Horse's behind

Never have I been so thankful for my home as I have today. I often offer up a prayer of gratitude for my home. Even more so when the wind is howling or the snow won’t stop falling. Yet today it was for the peace that a “home” can bring.

My family and I were at a family gathering. We had a great time with cousins, aunts, and uncles. After a while my husband said something that was un-thoughtful to a family member. He was joking, but it offended two people deeply. In fact two grown women ran out of the room crying. He had tried to apologize but there was no taking back the words he had said. We are not close with the inner circles of our extended family. We don’t know ANYTHING about anyone’s personal lives. So this was a situation where a comment that was meant in jest had become a personal injury.

We quickly grabbed our children and fled the extremely uncomfortable situation. After a couple of minutes of driving he reached out and grabbed my hand. This wasn’t the kind of sweet, loving hand holding. This was a desperate grip of physical contact. He wanted to know that even though he had made a mistake, he was still loved.

After a couple of minutes he whispered, “I feel like a horses behind.” We talked about how to be a little more sensitive in situations like that. He was hurting, I was hurting and I thought we would never feel happy again.

After the drive home, we pulled into our driveway. There was the garden box he had been working on all week.

A sense of satisfaction started creeping into the pits we both had in our stomachs. 

After we came inside, I was checking FB and there were some sweet comments on a post about his project. All of the sudden a peace started coming over me. We were home.

Home is supposed to be the place where you can come to and feel okay—where the experiences from the day can turn into lessons, yet the pain forgotten. It is a place where you are allowed to not be perfect—yet are loved anyway.

Sometimes amid the screaming, fighting, teasing, and messes I forget. I forget that home is the place where we get a glimpse of the love our Father in Heaven has for each of us. A love that forgives those foot in the mouth experiences, that forgives shortcomings, bad haircuts, extra pounds, miss matched clothes, stains on couches, fingerprints, tempers, clumsiness, boogers hanging from your nose, ignorance, bad manners, bad breath, a missing earring, different colored shoes, a bad hair day, and many more things. Home is a soft place to land, a place where we can be okay.

One of my childhood friends has this quote on her blog: “The happy home is all, where the roughness of the way shall be forgotten.” –Rev. Samuel Rutherford. The first time I read this, I didn’t really like it. I felt like I wasn’t creating a home like this. I felt like our home was a place where you were constantly being corrected. Yet, this is something I am striving for. Something I yearn to achieve. Today I feel like my home served that purpose.

After we came home, we headed to our ward meetings so my boys could fulfill their assignments in primary and I could teach my lesson. Upon arriving, we found out that sacrament meeting had let out 10 minutes early and we had missed the opportunity for Max to give a talk and Turner to say a prayer. They were pretty bummed about it. In fact Josh ended up taking Max home. I sat in the meeting and cried. I was still upset about what had happened at the family gathering. My heart hurt for those that had been offended. My heart hurt for my misunderstood husband.My heart hurt for my disappointed boys. 

As I sat and cried, the women in primary brought me tissues, put their arm around me, passed me a sweet note, gave me chocolate and just plain loved me. (I wasn’t loudly sobbing, I promise.) I was so thankful for the fact that a ward can feel like a family. It has taken me a long time to get to that point in this ward, but I am glad that I am there.

I hope that I can treat others a little bit more kind. Give each other more of the benefit of the doubt. I hope that I can be more thoughtful, and gentle. I hope that the lessons learned today won’t be forgotten.