Jesus Blog: Restore the Beauty of Home

 

More today from Susan Cottrell’s  “Jesus Blog” – a word from Jesus to you…

Home. A place of welcome, acceptance, rejuvenation. A place to be safe and to be loved, without condition.

A beautifully designed space of rest.

But beautiful things break down in the using – or the misusing.

Families can turn a safe haven into a concentration camp, so those within have no place of escape. Families throw over their privileged position as your ‘Biggest Fan’ – replacing it with ‘Biggest Detractor’.

Those within suffer a thousand deaths because of it.

They forget how much I love them. They forget their privilege as part of a family and take on roles I never gave them.

I weep for my children so hurt by parents in homes like these.

Let me be your home.

Let me be your welcome, acceptance, rest, safety, and unbounded love.

Put your weight on me. Rest in me.

Come in. I will restore the beauty of home.

[To read more from Susan Cottrell, visit www.FreedHearts.org]

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SUSAN COTTRELL is a national speaker, teacher, and counselor with years of Biblical study and discipleship experience. Her books include: Mom, I’m Gay – Loving Your LGBTQ Child Without Sacrificing Your Faithas well as How Not to Lose Your Teen and The Marriage Renovation. Through her nonprofit organization – FreedHearts.org – Susan champions the LGBTQ community and families with her characteristic tender-heartedness, and she zealously challenges Christians who reject them with her wise insistence that “loving God and loving others” are the foundation of the rest of the scripture, just as Jesus said.


She is the Vice-President of PFLAG Austin, and her “Mom, I’m Gay” book has been endorsed by The Human Rights Campaign and others. Sharon Groves, PhD, HRC’s Religion & Faith Program Director says, “I often get asked by parents for resources that can address the struggles of raising LGBT sons and daughters without having to leave faith behind. Susan Cottrell’s book, Mom, I’m Gay, does just that. This is the kind of book that parents will love.”

She and her husband have been married more than 25 years and have five children – one of whom is in the LGBTQ community. She lives in Austin, Texas, and blogs at FreedHearts.org and here in IMPACT Magazine’s FreedHearts and Jesus Blog columns.
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