Four Walls Do Not Make a Home

Two Stepping by Tom Sierak

Four walls do not make a home — though it is a palace filled with all the elegances which wealth can buy! The home-life itself is more important than the house and its adornments. By the home-life, is meant the happy art of living together in tender love. We enter some homes, and they are full of sweetness — as fields of summer flowers are full of fragrance. All is order, beauty, gentleness and peace.

We enter other homes, where we find jarring, selfishness, harshness and disorder. This difference is not accidental. They are influences at work in each home, which yield just the result we see in each. No home-life can ever be better than the life of those who make it.

Homes are the real schools in which men and women are trained—and fathers and mothers are the real teachers and builders of life!

Sadly, the goal which most parents have for their home—is to have as good and showy a house as they can afford, furnished in as rich a style as their means will warrant, and then to live in it as comfortably as they are able, without too much exertion or self-denial.

But the true idea of a Christian home, is that it is a place for spiritual growth.

It is a place for the parents themselves to grow—to grow into beauty of character, to grow in spiritual refinement, in knowledge, in strength, in wisdom, in patience, gentleness, kindliness, and all the Christian graces and virtues.

It is a place for children to grow—to grow into physical vigor and health, and to be trained in all that shall make them true and noble men and women.

A true home is set up and all its life ordered — for the definite purpose of training, building up and sending our human lives fashioned into Christlike symmetry, filled with lofty impulses and aspirations, governed by principles of rectitude and honor, and fitted to enter upon the duties and struggles of life with spiritual wisdom and strength.

~ J. R. Miller "Home-Making" 1882 ~

Our Children

"Parents! You are fashioning the destinies of immortal souls!

What we want to do with our children, is not merely to control them and keep them in order—but to implant true principles deep in their hearts which shall rule their whole lives; to shape their character from within into Christlike beauty, and to make of them noble men and women, strong for battle of life.

They are to be trained rather than governed.

Growth of character, not merely good behavior — is the object of all home governing and teaching. Therefore the home influence is far more important than the home laws; and the parents' lives are of more significance than their teachings.

Whatever may be done in the way of governing, teaching or training — theories are not half as important as the parents' lives.

They may teach the most beautiful things—but if the child does not see these things modeled in the life of the parent—he will not consider them important enough to be adopted in his own life."

~ J. R. Miller, "Home-making, 1882" ~

~ GRAPHICS ~
*Mother & Child* by Carl Vilhelm Holsoe
*Time* by Jean Monti

For the Feeling You Cherished Them

Golden Moments by Trish Romance

"Children will not remember you
for the material things you provided,
but for the feeling that you cherished them."

~ Richard Paul Evans ~

Heart + Soul by Trish Romance

Little Eyes Upon You

There are little eyes upon you

and they're watching night and day.
There are little ears that quickly
take in every word you say.

There are little hands all eager
to do anything you do;
And a little boy who's dreaming
of the day he'll be like you.

You're the little fellow's idol,
you're the wisest of the wise.
In his little mind about you
no suspicions ever rise.

He believes in you devoutly,
holds all you say and do;
He will say and do, in your way
when he's grown up just like you.

There's a wide-eyed little fellow
who believes you're always right;
and his eyes are always opened,
and he watches day and night.

You are setting an example
every day in all you do;
For the little boy who's waiting
to grow up to be like you.

©1997 Kimberly Sedlacek

These 2 precious photos are of my eldest son and my grandson. This simple but profound little poem is for and about, them, as well as all parents and children everywhere!

The phrase about setting an example in everything you do is for me, as well as anyone else that it may apply to :o)

*Walking aright* in this scene of time, being a testimony to others, is such a huge responsibility! I'm so thankful that I am not expected to do it in my own strength but I have help for every step of the way ... I need remember only to lean on my Lord and seek His guidance!

Happy Father's Day to My Husband

Always There by Jean Monti

ONLY a DAD

Only a dad with a tired face,
Coming home from the daily race,
Bringing little of gold or fame
To show how well he has played the game;
But glad in his heart that his own rejoice
To see him come and to hear his voice.

Only a dad with a brood of four,
One of ten million men or more
Plodding along in the daily strife,
Bearing the whips and the scorns of life,
With never a whimper of pain or hate,
For the sake of those who at home await.

Only a dad, neither rich nor proud,
Merely one of the surging crowd,
Toiling, striving from day to day,
Facing whatever may come his way,
Silent whenever the harsh condemn,
And bearing it all for the love of them.

Only a dad but he gives his all,
To smooth the way for his children small,
Doing with courage stern and grim
The deeds that his father did for him.
This is the line that for him I pen:
Only a dad, but the best of men.

~ Edgar Guest ~

This is for my dear husband who has been and still is, a very special Dad to our 3 children!

Both his father and my father passed away within the past 5 years,
but this is also in memory of them.

WALK A LITTLE SLOWER DADDY

"Walk a little slower Daddy," said a little child so small.

I'm following in your footsteps and I don't want to fall.

Sometimes your steps are very fast, sometimes they're hard to see'
So walk a little slower Daddy, for you are leading me.

Someday when I'm all grown up, you're what I want to be.
Then I will have a little child who'll want to follow me.

And I would want to lead just right, and know that I was true;
So, walk a little slower, Daddy, for I must follow you!"

~ Author Unknown ~

[painting "Two Stepping" © 2008 Tom Sierak]

A VISION of FATHERHOOD

"Each day of our lives we make deposits in the memory banks of our children." ~ Charles R Swindoll, The Strong Family

"It's only when you grow up, and step back from him, or leave him for your own career and your own home --- it's only then that you can measure his greatness and fully appreciate it. Pride reinforces love." ~ Margaret Truman

"One father is more than a hundred schoolmasters." ~ George Herbert

"It's not only children who grow. Parents do too. As much as we watch to see what our children do with their lives, they are watching us to see what we will do with ours. I can't tell my children to reach for the sun. All I can do is reach for it myself." ~ Joyce Maynard

"The fathers . . . owe to their homes the best influence of their lives . . . The very centre of every man's life should be his home.

Instead of being to him a mere boarding house where he eats and sleeps, and from which he starts out in the mornings to his world, it ought to be the place where his heart is anchored, where his hopes gather, to which his thoughts turn a thousand times a day, for which he toils and struggles, and into which he brings always the richest and best things of his life.

He should realize that he is responsible for the character and the influence of his home life . . ." ~ JR Miller in HOME-MAKING

"No piling up of this world's treasures
can compensate a man
for the loss of those incomparable jewels,
his own children."

~ JR Miller
in SECRETS of a HAPPY HOMELIFE ~

[TOP art © 2008 Joseph Baylor Roberts]
[R="Innocence Shared" © 2008 Sandra Kuck]