When Home Feels Dark
This past week has been challenging. I overcame my fatigue from two weeks ago, only to live a week where it felt like every went wrong. It got almost comical that I could count on the fact that every 30 minutes something crazy and draining or surprising would happen. Things would break. Items would get lost. My vacuum cleaner sparked and shocked me. A child’s wallet was stolen. Bad news from friends. More bad news from family. Recognizing that you have been deceived by someone you care about. I felt like I was putting out fires, creating fires, unaware of fires coming.
My home started to feel heavy. It didn’t feel like a place of warmth, connection, coziness or lightness. I sensed that some of my children were struggling with things that they weren’t willing to talk about. There was tension in the air, growing thicker by the day, stifling my ability to take a deep breath. I felt like I was losing some unseen battle, and that my home wasn’t mine anymore. Some sense of my authority here was undermined in ways I couldn’t completely name or understand.
By Saturday, my discouragement was undoing me. Truths were being revealed, layers upon layers. When you think you know all of it, there is usually more. Parenting for many years will teach you that. But when hidden, unhealthy truths come into the light, something shifts. The Light breaks in on the shameful, and healing and direction can come. The darkness of the home and, my soul, lifts because even though the truth hurts, we can see it and name it and make clear decisions, for the health and wholeness and well-being of everyone.
Sometimes we are asleep in our homes, lulled by a false sense of peace. There are seasons where we realize that we have to wake up, confront, take ownership, and light candles in the darkness. We stand at the doorways of these walls and determine to protect them, keep them safe. We refuse to allow hidden sins to infiltrate, prowl, seeking to destroy the good. We renew the boundary lines, shore up our resolve, and fall to our knees in prayer. We reach out to community, refusing to hide in our own version of shame, and ask them to believe and stand in prayer for our homes.
We can fight for the souls of our homes. We don’t have to allow sarcasm or bitterness to rule us. We can place limits on technology. We can rise up, summon the Spirit’s strength, and believe that love wins in these walls. We can cook a nourishing meal. Gut the chaos from the bedrooms. Fill the corners with flowers. Let go of cynicism, helplessness, and embrace joy, hope, and peace. The Lord has offered us every good thing we need in the Gospel, and we can bring that beauty and truth to bear in our places.
No home is perfect. The people who live there are broken. We can keep moving forward towards healing. We may not be able to control those around us, but we can change ourselves. We can be healthy, healing agents in our realms, believing that it matters and that it makes a difference. We must not throw up our hands in despair, giving into the acedia, but believe for better! Take steps every day to pray, to trust, to speak truth, to give grace, to fill our homes with light. Play the music, light the candles, invite those who enter into a better story. This is the hard and holy work of tending the foundations of a home, one worth giving the best of our lives for. We do this together, small lighthouses all across the land.