Day 13: Giving Thanks for Home
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There’s no place like home, and I am so thankful for mine! One year ago this month the construction on our new house was completing and we were preparing to take full ownership and occupancy.
We watched our little house rise from the ground.
We followed its progress daily. Floors, walls, roof, doors and windows, and then all of the amazing bits and pieces, inner structures and detailed work that combine into creating a house.
It’s hard to believe it’s already been a year since we moved in and began our new life in Farmington.
We love it here. The location, the trails, the lifestyle of a planned development with no more yard-work or shoveling snow (hooray!) It’s been a blessing to live near my parents, and fun to be closer to my siblings. We have enjoyed the new friends we have met, and the new LDS Ward congregation we’ve been welcomed into (which has newly changed, but that means more new friends and welcoming ahead!)
In truth, we may actually have spent more time OUTSIDE of our home this year enjoying the trails and mountains surrounding us than we have spent INSIDE the walls of our home!
We are Home
“A home is much more than a house built of lumber, brick, or stone. A home is made of love, sacrifice, and respect. We are responsible for the homes we build. We must build wisely, for eternity is not a short voyage. There will be calm and wind, sunlight and shadows, joy and sorrow. But if we really try, our home can be a bit of heaven here on earth. The thoughts we think, the deeds we do, the lives we live not only influence the success of our earthly journey, they also mark the way to our eternal goals.”
- Thomas S. Monson, Heavenly Homes Forever Families June 2006
On the very first day we moved into our house we gathered our children and we knelt together to offer a blessing upon our house. We blessed all who would dwell here, and all who would enter. We dedicated our house to being a haven from the troubles of the world, a place of love and peace, a place of acceptance and safety, and a house devoted to God.
No matter where in the world we may live, or the kind of structure we dwell, we can each dedicate our house to God, and invite His spirit to enter and dwell with us.
“Let us build with skill, take no shortcuts, and follow His blueprint. Then the Lord, even our building inspector, may say to us, as He said when He appeared to Solomon, a builder of another day, “I have hallowed this house, which thou hast built, to put my name there for ever; and mine eyes and mine heart shall be there perpetually” (1 Kgs. 9:3). We will then have heavenly homes and forever families and will be able to help, to strengthen, and to bless other families as well.”
– Thomas S. Monson
I pray that these blessings may come to each of us. – MoSop
Latter-day Soprano 