even knowing this real truth, I still somehow cannot muster up the courage to phone a friend and say “Hey, would you like to come over for dinner one evening soon?”

My fear got even worse last year (2025) when I finally decided to join Tiktok, before the US hostile takeover of the app. While there was some great content to be discovered and enjoyed, when I looked at homemaking, housewife, and hosting content, I was immediately hit with aspirational content. Elaborate tables complete with layers of cloths and salad bowls, seasonal decor from the porch to the mantle, and don’t get me started on the meals.

I started thinking to myself, if this is what it takes to host people, I’ll never do it. Realistically, I’m a homemaker living on one salary. Most of our monthly income is our rent and bills, then groceries, and there is rarely anything leftover. I rarely get the chance to buy seasonal decor, our meals are basic unless my husband asks and plans for a big Sunday dinner, and I’ve honestly never been a “decorator”. 
Yahuah has led me to journal about this many times. And I always end up reflecting on the shame I felt when I realized I was poor as a kid. I did not know I was poor, or what poor was. That is until we had visitors: friends from my school, and even sometimes family members who happened to be much more well off. Rarely did these people visit twice. I’m even feeling a bit triggered just thinking about it. 

Now as an adult, living in a different place in a different tax bracket, I have still not shed the shame of poverty. And beyond the shame of poverty, there also lies the fear of being truly seen. I always have felt the need to “be” someone else in public or around others. To be someone more polished, more cultured, and more mainstream if you catch my drift. I keep my politics to myself, my religion to myself, and my beliefs about all areas of life close to my chest. But I think, in my home, all of that is on display. You can see my books clearly. My son’s play corner in our family room. The dirty blender on my counter that gets used every day. The scribble doodle held up on our fridge by a magnet. And that sometimes, my sink is full of dishes from the night before, because I was either too tired or too lazy to do them, or I simply preferred to relax with my family (how naughty of me!).

 
My fear of hosting and entertaining stirs a shame so deep in me that I feel like a broken homemaker in a way. I see other women, decorating, cooking, and making elaborate presentations for their guests. Most of all, doing it in homes that seem to need no decoration at all, because they’re new or well-designed. Meanwhile I’m still renting a one bedroom apartment, most of our furniture is actually his parent’s stuff from the 90s and 2000s, and my husband honestly can’t even be convinced it’s time to take down our cheap Hanukkah decor even though it’s now currently March.

I’m not sure how YHWH will get me through this tribulation. I have no idea how women who once felt like me, actually get over something that seems so small and yet so monumental. But I am certain of 2 things:

1. I must not lose my joyful heart, because a crushed spirit dries the bones. Having a defeated and hopeless spirit will literally affect your physical health.

and 2. I must remember that the end goal here is not having a perfect magazine-ready home, but the refinement of my heart through the growing ability to “glory in tribulation”.

As I mentioned already, this tribulation is a lifetime worth of shame, fear, confusion and discouragement. I recognize it’s the enemy, and I’m learning to trust Yah more than I lean on my own understanding.
What does your tribulation look like in homemaking? Maybe its in your marriage, or in motherhood, or maybe it’s highly personal.

How have you faced it, or how are you facing it if it’s still a sore spot for you?

I’m only asking, because I talk to a lot of Israelite women, a lot of moms, and a lot of homemakers. And what we all have in common, no matter our race or beliefs, is that we have human struggles. And sometimes these struggles aren’t something that non-moms, or non-housewives can fully understand– at least it can feel that way. Our tribulation isn’t always a moronic boss at the office, an impossible commute, or an unforgiving professor. But our tribulations are real, too.

Some women struggle to cope with past abortions (I know a few). Some women are dealing with ongoing or the aftermath of infidelity. Some women have unruly kids, or disabled kids, or are struggling to conceive.

When I was a teenager, I read a quote, and it has stuck with me all these years:

“The water that hardens the egg, softens the potato.”

That is to say, the same conditions that can make us hard, can also make us soft. It’s not about what we are going through, but how we choose to get through it. Are we gonna let ourselves get beat down by the enemy, or are we going to let Yah get the glory? 

When I ask myself lately, especially about the insecurity of letting people in my home, ‘Am I the egg or the potato?’… I don’t really know. I think I know what I want to be, and what’s best for me to be. But that’s not always congruent with reality, is it?

One of the most impactful ways I’m learning to submit, grow, and overcome in this challenge and in all of life’s challenges, is to turn off the noise. Whatever triggers insecurity, whatever makes me question Yahuah’s ordinance for hospitality, anything that brings me shame instead of zeal– I’d rather sit in silence. It’s uncomfortable at first, but once that discomfort passes, something else rises. It feels peaceful, calming, and reassuring.

I have also noticed that when I am focused on YHWH, I am too busy to think about ME. He keeps reminding me of that over and over. When I start to sink into my feelings, worries or insecurities, He tells me,

“You would have no space in your mind for those things if you were being filled by Me daily.”

So my encouragement for you, is just to worship Him. Wherever you are in this season, whatever your challenges look like, no matter how heavy your heart is. 

Worshiping Him is how we draw near to Him.

“Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.”

Psalm 100:4

If you were worshipping Him, not only would you be too busy to fixate on yourself, you would find that He is holding the solution, the comfort, the wisdom and the renewal you seek, right in His hands.

It doesn’t matter if you’re the egg or the potato. Because He is our ROCK!