The warmth of true love.

It is always around this time when everyone starts settling in, the kids have been asleep for awhile, and the laughing has come to a momentary halt for the evening. Some days you can laugh until endless hours of the night not because things are actually funny but more so because you are tired, but days like today the sun goes down on puffy eyes and the warmth of the family gathered on the couches. It doesn't mean their wasn't laughter, it means the laughing was exchanged until love embraced us all. It wraps it's arms around us and we hold on as tight as possible until exhaustion hits and we walk to our own rooms and close the door behind us. We are so tired and things in life continuously hold us down to our choking point, but when family comes together, those little things that we feel so deeply in our hearts that create knots in our stomach our soothed. The smiles exchanged put a warmth over us releasing any fears or anxieties that we have held so closely the past week or so. We fear of expressing them in the open so we keep to ourselves, but in a home it is different. Everyone is gathered, no one to impress, no one to fear that if they know the secrets you will be judged or not loved anymore, but more that they will love you with every fault. There are no barriers or restrictions, it is a home built on God's love, it surrounds us. The thoughts that have worried me so much in the past week are released immediately with the warmth of my family around me. There is no need to think about them but just to be completely me and know I will be loved no matter what. It is a family, but then we go back into our own space and close the door and it is quiet. It is quiet, for the first time today I have heard true silence. It is a good silence though, the kind where you can hear yourself thinking so loud, I might even wake someone. It is good thoughts though, like how grateful I am for mad chaos 23 hours a day, and thankful for the silence at that last hour before we lay our heads on our pillows and drift to sleep. Thoughts of reason, like why I love home, and the loving air that permeates throughout the house whether through the sound of screaming young children, giggling, the cups of coffee being left around the kitchen, or just through the smell of my dad's favorite candle drifting throughout the air, the smell of the warmth of a family who love each other. Yes, this I why I love home, this is why I love the good kind of silence because I realize the most important things in my life like my family and their love. This is home and home is where my family is.