Home. I’m back in it, in my usual spot on the sofa, in an oddly quiet house. The kids’ stuff is still everywhere, a task that I will address today, but one that always makes me a little sad. It’s funny, but I’m not as tired as I usually am after a long stretch of their care. Certainly, I will relish the quiet of what looks like a rainy (hooray!) day, but I’m really missing them this morning…their sleepy smiles…our little routine.

It was in the middle of one such routine that I had an interesting conversation with Lilli. It was night before last (the last together before I left to come back home), and I was getting everything ready for a “slumber party” in her room. After having slept on an air mattress in her sister Valé’s room the night before (she splits time between her mom and dad’s so I relish the time I get to have with her on my visits), I had set it up in Lilli’s to do the same thing. I was brushing my teeth and getting ready to turn in, when Lilli shows up in the bathroom and plops herself down on the toilet lid.

Mimmie, I don’t want you to go home. It’s not okay with me.

I know, sweetheart. It’s not really okay with me, either, but I have to.

But we’re a family, Mimmie.

That’s true, but we’re a family that lives in two different places. I wish we didn’t, but that’s just the way it is.

But you could stay here, and Papa could come on the airplane, too.

Where would we live, honey?

Here with us. You could sleep in the playroom on the bed that blows up, like you did last TIME (she always puts more emphasis on the “time”). We would make space.

We would make space.

And she would. The most important thing to her in that moment was that we all be together, so she would do what she had to do.

I was so touched…and convicted. As adults, even if our schedules are packed, or we don’t have one more inch of wiggle room in our homes, we will find extra space for something we want to do, or something we want to own. But often, the people in our lives, or even the God of the Universe, fall to the bottom of our priority list. It’s time – right now – to take stock of that for which we’re actually making space. It will be quite telling as to what’s truly important to us, and if it doesn’t have a heartbeat, or isn’t the Creator of one, it might be time for an adjustment.

A short time later, I tucked Lilli into her bed, and crawled into mine on the air mattress. She handed me one of her special blankets, and a stuffed animal, so I wouldn’t get lonely, then all was quiet for about 15 minutes. Then, with no sound at all, I felt the covers lift and her warm little body curl up next to mine.

And you know what I did?

I made space.

“For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. ” Luke 12:24 ESV