The home should be the happiest spot we can ever know on earth. In it we have the very closest and dearest relationships, and it can be the constant source of strength and inspiration. But to create and preserve the happiness of the home requires certain qualities and attitudes which may be designated by four keywords.

The first and most important of these is LOVE.

Ideally it is an unselfish love that brings a man and woman together to form a home, and ideally, it is love which increases that happiness of the home with children. The love which binds a family together is partly an impulse of nature, but in the Christian home, it is far more unselfish than a mere natural impulse. In Ephesians 5:25-31, the Apostle Paul says, “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself up for it; that he might sanctify it, having cleansed it by the  washing of water with the word, that he might present the church to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. Even so ought husbands also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his own wife loveth himself: for no man ever hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as Christ also the church; … For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh.” This kind of love would lead a man to sacrifice his own pleasures, even his life, to assure the happiness and welfare of his wife. And who can doubt that the same unselfish love which a man should have for his wife, the wife should also have for her husband, and the parents should have for their children.

Unfortunately, however, love can wither and die. To keep it alive and warm requires close association, attention and care. When parents both work and have little time for their children, they become in a measure strangers to them. By nature, children love their parents and long for their parent's love in return. Two teenagers, whose parents after work and the evening meal usually sat glued to the television till bed time, have testified that they felt so frustrated and bitter that they even wanted to put a bomb under the TV; yet they could not tell their parents how they felt. Warm personal love which expresses itself in affectionate association, care, and attention prevents such estrangement's and bitterness, and is the single greatest source of happiness in the home. No amount of money, fast cars, gifts, and gadgets can substitute for it.