Our Homes: Homelessness, Part 2
Read “The Streets: Homelessness, Part 1” HERE.
The epidemic of homelessness continues. Though one may live in a house, without the love and joy that is found in a home, one remains homeless. The following resources are meant to lift and inspire you on your journey to turn your house into a home:
The Vision of Home
…The vision of home as a place to flourish and grow fully into healthy persons has too often been lost in the busyness, distraction, and brokenness of both our secular and our Christian cultures.
Add to that the impact of technology in recent years, as social media tends to elevate virtual relationships over real-life, face-to-face encounters. Tweets, profiles, and statuses have replaced personal conversations. Gathering around the table for food and family discussions, lingering on front porches for long conversations over coffee, whiling away evenings with family and friends—all these have been replaced with quick trips through the fast-food drive-in or fifteen-minute meet-ups at a local coffee shop. There is little time or space for instruction about life or discussions about truth. Our souls seem to be filled with the sawdust of a lost generation.
Corporate moves have displaced people from their relatives; megachurches have replaced local congregations; and so many of us have become accus- tomed to growing up without a physical, local community of friends with whom we share life every day and who hold us accountable. Neighborhoods have become merely places to hold the dwellings where we sleep, grab food on the go, and meet our bare needs for existence. Sometimes we are lonely, and we do not recognize what has been lost.
As a result, in so many ways, we have become a homeless generation.”
― Sally Clarkson, The Lifegiving Home: Creating a Place of Belonging and Becoming
Tasting the Goodness of God
“…my parents understood that the world that they made within the walls of our house was what constituted home. So I grew up in spaces framed by art and color, filled with candlelight, marked by beauty. I grew up within a rhythm of time made sacred by family devotions in the morning and long conversations in the evening. I grew up with the sense of our daily life as a feast and delight; a soup-and-bread dinner by the fire, Celtic music lilting in the shadows, and the laughter of my siblings gave me a sense of the blessedness of love, of God’s life made tangible in the food and touch and air of our home.
It was a fight for my parents, I know. Every day was a battle to bring order to mess, peace to stressful situations, beauty to the chaos wrought by four young children. But that’s the reality of incarnation as it invades a fallen world….What my parents-bless them-knew…is that to make a home right in the midst of the fallen world is to craft out a space of human flesh and existence in which eternity rises up in time, in which the kingdom comes, in which we may taste and see the goodness of God.”
― Sally Clarkson, The Lifegiving Home: Creating a Place of Belonging and Becoming
Hands
“We ought to give our hands to Christ in consecration; we ought to let our heart flow out through our hands—that with every hand-grasp and every touch—our best love may go forth to those who need its healing, inspiring ministry. God wishes our hands to be always ready to minister to those who are in need. No other work in this world is so important as this.
No matter what we are doing, when the call of human distress reaches our ear—we must drop everything and be quick to respond. At last, the busiest hands must lie folded on the bosom in the stillness of death—but the things we have done in this world shall not perish—when the hands that wrought them are moldering to dust! Touches of beauty which we have left on other lives lives—shall never fade out; the thrill of new strength given by our warm hand-clasp, shall go on forever in quickened life.
The fallen one lifted up by us and saved—shall walk eternally in glory! The seeds which our hand have scattered—shall grow into plants of immortal beauty! When we rest from our labors—the work of our hands shall follow us. Men journey now thousands of miles to look upon the paintings of artists whose hands for centuries, have wrought no beauty; ages and ages hence, in heaven, angels and redeemed men shall look with rapturous joy upon some touch of beauty put yesterday in a human soul—by a lowly consecrated hand of earth!”
― J.R. Miller, Hands
Tired Feet
“Thousands of women in their domestic work, rarely ever sit down during the long days to rest. Up stairs and down again, from kitchen to nursery, out to the market and to the store, in and out from early morning until late at night—these busy women are ever plodding in their housewifely duties.
‘Man’s work’s is from sun to sun;
Woman’s work is never done!’
No wonder, then, that there are many sore and tired feet, at the ending of each day…
But what message of comfort is there for such? For one thing, there is the thought of duty done. It is always a comfort, when one is tired, to reflect that one has grown tired in doing one’s proper work. A squandered day, a day spent in idleness—may not leave such tired feet in the evening—but neither does it give the sweet pleasure that a busy day gives—even with its blistered or aching feet!
…But all duty well done, has its restful peace of heart—when the tasks are finished and laid down. Conscience whispers, ‘You were faithful today. You did all that was given to you to do; you did not shirk nor skimp!’ And conscience is the whisper of God.”
― J.R. Miller, Tired Feet
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Homes as the Remedy
“We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked, and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved, and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty.”
― Mother Teresa
Poverty of Love
“The worst poverty isn’t about not having enough money to survive. Real poverty is when there is no one in the world who loves you. When there is no other human to make you feel like you matter. As if you aren’t worth the air you breathe. Poverty of love is the worst thing you can be deprived of.”
― Paige Dearth
An Environment of Love
Speaking of her childhood home, Wendy Watson Nelson shared,
“Our home was filled with love and learning, music and work, serving others, good humor, and the joy of simply being together.” She then challenged each of us to “create an environment of love in your home.”
30+ Inspiring Quotes About Motherhood and Home >>
Poetry
Poetic verses on the joys found in home life:
Home
Here is a thing my heart wishes the world had more of:
I heard it in the air of one night when I listened
To a mother singing softly to a child restless and angry
in the darkness.
― Carl Sandburg
Reflection
“Home, the spot of earth supremely blest, A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest.”
― Robert Montgomery
Shop Home Inspiration
The Family Proclamation
“Husband and wife have a solemn responsibility to love and care for each other and for their children. “Children are an heritage of the Lord” (Psalm 127:3). Parents have a sacred duty to rear their children in love and righteousness, to provide for their physical and spiritual needs, and to teach them to love and serve one another, observe the commandments of God, and be law-abiding citizens wherever they live. Husbands and wives—mothers and fathers—will be held accountable before God for the discharge of these obligations.
The family is ordained of God. Marriage between man and woman is essential to His eternal plan. Children are entitled to birth within the bonds of matrimony, and to be reared by a father and a mother who honor marital vows with complete fidelity. Happiness in family life is most likely to be achieved when founded upon the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ. Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities.
By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families. Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children. In these sacred responsibilities, fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as equal partners. Disability, death, or other circumstances may necessitate individual adaptation. Extended families should lend support when needed.”
― The Family: A Proclamation to the World
How might we fill our homes with more love and joy?
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