‘You know, I’ve been here so much, this is like my second home.’

The words out of my daughter’s friend’s mouth both blessed my heart and stung in the same breath…

They’ve been friends for about five years. That’s over half their lives, and really, as far as they’re concerned, their entire lives. Her mother and I became fast friends, bonding over preschool #momlife. Neither of us have much of a notion for small talk – so we kinda stuck… and yea… we all four, sometimes together, sometimes apart, have spent lots of time together since then. Mostly in each other’s homes.

The blessing – for a child to feel safe, loved and welcome in your home, enough so that they actually verbalize it, is such a compliment and validation that you haven’t completely blown this crazy gig they call motherhood – even if you’re not very ‘pinteresting’.

The sting? Her parents are divorced (this has happened during the time that I have known them)… so the fact that she didn’t call to her actual second home as her second home… broke me. Into a million little pieces. Because I know why… and I know the struggles she will have over this. And though she just may have had a sweet moment… and thought maybe it was truly just a ‘slip’; that maybe she says the same thing in other context about her father’s house…

But knowing all of the ‘grown up’ things that I know… it felt like a knife twisting in my gut knowing that Dad’s place isn’t her safe place.

I find myself relieved in knowing that she has an absolute village of people who adore her and will always have plenty of ‘homes’ to land in. And in the peace that she will always have our Heavenly Father to turn to, who won’t break or forsake her. Who will always be there to love and CHERISH her every breathe.

Many blessings,

💜 Cindi