Don’t remember where I heard this, but it’s stuck with me:
Home is the place where family members go when they’re tired of being nice to other people.
Because, really, how long can you keep up that being nice thing?
If ‘nice’ is an external thing that you carry, it eventually gets heavy and at some point you have to set it down.
You set it down at home.
Here, I’ve thought of another one:
Home is the place where family members go when they need appreciation, love, acceptance, and encouragement.
Should be, anyway, right? But no matter what, the appreciation and love and acceptance is never enough, is it?
Seems like there’s two main ways a family goes:
Family members somehow gain security and get filled-up and then from that deep well foster acceptance and love with each other, and then from that ‘nice’ place the family goes out and is nice.
Or
Empty people go out and act nice but it’s all external, you get tired, and you go back with your family and act like how you really feel. Empty. And you get mad because they don’t fill your cup. But they can’t. And you can’t fill theirs.
Because there’s a break in the cup that holds love inside us all. (a little song that explains everything)
But there’s a patch for the break:
My God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus – Philippians 4.19
In him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him – Colossians 2.9-10
The love and acceptance of Jesus + the love and acceptance of family = a family able to love each other and others.
How do you help each other find love and acceptance?
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A Family Like Yours is 31 Days of encouragement to help you appreciate, influence, and love the family you have (no matter what).
This is day 21.
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