Perspective is very interesting and complex.

On one hand, I had an awful day.  Actually, my whole week has been terrible.  Politics and ugliness at work have just clouded my mind and hurt my heart.

On the other hand, my day was good and my week has been blessed.

How can it be both?

Is it a contradiction?

No, not really.  If my life began and ended with work, then I would be correct in saying that my day/week was awful.

But I have a blessed miracle in my life.  My life DEFINITELY does NOT begin and end with work.

Nope.  My day begins at home.  Even though that awful alarm clock always goes off before I feel that I am ready, I am always pleased to wake up in the safety and comfort of my home.  Now, let me clarify something from the start: I am not rich in money.  I live in rural southern Georgia.  I only make 10 thousand a year as an elementary paraprofessional (which is why I am busting it trying to get a degree).  Our home is a modest double-wide.  But there is a difference between a home and a house.  A house is a structure.  An empty shell that can be dressed to suit the fancy.  But a home is built with love, and it is dressed with time, effort, and the scars of a life lived full...especially if children ever lived there to color on the walls, spill juice on the carpet, and leave finger-prints all over.

No matter how awful my day at work is, I always come right back home to where my morning started.  My dog, Molly, is always the first to greet me outside.  She is a big, black Labrador.  She knows I give her a treat when I leave in the morning, and when I get home in the afternoon.   I like to think that she is happy to see us, and not just because she knows she will get a bone.  Then, when I walk in the door, my two cats, Miss Muffett and Missy, are usually waiting for me.  They look so happy to have people back at home.  Almost like they are trying to ask me where I have been all day.  I also have an odd little bunny, Jellybean.  She likes to pretend that she does not care whether we are here or not, but she really does like to be petted.  Even the two fish seem to perk up when we come home.

Now, if I am still upset from the toil and grime of the day, even after having gone through the gauntlet of my pets, then there are so many other things to chisel the crust of the dirty world off of me.  The sound of my kids laughing, yelling, playing, fighting, and just being young.  Seeing my husband walk in the door after work.  Reading e-mails from dear family and friends.  Looking out the windows to see my lovely garden.  Watching the birds flit back and forth between my many bird feeders.  Knowing the joy of my two children as I crack open a treasured book to read them a new or old story.  Feeling the Spirit as we say our nightly prayer. 

Full circle.  What a blessing the home is.  Not the structure.  The spirit of love...the spirit of Christ that makes the structure become something sacred...a home.  The angles are keeping detailed record of all that transpires in our home.  How many kisses were given? How many hugs shared? How many bruises or scrapes doctored? How many prayers said? How many times did we speak of Christ? How many times did we share our testimony? How many Family Home evenings did we have? How much scripture have we read? How many times have we said I love you?

That is why all the things of the world can so easily be chipped away from ourselves as we enter our homes.  Because the world cannot compensate for what we receive from the sacredness of our home.  At the final day, will we be pleased to hear the angels reading from the book of all that transpired in our homes? Or will we tremble to know that we placed other things, things that crumble to dust, before the things that truly mattered?

I know that I am not perfect, but I do know that I am blessed.  I know this, because the worst of days can truly be healed with the love and joy in my home.  I may never know what it will be like to live in a mansion while on earth, but maybe if my little family can maintain the spirit of love in our humble home...then maybe one day we will have a mansion in the eternities.

~TG

Tags: Home Peace Love Spirit Joy Safety