Insights

Love is in the Air! Or at least it is in the grocery stores with aisles and endcaps full of endless chocolate, flowers, candy and little trinkets that will be lost by the 15th. Now don’t get me wrong, I love Valentine's Day and all the traditions. When my kids were still living at my house, every year I created a Valentine trail out of conversation hearts that led from their beds downstairs to breakfast waiting with pink eggs and heart shaped pancakes and some form of present, be it a stuffed animal, or as they got older, gift cards for a Sonic treat or a Chi-Fil-A meal. But loving children well isn’t just a one special day commitment, it is the day in and day out choice to love when it is hard and hurts and you just don’t feel like it! Sometimes it's hard because they are being stinkers and sometimes it's because you’re being a stinker and sometimes we are all just so pressed by the things of this world that it is hard to love well in the everyday moments.

I want to encourage you that you don’t have to muster this love on your own. GOD IS LOVE is not just a trite saying. It is a truth that we can trust. Because He loves us we can love each other. As believing parents we want to create homes where people love well and hard even in the toughest of times. When all four of my kids were still at home, it was loud and messy and sweet and chaotic and tender and wild and funny and disappointing and exciting and gutwrenching …..because we are human and loving well doesn’t mean it’s never messy. But I love the verse in Colossians 3:14 that says,”And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony”. Above all the mess, PUT ON LOVE, and it will bind the days together perfectly. God has a way of doing that which we can’t understand but we can trust that if we pray, asking Him for help to love our children well then He can bind all the good, all the hard and all the messy under His banner of love. Everyday acts of love and mess make up your children’s childhood. You wrote a page of their story today and will write another one tomorrow. I read something this week that helped me gain some perspective and I hope it blesses you, too. Love well, friends, not just on Feb 14th but on an ordinary Thursday because you’re writing your family’s story of love every day.

“Someday your child will describe their childhood to someone you’ve never met. They will sit at a table you didn’t set, in a home you didn’t build, across from people who only know them as adults. And they’ll tell a story about what it was like to grow up in your house– not every detail, just the parts that stayed. They will describe the feeling of walking through the door, the tone at the table, whether home felt warm or unwelcoming, joyful or tense, safe or performative. We don’t get to choose the story they tell. We don’t get to edit it later. But we are writing it now-in ordinary dinners, random Tuesday nights, and moments like the one you’re sitting in right this second–long after the Legos are gone, the schedules change, and the house gets quieter. The story of home keeps speaking. So I think about what will feel familiar to them later- the sound of plates, the welcome at the door, the way we made room for friends and strangers, uncomfortable conversations, and joyous celebrations. Those are the things that stay. I can’t choose the story they’ll tell someday. But I can keep setting the table like it matters. Because it does”.  By Heather Mills Schwarzen

Happy Valentine’s Day. May the love of the Father abound generously in your family’s story!

Becky Ross
Brooks St. Principal
Logos Preparatory Academy