Words of Hope: Building a Loving Home
When Shann and I had three daughters, we imagined a home full of love and joy for one another. How could we make this dream a reality? We wanted sisters who felt total devotion and support for each other without rivalry, bickering, fighting, or distance. I often asked Mom and Dad for ideas for ways to build a home of devotion and love. Dad always brought the dream back to the unity and love between Shann and me. He believed sibling rivalry and fighting sprung from conscious or unconscious bitterness and resentment between husband and wife. He believed favoritism emerged from this disunity. Mom often counseled us about the space of the home and the experience in the house. What did the home feel like? Was there peace? Was there grace? Did children feel safe, loved, supported, and known?
Shann and I wrote down goals for the sisters: experience life together as friends, laugh, sing, dance together, support one another, and become best friends. If you visit our home, we have spontaneous Ferch Family dance night, someone leads the way through the house with different dance moves, and we all follow and imitate. We made the table the center of the home, time for mealtime conversation– no phones—of which I am often the worst culprit. Each meal has two elegant questions ( a question to which we don’t already know the answer—sometimes fun and sometimes serious), always asking each person to spotlight someone at the table until the first person who went is spotlighted to close the circle—thousands of meals together, thousands of opportunities to spotlight each other and speak love to one another. We were laughing, crying, forgiving, and loving deeply from the heart. I am grateful to my mom and dad for helping build a home where siblings profoundly adore one another. My girls love each other, and this came from the small daily habits of building a home of love.
“Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for one another, love each other deeply, from the heart.” – I Peter 1:22-23
