By Chris and Jenni Graebe
Fill Your Home with Good People
A few months ago, I was praying over a difficult season one of our kids was walking through. What began to stir in my spirit in response from the Lord was: “Fill your home with good people.”
Sometimes we forget the power we possess to influence our children within the walls of our own home. When they walk out of our front door each day, they are inundated with all sorts of influences we do not get to choose. Teachers, coaches, friends, media—so many people and pressures that will all contribute to the identity of our children. It’s just part of life. Some influences will be positive and strengthening. Others will undoubtedly be negative and discouraging. There is so much outside our control.
What we can control, however, is our own home. We can keep a regular stream of interesting, positive influences cycling through our front door. By opening up our home and living in rich community, we not only get to enjoy the company of wonderful people, we also teach our kids all manner of valuable life lessons. As they experience the beauty of welcoming others in, they learn what it looks like to care for others, how to make people feel welcome, and what a sweet gift it is to simply delight in being present with others. In an increasingly digital world, with statistics of isolation and loneliness increasing every day, we can choose to fight against the current. We can create an atmosphere of goodness as we fill our home with good people.
This is a rhythm my parents practiced so well in our family growing up. Hospitality was their superpower. Our home was always filled with wonderful humans living interesting, inspiring, quirky, brave, and beautiful lives right in front of us, that we got to watch and learn from. I was profoundly shaped, simply by their presence in my life. I got to rub shoulders with their courage, listen in on lessons they learned from mistakes along the way, and receive words of life they took the time to speak over me as a young, impressionable kid. I am so grateful my parents chose to see our home not only as a place to retreat, rest, and recharge but also as a place to regularly welcome others in.
Fill your home with good people. Bring them around your table. Ask the deep questions, and let your children listen in on the rich responses. It’s amazing how my children’s ears can miraculously open to hear something I’ve been trying to tell them for months, simply because it comes out of someone else’s mouth. I don’t mind. I do the same for my friends’ kids. We need each other. Lovingly lean into the lives of the people you care about, speak life into their kids, and invite them to do the same for yours. It’s one of the greatest weapons we have against the discouragement of the world around us.
Fill Your Home with Beauty
We also want to expose our kids to all sorts of wonderful things this world has to offer: baseball and ballet, juicy pomegranates and Texas queso. The sound of James Taylor, the scent of fresh roses, and the sight of the sun setting over the water. We want to let them taste and see all that’s good and beautiful in the world around us and create in them what my friend Jan Foreman calls an “appetite for the good.”
Instead of making them fear the world or letting them settle for a cheap imitation of the good, we can give our kids an appreciation for what’s truly beautiful in the world by filling our home and life with a taste of those marvelous things. Start with what you love. What are the things that bring you delight or stir your soul? Make a special place for them in your home and in your family life.
Introduce your kids to your favorite James Taylor record, invite them into the kitchen to help bake your grandmother’s famous blackberry cobbler, or slice open a juicy, ripe Bartlett pear together. Share with them the beauty that you know.
I love how author John Eldredge notes, “Beauty brings hope and healing. Beauty reassures you of the goodness of God.” Incorporating regular touchpoints of the beauty available to us in the world God has given us brings life and hope to our soul. It lifts our spirits and shifts the environment of our home more than we realize. Even a simple vase of cut stems from the yard placed on the breakfast table can offer a little light to those who pass by. When we actively look for the beauty around us and share it with our children, we help them develop eyes to see it and hearts to receive it as they grow.
Do It Anyway
A mantra my husband and I have started saying to each other in this season, with two teenagers, one tweenager, and two little ones, is “Do it anyway.”
We cannot control our kids’ responses to the rhythms we fill our home with. In parenting, A + B does not always equal C. Sometimes our kids will respond well immediately, with joy and gratitude, and sometimes they won’t. What the Lord has been teaching us over and over in this season is that we are not in charge of their response. Our job is to be the parent He has called us to be, regardless of our children’s reactions. There will be days where we ask ourselves, “Does anything I am doing matter at all?
We can decide in advance to remind ourselves of the truth in these moments. It does matter. It all matters. If we make our choices based on how we think our kids will respond, it can keep us from giving them what they need most: our unconditional, unwavering love and faithfulness.
Ask your kids the deep, meaningful questions. What if they roll their eyes? Do it anyway. Plan the family night. What if the kids complain? Do it anyway. Put the devices away for the afternoon! What if they throw a fit? Do it anyway. It will all count in the long run.
Sometimes they’ll thank you for it, and other times they won’t. Sometimes they’ll energetically participate in your family night, and other times they won’t participate at all. Do it anyway. Their reaction to your effort doesn’t get to dictate the rhythms you fill your home with.
You get to choose the habits that make up your home.
Seek God for His best rhythms for your family and then practice them faithfully, trusting Him with the results.
There is a harvest coming if you don’t give up. Trust the story He is writing. Do it anyway. Ultimately, we want our homes to be the place our kids know deep down to their bones that they are loved and that they belong. There’s so much pressure for our kids to perform, to prove their worth, and to constantly measure up. We want to make sure they know there is at least one place where they are always loved, always welcomed, and completely delighted in just as they are. It’s right here with us. It’s called home.
Excerpted from: The Rhythm of Home. Copyright © 2024. Chris Graebe and Jenni Graebe. Published by NavPress, Colorado Springs, CO. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
