We'll make it home

To my dear girl, who’s been uprooted and transplanted in an empty place you didn’t choose: we’ll make it home.

It doesn’t matter how big or small or pretty or ugly. Home is not in a building. It’s in people. In us. In you and me. And that’s what women do. We make home wherever we are.

We take the bare walls and echoing rooms and the empty cupboards and the dirty bathrooms and embrace and transform them. We adorn the walls so people are welcomed in with peace and beauty. We fill the rooms with handpicked Facebook marketplace finds so the ones we love are enveloped in comfort. We fill the cupboards with food — maybe beans. But darn they’ll be tasty when we’re done with them. We take the dirty bathrooms that contractors and realtors and potential tenants have all tramped through and didn’t care what they left — and we’ll clean them till they shine. We’ll change the lightbulbs and scrub the floors and add coordinating soap dispensers and towels and rugs we found on clearance.

Because we’re women. And this is what we made and called and equipped do. No matter what the world says. We make a home for our people. And we make it beautiful and welcoming. It’s not just decor either. There are many stunningly decorated places in this world that aren’t homes. Atmosphere, welcome, comfort, nourishment, safety. It’s all of it, isn’t it? But it starts with us. We make it a place where people don’t just live, they rest and grow and thrive and feel and resolve conflict and dance and know God.

Home is so much more than this empty shell of rooms.

Because God is the first Home Maker. He furnished a garden with everything His people needed. And He made it beautiful. It was good.

And dear girls of mine, I’m sure your lives and talents will take you around the world and back. To boardrooms and studios and offices and stages and places you’ve never dreamed. And you’ll do and teach and thrive and create and heal there, I’m sure.

But after that, every evening, you’ll crave a place to just be. To rest. To eat and to fellowship. To belong. And you possess the unique ability as a woman to make that place. For yourself and your families, your churches and your communities.

You make your home. And it will be beautiful.