Love is like a home for your heart.

This thought first occurred to me as I was preparing to give a toast at one of our daughter’s pre-wedding dinners. While at the time I was thinking about love in the context of a marriage, the same holds true in any relationship where love resides. 

 Like any home, the shared dwelling place for our heart is best built working from a good design, on a strong foundation, and with quality materials. 

A good design takes into account the needs of those inhabiting the space. Expansive enough for all to breathe and have room to roam, and yet intimate enough for the close encounters that create intimate connection.

A strong foundation provides solid footing. It is the deep, load-bearing understructure that helps  ensure that the home can withstand the inevitable storms that will blow through the relationship.

Quality materials take into account both form and function, and work together using the unique stuff of those involved to build a love that is both beautiful and practical.

Having built our first house 10 years ago, we learned a lot about home building. The more thought that goes into how you want to inhabit it, and what you want to have happen there, the more likely you are to build a place to call home.

The same holds true for a relationship. 

Even with great design, a firm foundation, and the best of materials, if you live in a home long enough, some changes will be in order. The space that once worked no longer does. Stuff breaks, and things get scratched, warped, worn thin, and outlive their usefulness. Clutter accumulates. So it’s  back to the drawing board you go. A wall taken out here, a few windows added there, new color on the walls, repairing what is broken, and throwing out what is no longer needed.  

The same holds true for a relationship.

Whether talking about a marriage, a friendship, a family, or, dare I say it, a workplace, when we make the effort to build a home within which love can both dwell and grow, there’s no place like it.