The home was God’s idea. Whenever there was a new beginning, God started with a family – Adam and Eve, and Noah and his wife and family. Isn’t easy to see that God loves the family and the home? How thankful I am for such a wonderful gift.
You know, in some ways I think people in America are understanding more the influence and blessing of the home. Delivered pizzas and fast food to go. Where? Home. Movies are rented to take home. It’s a comforting place, a nurturing place, a place where we can be ourselves, laugh, cry and play.
While you’re home, enjoy the pleasures of being there. Have tea parties with your daughters and fill the tiny cups with sugar water. Roll out cookies and bake. Sprawl out on the rug and play Sorry, Monopoly or Old Maid. Make a fort with your sons. Read books by flashlight while you hide under a blanket tent stretched over the furniture. Have popcorn while watching old videos of the family. Put the scores of loose photos in picture albums and laugh at how much everyone has changed. Play Charades and Dominoes. Open the hymn book and sing.
Another blessing of being together as a family is sharing a meal together. How important it is to the unity of the family to share at least one meal each day. Everyone sitting around the table, not on the couch in front of the television, enables family members to look at one another, to talk, to interact in conversation. Conversation happens best when the television is off. It’s here that children can learn to pray and thank the Lord for their food before they eat. They learn to sit at the table and wait for Mommy to take the first bite before they eat, to put their napkin in the their lap and to eat their meal without leaving the table. You all talk, you eat, you laugh, you have fun! When the meal is over, children ask to be excused before leaving the table.
Does all this seem too much? It’s part of being a family and of training our children to love home and be respectful – all while having the time of their lives! I grew up in this kind of home, and though that was many years ago, I’m thankful for the training and for the wonderful memories in my heart from those growing up years! I look for opportunities to return home; I think you can see why.
Love your home and create a place that your children will love coming back to!
Home. Sweet Christian home!
RefreshHer 