Home is Where There is One to Love Us

Home's not merely four square walls,
Though with pictures hung and guilded;
Home is where affection calls-
Filled with shrines the Hearth has builded!
Home! Go watch the faithful dove,
Sailing 'neath the heaven above us.
Home is where there's one to love!
Home is where there's one to love us.

Home's not merely roof and room,
It needs something to endear it;
Home is where the heart can bloom,
Where there's some kind lip to cheer it.
What is home with none to meet,
None to welcome, none to greet us?
Home is sweet, and only sweet,
Where there's one we love to meet us.
                               -Charles Swain
as published in The Family Book of Best Loved Poems, 1952

I was reading through some encouragements of a wife's calling last night and this poem kept coming back to me.
It is so very true, that home is sweet when there is one to meet us and love us in an intentional way. What a wonderful gift. What a blessed opportunity.

How do the hearts bloom at your home, is it through cupcakes and reading, movie nights or front porch sittin', downy-ed socks or chili sized burgers, how 'bout garden walks or freshly cleaned carpets?

Luke tells us in the Acts of the Apostles: "... He knows the place of our habitation".

This habitation, is a unique place for each to fill, for these good works we were created to do in Christ Jesus which God prepared in advance.

He is sovereign in and through the glorious mess of it all.