Character

“Strength of character may be learned at work, but Beauty of character is learned at home.” – Henry Drummund

Ah, home.

The place where we can make mistakes, and learn from them.

If we have the right supportive environment, this is where we learn about basic human decency. The place where we learn to love and accept love. The place we learn to try again after failure, apologize for wrong doing, accept responsibility, and grow.

However, often, this may not be the case.

But, when it is, we learn the beauty of character; the gentleness of soul.

It is at home where beauty and strength of character really come together, because it is behind closed doors that true character is shaped.

And, it is yet another lovely aspect of being home:

a chance to build a beautiful character.

Sometimes, this includes failure, a bend to temptation, or looking at the deepest, darkest parts of oneself. It may include long wrestling matches with God’s Spirit to discover where we stand with Him, or asking Him to help us overcome our disbelief. Or, it may be about figuring out how we want to love others in the world, how we want our compassion and passions to be made known.

It is, hopefully, being surround by people who will sustain you in failure, redirect you in times of sin/temptation, and reflect the beauty to take on. They will cry with you, laugh with you, encourage and admonish you, in due time.

All to help you build that beautiful, strong character that people are so drawn to.

Beauty of Character like Ruth, who would not abandon God or her mother in law, even though she had all right to:

“But Ruth replied, ‘Don’t urge me to leave you or turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people. Your God, my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.” – Ruth 1:16-18  

And Strength of Character like Esther, who did the uncomfortable to fulfill her purpose, even upon possibility of death:

“‘For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?’ Esther sent this reply ‘…When this is done, I will go to the king even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish.'” – Esther 4:14&16