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Christian homemakers need encouragement and motivation to stay the course. Homemaking and homeschooling can feel overwhelming, but they don’t have to be. If you’re a Christian mom longing for a well-ordered home, a peaceful homeschool, and a joyful heart—without the stress or burnout—you’re in the right place. Moms can be productive and peaceful when grounded in Scriptural truth.
I’m Mystie Winckler, homeschooling mom of five, founder of Simply Convivial, and your guide to managing both home and heart with faith and focus. Here, we talk about biblical homemaking, sustainable homeschooling, and cheerful productivity—all through the lens of organizing your attitude and embracing your God-given calling.
In each episode, you’ll find practical homemaking systems, homeschooling strategies, and mindset shifts that will help you manage your home without perfectionism or frustration. We’ll tackle topics like:
✔️ Christian homemaking routines that actually work
✔️ Productivity, mom-style
✔️ Homeschooling with peace—even when life gets messy
✔️ Time management for moms (without rigid schedules)
✔️ Decluttering your home & your attitude
✔️ How to be diligent, not just busy
Motherhood is a marathon, not a sprint. You don’t need more willpower—you need a grace-filled, biblical approach to managing life at home. Let’s cultivate faithfulness, embrace joy, and build habits that make home a place of peace and purpose.
👉 Subscribe now and start organizing your home and heart—cheerfully.
Speaker: Hello.
All right.
Let me know that it's working, and I
will try my best to see the chat here.
All right.
Welcome to the first Monday in October.
So great to see you here,
and everything says I'm live,
and there are so many people.
All right.
Thank you, Dawn.
We're good to go then.
All right.
So this is our third annual Organize
October, where I have extra podcast
episodes, extra emails, all kind of
around a theme so that we can really
double down and make some significant
progress in our lives in a particular
area before the holidays hit, basically.
Because October, that's
what October means.
Like, September is all about getting
that school year started, and we're
kind of head down, doing the things,
getting the routine in place.
And October is this perfect time of
space between the, the brand-new startup
time of September, which is a lot of
work and effort and getting things
underway, and then next month is gonna
be Thanksgiving and then Christmas.
And so that takes up a lot of mom's
bandwidth, and it's supposed to.
So we have this big looming set
of responsibilities coming up with
putting on the holidays, putting
on Thanksgiving and Christmas and
New Year's, and we have this little
window or pocket of time with October.
There are beautiful leaves.
Maybe there's still even a little bit of
sunshine before winter really kicks in.
All kind of depends on where
you're at in the world.
But it is a great time
to really put, uhâ¦
to get ourselves- Um,
you know, put together.
What we want, right, we want
everything to be going smoothly.
We wanna get everything on our list done.
We want our house to be decluttered
and organized and all the things,
and we can't have all of the things.
And so then we have to figure out
what's actually important and what
things we should be working on.
And so in past years, we've done home
routines, like cleaning routines.
Last year, we did a planner, getting our
planner really put together, and this
year we are focusing on our attitudes.
Because really, our attitudes
are what matter the most.
Our attitudes are what we need to
organize first before we organize
the closets or the routines.
And our attitudes will make
or break everything else,
especially the holidays coming up.
So before we, um- Before we plan for
Thanksgiving and Christmas and have all
of those things together, we wanna get
our frame of mind, our mindset, our hearts
in hand Because to have a convivial home
for the holidays, which the holidays
are like pe- peak convivial time.
' Cause convivial means a festive atmosphere
where we're enjoying life together.
And it really is about an
atmosphere, and it's the
atmosphere that we create as moms.
And our attitude, our demeanor,
our tone, our perspective is what
creates the atmosphere of our home.
So we have to figure out how to not
be slaves to our own emotions, and
not just operate on whatever defaults
are happening in our head, but really
Double down on aligning
our thoughts with truth.
Here's truth, it's outside of us,
and we take our thoughts and our
emotions and we line them up, match
them up, conform them to truth.
So that's what we're gonna be
focusing on all month long.
If you are just stumbling upon
this on YouTube or a friend
shared it, or the podcast, then
go to simplyconvivial.com/october
to get all the extra, um, goodies
and bonuses and everything that
we have going on this month.
It's a free challenge, a free
celebration of October that we're doing.
So, um, every Monday I'm gonna have a live
like this, and every episode is gonna be
about changing the thoughts in your head,
because really your emotions and your
responses come from what you're thinking.
And we actually can change
what we're thinking about, and
changing what we're thinking about
makes a huge, huge difference.
And we have a lot of our Convivial
Circle members here in the chat.
So tell your own alignment card story
or your own attitude story here today.
You know that it's true.
Whatâ¦
You can change what you're thinking about,
and when you do that, especially when
you change your thoughts to be scripture-
It will bring your attitude and your
feelings into conformity with reality
and into conformity with God's Word.
And that's what we are really after here.
This isn't about, like, pulling yourselves
up by your bootstraps, self-help.
It's definitely not manifestation or
even affirmation, where, like, with un-
with affirmations, it can kind of feel
similar or sound similar, where you're
putting some truth or some statement about
yourself that you hope will be true in
the future, and you just start talking
about it now as if it's already happened.
It, it's a way to, like, make
your own truth by speaking.
It's, like, so clearly trying
to be God for yourself, right?
Make your own self.
Be a self-made person by speaking
your own self into existence.
That is gonna get you nowhere
fast, or get you bad places fast.
We don't want to be trying to make
ourselves into whatever we want to be.
We want to be giving
ourselves back to God.
He's redeemed us, He's purchased us, and
He tells us we can be conformed to Christ.
And so an alignment card is
different from affirmation-type
stuff that the world does.
So an alignment card is taking
God's objective truth found in
His Word, putting it on an index
card, and reading it intentionally,
slowly, multiple times a day.
I mean, even though it's slow, we're
still talking like 30 seconds or less.
And that reminds us of what's real and
what's true and where we're headed.
It gives the Holy Spirit material
to work with in our hearts and
our minds and reminds us to pause
and notice the Spirit's conviction
and work and submit to it.
So
Find a scripture, maybe something
that was read at church yesterday
Write it on an index card, post it
at your kitchen sink or your bathroom
mirror or on your planner or on your
phone, and look at it throughout
the day, and let that go into you.
And what this does, especially when we
have so much on our to-do lists and, um,
we, we n- can never get to it, we start
telling ourselves incorrect stories.
Um
You know, our stories about
not getting our stuff done can
be, " I never get anything done.
I'm never gonna get to
the end of this list."
And we just start spinning,
and we need to interrupt those
self-pity stories with God's word
And then that helps us choose
gratitude instead, which
completely changes our perspective.
You know, right now this week, I am really
into prudence because with the Scholae
Sisters retreat coming up, we're gonna
be speaking on prudence on Saturday.
Um, and prudence is about knowing
what reality is objectively
outside of ourselves, right?
So it, it requires objective reality and
a knowledge of that reality, and then
choosing according to reality and the
goals that we were created to accomplish.
So our, like, big-picture end goal, like
glorifying God and enjoying him forever.
We know God's word, we know God's
world, and then we choose in accordance
with what will bring God glory.
That's the ultimate prudence
So
So when we get all stressed out about,
uh, not getting everything done, never
finishing, um, not being where we wanna
be in life, not having things go our way
in some form or another, really, they
boil down to self-pity most of the time.
Uh, our kids maybe aren't doing what we
would like, or, uh, our husband didn't
say what we had hoped he would say.
Our day is not going
as we wanted it to go.
These are self-focused stories, and so
we have to give ourselves handholds to
get ourselves outside of ourselves, and
that's what the alignment card does.
We put truth and our reminders
that we need in front of our face,
outside of us, visible, to bring
our thoughts out of our own internal
spirals, out of being self-focused.
And it can even feel uncomfortable or
painful in a way, a kind of painful,
because you are choosing humility.
You are choosing to put to death your
own self-pity thoughts and choosing
God instead, and there is happiness
and joy on the other side of that.
But that repentance turn from thinking
about yourself and kind of nursing the
feelings of grief or guilt or sadness,
that in a way are a kind of comfort.
It's weird, but that's what
we're getting out of it.
It takes repentance, a turning,
a rejection of that and a
turning to God that is painful.
Repentance is painful.
But on the other side of
repentance is real joy.
Well, we give up ourself, we give up
our self-pity, and we get God instead.
So it's gonna be totally worth it,
but it requires repentance And so
repentance isn't just feeling bad,
noticing that you did something wrong
and feeling bad or feeling guilty.
You, you start by noticing,
and you do regret it, but then
the repentance is the turn.
Uh, in the Greek, the word
that's translated repentance
literally means a turning.
So it's a change of focus.
So we, instead of having our eyes
on ourselves, we put our eyes on
Christ, and we walk forward in Him.
So we say what we, you know, we
call our bad attitude by its name.
Say, "I had a bad attitude.
I was selfish.
I am feeling a lot of self-pity.
I'm feeling discontent.
Lord, forgive me.
Please give me Your joy."
And then we put that truth that we
have written on the index card, we
repeat that to ourselves, and we
start praying in gratitude for where
we already are, gratitude for what we
have done today, gratitude for the home
and the people that God has given us,
for the salvation that He's given us,
for the calling that He's given us.
And when we start recognizing with
gr- with gratitude all that God is
doing for us and has done for us,
all those things that we were feeling
sorry for ourselves about just pale
in comparison and kind of go away.
Even if some of those circumstances
are still there, our eyes are on
Christ and what He is putting right
in front of us to actually do.
And God's called us to abound in good
works, to have zeal for good works.
Uh, he has prepared a path before
us of good works for us to walk in.
So we're gonna be doing things.
God's plan isn't for our life to be,
you know, just a cakewalk Good works are
often difficult, but they're good And
God's delighting in us and through us
as we walk with Him and abide with Him.
And so when we're doing good works
with our eyes on Christ, then there
is joy and peace even in the midst
of being busy and wishing you could
do more than you are able to do.
And th- all those things which can
create despair or discontent, um,
or feeling sorry for ourselves,
those same circumstances just have
a completely different coloring
when our eyes are on Christ.
And that can sound abstract and
spiritual, and we don't really
know what it means or how to do it.
And so I think an alignment card,
just taking an index card, writing a
verse of scripture, it doesn't even
matter what verse really, because
all of God's Word is effective,
and none of it will return void.
So take a scripture, something that
you read this morning, something
that you heard at church yesterday, a
verse that has continued to come back
to you, put it on an index card, put
it in a visible place, and let that
get you outside of your self-focused
thoughts onto objective truth,
remembering God and what He's doing.
And it will change the perspective, the
frame that you have first for seeing
what's going on in your own life.
It will change your interpretive grid.
And the same circumstances will
have a completely different cast.
And, um, you'll see the path forward
in front of you with joy when you
are choosing to fill your mind with
God's Word and walk in gratitude.
Yes, the alignment card is a
ladder out of the pit of despair.
And it is, it's a, it's a step of
humility because it seems like we feel
like our problems are significant enough,
and deep-rooted enough, and big enough
that writing a Bible verse on an index
card kinda seems like a third-grader
kinda thing to do, and, you know, our
problems are not third-grader problems.
But, like, kinda they are.
Bad attitude problems are basically
toddler problems, and this is a
path forward, and a part of that
path forward is the humility to
recognize, like, this is all it takes.
God's word is so effective, and so
much more effective than any of my
thoughts, that just one of them put on
an index card in front of my face is
able to pull me out of my self-focused
swirling thoughts That's true.
That's reality.
It'll hush the internal narrator.
It'll give the narrator
something else to work on
And when we think about what God has
to say about us and about the world
and about our lives by s- focusing on
truth, then some of those stories, we
start recognizing the stories that we're
telling about our own life and how they
don't really match up to what God is
saying And we can put God's story in our
head Instead of our own and replace it.
So that's what the index card does.
So if you feel like you have too much
to do, you never get enough done, you're
kind of sad at the end of the day, um, you
know, there's just so many circumstances
in your life that you feel like you
should be farther ahead than you are, you
should be this, that, or the other thing.
But just hit pause on that ticker
tape list of all the things that
you are failing at and do this.
Put scripture on an index card, and
whenever you start to feel that list start
clicking through your brain, go to the
card, read that verse instead, and ask God
to forgive you for not focusing on Him.
Ask God to show you what you should do
next, and just do the next good thing.
It is simple.
It's hard, but it is actually
simple, and it really does work.
It really is so helpful and
such a better way to live.
You don't have to fix all of your
problems first before you have
joy or before you see progress.
You might be noticing all the problems,
but you don't have to fix them all first.
First, you put your eyes on Christ,
thank Him for His forgiveness and
cleansing, that He is giving you
a path forward, and ask Him for
the eyes to see that path forward
And if God is content with incremental
s-- baby step progress for you throughout
your life then you can be too So And
that is the plan, and we're going to
continue talking about this all month.
Uh, you might get tired of it,
but this is what we're doing.
I don't get tired of it, 'cause I
need the reminders myself as well.
So little pep talks on changing
that internal narrator, changing
our perspective, repenting,
rejoicing, repeating all the time.
And we're, we're going to
organize our attitudes this month.
So, so thankful.
All right.
I hopeâ¦
So if you can get reminders for
our episodes, Ev- Monday lives
every Monday this month, and extra
bonuses and stuff by email if you
go to simplyconvivial.com/october.
There's bonuses for sharing this
with friends as well, if you
haven't gotten that as well.
So share it with friend,
get some extra bonuses.
And I look forward to this
focused month with you this month.