Will They Come Home?

We have been a bit under the weather here in the LJ House. Well, everyone except me. Yesterday, the 3 littles just laid around the house ALL day long. I did in fact enjoy their lethargic moods, as it proved to be a great day to cuddle. It was so fun to just hold them...

It made me begin to think about the future and stop and evaluate some things like:

When our kids grow up, put feet on the life we have talked to them about for so long, leave our home and go and embrace all the things that living has to offer, will there be a desire, a longing, to come home? Home to me, to their dad?

Will the house that we have called a home, provided them with such abundant love and life that they just can't stand the thought of being away?

Will our home be thought of as a place where they were imprisoned by law and random rules, or a place overflowing with forgiveness and GRACE?

Will coming home be hard for them because we have allowed bitterness to go unresolved? Or will they always seek to mend and maintain open relationship with us because that is the standard we set?

Will secrets of the past break our foundation of trust?  Or because we have chosen to keep nothing from our children, will they bask in honest, secure, knowledge that nothing is hidden from them?

Will failure keep them from coming home because we ignorantly placed an overemphasis on what they did and not WHO they were?

Will poor choices keep them from home because they think our love for them is dependent on their actions? Will we have we conveyed through our words, thoughts and deeds that no matter what they do our love for them is unchanging simply because they are ours; our daughters and our only son?!

Will insecurity keep them from coming home because we have failed to tell them through quality time that they are valuable, and that being with them is of the up most importance to us?

Will anger keep them from coming home because our house was not viewed as a safe place to express one's feelings?

Will independence keep them from coming home because we allowed them to buy into the "self inflated, I am all I need" theory?

Will they bring anyone with them when they come home because they know from experience that ALL are welcome in our home? Or will they run into someone else's home looking for something there that we failed to offer them under our roof?

Will coming home for them feel as if it does for me, a place of solace, rest, and a sweet haven that no place on this earth can offer?

The greatest gift our children can ever give me is the gift of intentionally coming home. It does not have to be permanent, or crazy frequent, it just has to be them expressing their desire to be in this place:
Because it was a place of joy!
Because it was a place where love reigned.
Because it was a place their broken hearts found mending.
Because it was a place where they knew they belonged.
Because it was a place where sacrifices were made so that we could be a family!!!

So here is to the long journey of making our home that place!!
~Sara