Civilization as we know it can’t go on without the values we learn from family life! That’s why there’s almost nothing as important as having a home that feels like a ‘castle’. Ahhh ….. ‘ heaven’!
Home is where we kick off our shoes, smell our favorite food and hang out with our favorite smiles! It’s where we do our best thinking and recharge our life on every level! We can hunker down there and escape the pressures of life. Without home we can’t last long.
Home can be a place with the sweetest memories, or painful transitions. It can be a place where we put in hours of beautification or bemoan a garden lost due to early frost. Somehow ‘home’ makes so many hard times bearable.
A home should be where problems can be ironed out, where we don’t go to bed angry and where ‘No’ is not an option. Defeat will never cross the threshold then. Even tho nightmares may trouble at times, or we trip over a carpet or get our neighbors BBQ smoke thru our window …. we can always make a ‘come back’ if we have a home that restores us. Peace and harmony must always reign there!
I’ve always cherished home life. It’s taken effort to make it a place this side of heaven. I don’t buy items unless there’s a purpose for them, or keep anything around that makes me feel ‘down’. I’ve made sure the decor doesn’t keep me trapped by trying to keep up with the ‘Jones’. The colors have to comfort or inspire me. Marc and I both studied cooking and loved to prepare healthy dishes, so that tradition continues. Strong habits and routines make for good emotional restoration.
My mother was, among other things, a wonderful painter so I have some of her works on my walls. That’s one of my ‘traditions’, my sense of continuity about where I came from, who I am. Family, health, God, art, good reading make a home a home, to me. You don’t have to talk alot there. You’re accepted if you wanna laugh, feel grumpy or serious. Your soul is restored when those things are in place.
This living room is where I heard the news about Marc. Where I played his voice mails over and over. I speak to him here, I write here. I still raise my voice to God in gratitude & praise in this room! That may sound stupid to you, it still does to me sometimes. It sounds ridiculous to be able to be happy enough while he’s up there. But …. Marc and I are still so connected, so I understand.
I’m actually surprised I’m not depressed where I live since Marc has gone on ahead of me. Few years back I developed the habit of ‘living like I would if I had my dream life’, it may sound corny but I’ve never stopped wanting to live like that. Life is about dreams more than it is about pain. It’s about believing in a future and committing yourself to others in the challenges in life. How can we go out each day and be a success unless we leave from a place of good will, and hope in life?
I can’t imagine how it must be for some youth in this modern age who have no family from which to draw from? I can understand the deep longing, & pain of feeling unloved. I know many are searching for a real family thru a virtual one, seeking a parent thru politics. We who know the value of family must not give up on them, some will find their way out.
‘In the house of the righteous there is much treasure’
Proverbs 15:6
R. 2/20