We Had A Home

 Do you ever remember a scene like this? One of the things I noticed right away were the bricks holding the bed frame up! Looks like the hen wants to hop in bed with them, whoever they may be!

But they sure look content!

Could be a family that had very few material things. One like I was raised in, maybe! I'm sure others could relate to having all we needed but far from all we wanted. But I don't remember being neglected. I had five siblings and a Mom and Dad that loved us! Doesn't that count for a lot? In my books it does. We didn't have a big fabulous house. But we had a home. What is the difference? A lot of people have nice houses. But no home life!

 
A house is a place to run in , eat, sleep and a lot of times children are left to themselves. No home cooked meals, no discipline.

Fine furniture, several cars, all the newest gadgets that are never used.

I am not saying that some of these things are bad. But most of the time they are not in the right prospective. Both parents have to work to make ends meet which leaves the children to themselves with no supervision.

Sometimes this leads to broken homes and the children seem to be the victims. They do as they please, go where they want and hang around the wrong crowd. Later you might find them out in the drug world. The parents are to blame and will have nothing but heartaches down the road.

What is so sad is ~they can't go back and re-do. They never made a home for their children. I know as Christians we can do our best and our kids may still go wrong. But we can lay our head on our pillows at night and know we did the best we knew to make a home for them.

We grew up in a small town and I suppose were considered a middle class family. But we did not have all the extras. We wore hand-me-downs. Mom sewed me dresses from the printed flour sacks. Didn't matter because quite a few other Moms did the same thing. We were always warm in the winter even if we did pile three or four home made quilts on top of us until our toes curl down. Dad would get up and get ready for work while Mom cooked breakfast. By the time we got up the house was usually warm. We lived in a home!

We did not have air conditioners, or central heat. We did have fireplaces a lot. That was so the boys could learn to cut wood. The girls could keep the hearth cleaned. We learned fast that everyone did their part.

Mom did not have a washing machine until I was around eight years old. I remember my baby sister was around one year old then. I never really thought about her washing on a rub board and hanging clothes on the clothesline outside. But the day we got that washer, we were uptown! I mean coming up in the world!

Never mind that we did not have a piece of furniture that matched or that three of us had to sleep in one standard size bed. What in the world is that? Does anyone had a standard size bed anymore?

We did not have china to eat on but that did not matter. What mattered was Mom was there and always had food on the table for her little brood.

We had a home!

For some unknown (?) reason Mom's unmatched teaspoons always disappeared. Could it be that we children needed something to dig in the dirt with? We could never keep enough wash rags! (I got in trouble calling wash clothes-wash rags one time.) I was older with my own family and went to a wedding shower. A lady from up north had gotten these beautiful wash clothes. I blurred out, "What pretty wash rags."

She let me know in no uncertain terms that they were not rags -they were wash clothes. Around here we still have wash rags! Anyway, even though we did have rags as children - what difference did it make. They still did the same job.

As we got older we were taught to work. When school was out we picked strawberries to make money to help buy school clothes for the following

school year. Now days you can't teach a child much without the government having a say so. Did work hurt us? Not a bit. I don't think Mom had a lazy child. Why? Because she made a home for us.

She must have done something right. Six children married and not one divorce.

(Our son went to work with his Dad when he was 12 years old and bagged groceries and carried them to the cars. He made plenty tips.) This day and time you can't get a kid to take out the trash. But we still have a responsibility to teach our children that life is not handed out to you.

The most important thing Mom and Dad did was to give us a goodly Christian heritage. Material things are not that important. But for parents to teach their children about the Lord and bring them to church is the most important thing in the world. To pray with them and read God's Word and train them in the ways of the Lord. That is truly what a home is.

Every parent's desire should be that their children serve God.

I think maybe parent's today want to give their children what they thought they did not have as a child. So they go out and buy all kind of things that children don't really need anyway. A new toy that they play with for a few days and then they are ready for a new one. Things do not satisfy a child. But loving parents that put that love in action will mean more to that child than anything else. That is what a home is made of up.

I am not saying that children be deprived, but as parents we need to lay down some rules for the home. Parent's are to be respected. There are certain things we don't do or allow in the home, as it should be. Children should respect that.

But it is up to Mom and Dad to enforce, with love, what the ingredients of a Christian Home really are. I know sometimes as parents we fall short but as we depend on the Lord to help ~ we can have a place that our children feel secure and safe. A real Home! I am so thankful that I was raised in the home God provided for me.

Where you live~ is it a house or a home? Is there contentment or strife? 

 This is a post I put on KJV Blogs a good while back.