Our hope is that our children will remember home as a place that was daily tended to in love by how we live and treat one another. Because if we can learn to love each-other deeply inside of our homes then we are more likely to go out into the world and love others well for whom love may be a stranger.
The question we want to keep at the center of our family each day as we pray for God to show us how is, "Have we loved well those that God has given us?"
The question we want to keep at the center of our family each day as we pray for God to show us how is, "Have we loved well those that God has given us?"
St. John of the Cross once said that "at the evening of our day we shall be judged by our loving." As we look back over our day, what we have done is not as important as how we have done it. Better to do little with much love than much with little love. For without love, whatever we do will be dismissed with a judicial wave of heaven's hand as just so many trivial pursuits (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
So it's the end of the day, and each of us is lying in our bed, reflecting. Have I loved well? Has love been the beating heart pulsing through all my activities? Can it be heard in all my conversations? Seen in my eyes? Felt when other people are in my presence? Was the truth I spoke today spoken in love? Were the decisions I made today based in love? Were my reactions? My devotions?
Have I loved well?
If we can answer yes to that question, it is enough.
We can't always answer yes. In fact many days we cannot..Because the truth is, we are sinners living in a broken world.
But, the bigger truth is we have a loving God who knows our weaknesses and His mercies are made new every single morning. God IS love, so we have to look to Him every single day to show us how to be more like Him and extend His grace to each other when we mess up.
My children and my husband are not going to remember how much of my "to do" got checked off everyday. But they will remember if they were loved well and if LOVE was the tone of our home.
