I'm Thankful for Home

Each day until Thanksgiving, Everyday Truth is looking at a different reason to be thankful in a family devotional. Use these devotionals with your kids to help keep your family focused on giving thanks. If you missed the introductory post, check it out here for directions on creating a "Thanksgiving wall." When you're done with the devotional head on over to the Everyday Truth Facebook page and join in the discussion of why we're thankful for our homes.

Would you like to live in a house that looks like a seashell? How about a house that hangs from a tree branch? What about a house that's completely underground? All of these houses exist. You could also live in a home made entirely of snow and ice or in one made of straw.

No matter what type of house we live in, we can be thankful God has given us a home. You may live in an apartment or a large house. Your family might move every few years to a new house in a new location. But if you have a place to live with the people you love, you have a home.

Home can be one of our favorite places. Like Dorothy said in "The Wizard of Oz," "There's no place like home." When we leave home for a vacation, it's always nice to come home to the familiar comforts of our own beds, our own toys and our own friends.

God wants our homes to be a place of refuge. Do you know what that word means? A refuge is a place where you can go that you feel safe. Unfortunately, some kids live in homes where they don't feel safe. Maybe there's a lot of fighting in their house. Maybe someone hurts them. Maybe there's just simply not enough food, heat or love to go around.

If you live in a home where you are warm, sheltered and feel safe, if you live in a house where you feel loved, be thankful. The adults you live with are wise. Proverbs 24:3 says "By wisdom a house is built, and through understanding it is established." This verse isn't talking about physically building a house. It's talking about being wise in how we deal with other people in our homes. It means we treat others with love, kindness and compassion because that's what makes a home.

If you live in a home where you feel safe and loved, thank God for that today. Pray for those kids who may not have a home -- kids who live in homeless shelters -- as well as for kids who live in homes where they don't feel safe and loved. Write on your Thanksgiving wall something about your home that you are thankful for today.

And, remember, whether your home hangs from a tree, floats on the water or sits in the middle of neighborhood, "There's no place like home."