Home is where your heart is. Home is where love is. Home is where you can be you. Home is being comfortable. Home is wherever the Lord is calling you to be.We all have this image of home as a quaint little house with a white picket fence. We have children running and skipping about. The yard is filled with laughter as the children chase the dog and your husband in laying in the hammock after a hard days work as you are bringing out tea for everyone.
But are our homes really like that or is that just a vision in every woman's mind from their childhood dreams? Where did that idea come from?
When I was a little girl we would go to Arkansas to my grandmother's house. Her house had a white picket fence around it and anything but love inside. I hated going there and feeling the emptiness of her home. It just wasn't home to me.
Home doesn't have to be that huge house upon the hill, filled with everything you can imagine. Its not the stuff that fills a house that makes it a home, its the house filled with love that makes a home.
In some homes there is not a lot. There is barely enough food to go around in some homes. In some they are missing those who have left, as their daddy took out the driveway never to return. You have your homes where the momma would rather beat her child than look upon her precious face. In some you can find the little boy hiding in the closet afraid of what his daddy will do next.
See, it doesn't matter if your house is filled with much or very little. If your home is missing love is it really a home?
Somewhere there is a home where the children are coming home to an empty house while their momma is out working three jobs to care for them. Although the children are coming home alone, that is a home filled with love and sacrifice to make a better way for her children than what she had.
Somewhere there is a home where the daddy is laid off and there is not a lot of food or anything, but there in that home is his smiling face to his children, promising never to give up.
Out there are millions of homes turning away from this world and living right. They are filling their homes with Christ and reaping His blessings from obeying His will. But is it those homes we see on television? No, we see those homes that are torn apart from anger, rage, and emptiness. We see those homes that are filled with pretty things, and the only things that are pretty are those hanging on the walls.
When my husband was younger he would clean pools in very well to do areas. He shared with me that in most of these homes, there was nothing, not even furniture. It was all a charade to make others think they had much, when in fact they had very little. Why do we try so hard to impress others, when all we need to do is be ourselves?
What if we stopped concerning ourselves with the stuff and sought out the Lord? What if stopped looking just at our self and helped the woman next door with her children while she was working to care for them? What if we stopped being so concerned with the outside trimming, and turned our hearts to those inside?
We hear of neighbors being murdered, children being abused, and elderly going hungry. What do we say when we hear these things? We say, "I never knew there was a problem." Maybe if we reached out and showed love to others we could know before that problem came. Too often we do see and we just turn our heads thinking, "Its none of our business." We are to help those who cannot help themselves. We are to reach out and share the same love the Lord gives us.
Some of those white picket fences of yesterday are still standing. They are aged and missing paint, but they are grounded in the foundation and were meant to last. We can see those picket fences and think of the home we wish we had or we can look at those picket fences and change the home we have. If we will not work on it who will? If we are not willing to help others who will help us?
Home is wherever you are surrounded by love. If your in the jungles of Nigeria caring for the sick you are home. Wherever God has called you to be is where home is. And for most of us, it is right there in our living room.
Whether you have a white picket fence around your home or not, you don't have to keep desiring something that can be real if we just allow Jesus in our homes.
Wherever your home on this earth is there is one greater in heaven waiting for those who choose Christ. For those who accept Jesus, we have a home He is preparing for us, and believe me, we won't care if there is a white picket fence, for we will be surrounded by love, a love that lasts forever.
John 14:2 "In My Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you."
1 Corinthians 13:13 "And now these three remain: Faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."
