Thursday's Thoughts: Home

 

"Train up a child in the way he or she should go,
and in keeping with their individual gift, and when
they are old, they will not depart from it."
(Proverbs 22:6)

"Fathers do not irritate or provoke your children to anger,
do not exasperate them to resentment, but rear them
tenderly in the training and discipline and the counsel
and admonition of the Lord."
(Ephesians 6:4)

Wild Sunflowers
Image courtesy/University of Missouri Extension

Out in the meadow I picked a wild sunflower, and as I looked
into its golden heart, such a wave of homesickness came over me
I almost wept. I wanted Mother with her gentle voice and quiet firmness;
I longed to hear Father's jolly songs and to see his twinkling blue eyes:
I was lonesome for the sister with whom I used to play in the
meadow picking daisies and wild sunflowers.

Across the years, the old home and its love called to me, and memories of
sweet words of counsel came flooding back.  I realize that all my life the
teachings of those early days have influenced me, and the example set by
Father and Mother has been something I have tried to follow, with failures
here and there, with rebellion at times; but always coming back to it
as the compass needle to the star.

So much depends on homemakers.  I sometimes wonder if they are so busy now
with other things that they are forgetting the importance of this special work.
Especially did I wonder when reading recently that there were a great many
child suicides in the United States during the last year.  Not long ago we had
never heard of such a thing in our own country, and I am sure that there 
 must be something wrong with the home of a child who commits suicide.

Because of their importance, we must not neglect our homes in the rapid
changes of the present day. For when tests of character come in later years,
strength to the good will not come from the modern improvements or
amusements few may have enjoyed, but from the quiet moments
 and the "still small voices" of the old home.

Nothing ever can take the place of the early home influence; and as it does
not depend upon externals, it may be the possession of the poor as well as
of the rich, a heritage from all fathers and mothers to their children.

The real things in life that are the common possessions of us all are the
greatest value-worth far more than motor cars or radios, more than lands,
or money-our whole store of these wonderful riches may be revealed 
to us by such a common, beautiful thing as a wild sunflower.

Laura Ingalls Wilder

(1867-1957)

 American writer
Author of the "Little House" series of books

"Home"
(August 1923)
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Taken from the book,
"Little House In The Ozarks
A Laura Ingalls Wilder Sampler
The Rediscovered Writings"

By Laura Ingalls Wilder
Edited by Stephen W. Hines
(c. 1991)
Guideposts Edition