Make Love at Home

 

Make Love at Home

 

                Way back in the dark ages, 1998ish, my brother and I were two single teens attending a weekly marriage seminar at our church. To fully get the picture you need to understand our church only had about 30-35 people attending. This seminar was held on Sunday evenings and mostly married people attended. Very married people. What I mean when I say that is my Grandparents, married 57 years and our oldest deacon and his wife, married 50+ years were the staple of our attendance. After that the pastor, married 30 years came in as the lightweight married couple. There were also a few single ladies and my brother and I, quite the cast of characters.

                The seminar had the title “Making Love Last Forever”. I am still unsure today why the seminar was necessary, the two couples attending had lived every word in the booklets and watching their lives would have been all the example that my brother and I would have needed. However, it was wonderful spending time with these godly older Christians and watching them interact. I particularly enjoyed my grandmother, who was the type of sweet innocent saint to often said things that could be taken many ways, with total lack of awareness, and our eldest deacon who enjoyed the hilarious word choices coming from my grandmother.

                One Sunday morning it was announced that a solid Michigan storm was hitting in the afternoon, and as such it was recommended that the evenings marriage seminar be canceled. My sweet grandma immediately piped up, “that’s ok, we can just make love at home tonight”. The older deacon lost it. He laughed so hard he cried, stating through giggles “she is why I attend”, while my grandmother was still completely confused as to what had caused the laughter of the entire church.              

                So why this little story? Because I want to ask, “Are we making love at home”? It can be harder than you think to show love to those closest to us. In the moments when we are repeating our instructions for the fifth time, or the item is exactly where we sent the child/husband to look (except covered by a hat), or when we just do not have the time to answer the same question for the fourth time. Or perhaps you work a difficult job or have the frustration of extended family making demands upon you, and after a long day of this you walk back into the safety of your own home. At those moments is it easy to make love at home? Or in the safety and security of your home and your family, are you unloving?

                Stats and psych mumbo would tell a person, that we tend to let our polite guard slip at home. Often, we snap quicker with those closest to us, trusting that they will still love us even if we are not the perfect package that the world sees. This is objectively true; we give a bigger pass to those closest to us. I Peter 4:8 tells us, “Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins”. Even the Bible asks us to cover for people who are exhausted and snap, because you love them. Love for another person will absolutely cause us to overlook or downplay or forgive when a person is snappy, hangry, or mean in a moment. However, I would also challenge us to look closely at the verse, it does tell us that it is righteous to cover for those we love when they are having these bad moments, but it also says, “love covers over a multitude of sins”. It is still sin for us to let our guard down and be un-loving, even if we can get away with it.

                As moms who do face stress this time of year, who do tend to put on the good face for those on the outside, let’s remember two things.

First, be thankful when love covers a multitude of our sins, snaps, irritations. Do not take that for granted, that is our family walking with Jesus and extending us grace. It is a beautiful part of being a family, cherish this.

Second, let's all try to make love at home. Save some of that positive upbeat easygoing person for your immediate family at home. Remember love is having to cover for our “sins”.

               

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