I like front doors. I like simple white ones. I like ornately carved ones. I like brightly painted ones. I like plain wooden ones.
When our five children were at home, we joked that our front door was a revolving door. Children, our own and neighbors, streamed through the door, letting in flies and the stray grasshopper. Noise and confusion abounded as I struggled to keep track of everyone. Dirt, mud, and freshly mown grass were tracked in with regularity.
One evening a week, our door was closed as our family gathered together for a song, a short lesson or activity, refreshments, and a prayer. (In the Mormon church, this is called Family Home Evening.) Our children and others knew that this was family time.
Front doors symbolize welcome. They remind us that a world exists outside our home. Front doors also symbolize safety, a haven against that same world when it occasionally turns harsh. And should a home not be a haven as well as a heaven?
Our home was not always a haven or a heaven. Life, with all its messiness, got in the way. Harsh words were uttered, tears shed, feelings were hurt. But we knew that home was where we could turn to when everything else turned against us. Home represented love and forgiveness and comforting arms.
So, for today, I am grateful for front doors.
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