Gladys Hunt on Longing for Home

Editor’s Note: Four years ago, Redeemed Reader obtained the rights to republish several original blogs by the late Gladys Hunt, author of the classic children’s literature guide, Honey for a Child’s Heart. This year, in connection with our Honey Read-Along, we are honored to publish more of Gladys’ blogs, many originally published on the now-defunct Tumblon website and some never before seen. “Home” is the best to start a journey, so we’ll begin with not one, but two blogs on the subject of creating a safe place at home.

Home

Originally published on Tumblon, October 8, 2008

Home is one of the most emotionally evocative words in our language. Home is a place where you belong. Home is a safe place—that’s my favorite definition. It’s a place where it is safe to be who you are. You are special. You don’t need to be like your brother or your sister because you are YOU. Every one, no matter how old, longs for just such a place.

Who creates such a place as home? You and I do. As soon as our life links up with another life we take on this responsibility. How can we do this? Firstly, it means that we are safe people to live with and know. This is a strong concept, not a weak, wishy-washy one. It takes inner discipline and it is also called love.

Safe people create safe places. Their words may correct, but they do not destroy or scar. Words are not a put-down, but an aid to help someone become all they were meant to be. Discipline should build disciples, not rebels.

One day when we were living in the country our little kindergarten boy got off the school bus and hurried into the house. He slammed the back door and leaned against it, his cheeks rosy and his eyes shining. He said, “Wow. I like that bus driver. He treats me like I am a people!” Our five-year-old was having a tough time adjusting to an angry bus driver shouting at a bus full of noisy children who paid no attention to what he said. But this substitute driver wasn’t mad; he talked to the children as they got off the bus; he called them by name. Suddenly riding the bus had less trauma; it felt safer. And now he was home—where he would also be treated like a people. What a gift!

Longing for home

Originally published on Tumblon, October 14, 2008

I was asked to be a special guest teacher in a Family Living class at a local university. As the students filed in, most of them with a sullen demeanor and certainly showing no interest in family living or any living at all. I figured out quickly that Family Living was a snap course and that is why they were there. How to begin to capture students reading Time magazine or feigning sleep? So I began with “Home is a safe place.”

It was an emotional experience for me because as I talked about home everyone came to attention. Later when I asked for discussion and reaction to what I had presented, one of the most “way-out” appearing students asked, “How can a person find a safe place? I’ve been looking for one all my life.” Class participation was not a problem. I could scarcely believe how hungry students were for the kind of home I had been talking about. My question to them, “How prepared are you to be someone who produces this kind of “safeness?”

Isn’t it an inconsolable longing in all of us to find a place of acceptance, a safe place where we are known and loved? Think about this when you see your own little children trying out “life” as they grow and express themselves.

© Gladys M. Hunt 2008-10, reissued in 2022 with minor adjustments with permission of the Executor of the Literary Estate of Gladys M. Hunt (4194 Hilton SE, Lowell, MI 49331). Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Also at Redeemed Reader:

• Don’t miss our interview with Mark Hunt about his mother’s influence on her own home.
• It’s not too late to join our Honey for a Child’s Heart Read-Along, open to all our Fellowship members.