making your house a home

from Minute Meditations for Busy Moms by Emilie Barnes...



As busy moms, we sometimes wonder if we actually have a home- or is it merely a stopover place to eat, do laundry, hang around, and sleep? Or is it just a place to repair things, mow the lawn, paint, wallpaper, and install new carpet? A true home is much more than all that. It's a place of people living together, growing, laughing, crying, learning and creating together.



A small child, after watching his house burn down, was quoted as saying, "We still have a home. We just don't have a house to put it in." How perceptive of that child.



Our home should be a trauma center for the whole family. We don't have to be perfect at home- just forgiven and forgiving. We can grow, we can make mistakes, we can shout for joy, we can cry, we can agree, and we can disagree. Home is a place where happy experiences occur. It's a shelter from the problems of the world, a place where love happens, acceptance is given, and security provided.



Home offers a respite from the tragedies that seem to plague the world outside our door, as we hear on the newscasts. Within our four walls we can offer a place of peace.



In the Bible we read that the home is God's invention. He designed the home to be the foundation of our society, a place to meet the mental, spiritual, physical, and emotional needs of people. The members of a family must work together to make their home a true home- not just a place where they hang out.



John Henry Jowett says, "The Bible does not say very much about homes; it says a great deal about the things that make them. It speaks about life and love and joy and peace and rest. If we get a house and put these into it, we shall have secured a home."