There is no sweeter word in the English language than the word home.  I’m not talking about brick and mortar.  I’m talking about families and home.

A woman I know was telling me of her Christian home and though her parents have been dead for some time, she still misses them very much.  She told me her home had much warmth, acceptance, guidance, instruction and the meals still live on in her memory.  To this day, she speaks of homemade bread, pies, cakes and meals her mom prepared for the family and I’m not sure if it is the food as much as the love and respect shared among family members which make the memories even sweeter.

“Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.”     (Proverbs 15:17)

My friend grew up in a home much like the above.  He told me his mother fished with him and his brother.  They rode bicycles, or whatever they happened to be doing, she too participated.  His eyes well up with tears when he thinks of home and working beside his dad in the field.  He speaks of them often and told me even to this day, something will happen and he wants to talk to his dad and see what he would think.  I believe it to be a lovely tribute to his father, and after almost 89 years, he still feels that way about his dad and mom.

His children have the first bois d’arc post from his ranch which his dad placed in the ground as a corner post.  It survives to this day.  His grandson built the pipe fence and his electric gate which his grandfather designed.  There are many things about his home which will live on in the hearts of his children and grandchildren from trees to flowers to the house he lives in.  And now his great grandchildren have also been a part of his ranch.  There is something touching about having roots in one’s life and reaching back to see where you’ve been.

“Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home; for it is there that the great are small and the small are great.  Some of the world’ most famous men and women have risen from the humblest origins.  It is fitting, therefore, that we remember the words of Daniel Webster:

“It is only shallow minded pretenders who make . . . obscure origin a matter of personal reproach.

It did not happen to me to be born in a log-cabin; but my elder brothers and sisters were born in a log-cabin, raised among the snowdrifts of New Hampshire.  When the smoke first rose from its rude chimney, there was no similar evidence of a white man’s habitation between it and the settlements on the rivers of Canada.

Its remains still exist; I make it an annual visit.  I carry my children to it, to teach them the hardships endured by the operations which have gone on before them.  I love to dwell on the tender recollections, the kindred ties, the early affections and the touching narratives and incidents which mingle with all I know of this primitive family abode.

I weep to think that none of those who inhabited it are now among the living; and if ever I am ashamed of it, or if ever I fail in affectionate veneration for him who reared it and defended it against savage violence and destruction, cherished all the domestic virtues beneath its roof, and, through the fire and blood of seven years’ revolutionary war, shrank from no danger, no toil, no sacrifice, to serve his country and to raise his children to a condition better than his own, may my name and the name of my posterity be blotted forever from the memory of mankind!”

~ Leroy Brownlow

“If the home is, as God would have it, Christ must abide there.  I was in a home recently and saw this motto on the wall, “Christ is the head of this house, the unseen guest at every meal, the silent listener to every conversation.”  If they’d asked me, I would have added one line to the motto.  I would have said, “The faithful observer of all our ways.”  If Christ is to rule as the head of any house, the parents must both be faithful servants of His.  Of course, if Christ is not the head of the house, the devil is.”     ~ Clifford

 Eileen Light