A couple of weeks back, some friends came to visit, and they asked, “Are you feeling settled yet?”—We had moved only two weeks prior.
“Oh yes!” I said.
I began to explain how I had felt settled here in our new town before we even got moved or unpacked a single box! I’d been making the 2 hour trip down multiple times a week in order to tour houses, do some work with Marilyn, and make more appointments to tour more houses.
I was talking with my visiting friends about how unsettled, or even out of place I felt in our old town in the months before we moved.
As Marilyn described in her last post, Marilyn and I have become very close over the years. Marilyn, to me, is like my mentor, my mom, my sister, my business partner and my very best friend all rolled into one. When Jim and Marilyn moved away from Smokey Point, everything suddenly changed there. It didn’t feel like home anymore, because Marilyn and all the love and relationship we experience were no longer in Smokey Point. Love and deep relationship had moved away.
Of course Marilyn and I continued to connect daily on the phone, like always, and over the internet as we connect in ministry and business. Our relationship wasn’t gone from us, but it was gone from Smokey Point and the surrounding area. Even though we didn’t see each other face to face all that often in town, still everything changed as soon as they were gone. They weren’t there, and so we no longer belonged there. It wasn’t home anymore.
We’re Home!
It actually seemed like all of the area was shouting out the message—“You don’t belong here anymore!” The Safeway parking lot was saying that. The stretch of road between our old office building and Wendy’s was saying that. The freeway overpasses were saying that. Even the hill up to our house was making it plain to me that we didn’t belong there anymore. Home had moved.
And so, when we finally sold our house and moved to our new town, it instantly felt like home! This whole area feels like home, because it is! Even when I get turned around and don’t quite know where I’m going, it still feels like home. This is where love and relationship are, and that’s what makes it immediately home.
What sort of home are you making for your precious family? I want to encourage you to make your home so full of Jesus’ kind of love and deep heart-level connection that your children will always feel that home is wherever you are.
Where do your children feel at home? Where, and with whom are they building their lives and their relationships?
If your children are experiencing that your house is where they’re made to do many just-like-school things that they are not currently interested in, they will not feel at home there. Instead, their interests and bents can be deeply known and validated by you as they pursue their growth and learning, and the relationship and love that grows between you will become home to them.
If your children experience anger, irritation, and frequent conflict at your house, they will not feel at home there. Instead they could be brought to learn how to love one another as your home and relationships are filled with deep peace!
If your children are strongly drawn to their peers instead of their brothers and sisters, then that is where they’re building their lives and their relationships. They’ll end up feeling more at home with their friends instead of with you and their brothers and sisters.
Do you, like so many adults, lack a set of relationships on this earth you hold in your heart as home—a place of love where you are treasured, and totally validated and accepted for who you are?
You can begin today to learn how to build deep heart-level loving relationships with your children so that they will always be most at home with you and their brothers and sisters.
Love’s Actions audios and transcripts can help you come to know what love looks like. For so many of us, it’s difficult picture the Christlike loving environment that Marilyn extended to me, and I in turn have extended for my husband and children.
Marilyn’s ebook Empowering the Transfer of Moral Values and Faith can help you toward finding your home in Our Heavenly Father’s very precious and extravagant love for you.