Over the past two years, we’ve stood in front of over 1,000 parents and presented the Heaven in Your Home Workshop. But only recently did we begin a workshop with an admission we previously thought too obvious to mention: we don’t have heaven in our home…at least not consistently. 

You could hear an audible sigh of relief and the movement in the room as couples got more comfortable in their chairs. We went on to share that everyone has experienced family wounds, and that we’re no different. In fact, we’ve often inhabited “purgatory in your home” and even glimpsed something akin to “hell in your home.” 

All that’s to say, your weekly Heaven in Your Home Letter is not about a sugar-coated version of heavenly family life. It’s about the hard work that we all want to do to have real heaven in our home, the kind where people live a life of mutual giving that includes a lot of self-sacrifice. So, wherever family life has taken you, and whatever wounds you’ve experienced, we assure you that you’re in good company!

Phew. Having cleared the air, let’s take a look at how Lent is going. We’re probably not unlike other families in that we’ve careened back and forth between events, news, and activities that are all hard to process in real time. Heaven in our home can seem remote when life throws the kitchen sink at us.

Humor us for a moment, but just in the past 10 days… The news and images from Ukraine. The loss of one our two beloved cats, hit by a car. A birthday visit to our older daughter at college. Ash Wednesday Mass and the first days of practicing our Lenten resolutions. A beloved uncle who entered hospice and quickly passed away. A tennis team tryout for our son. Conversations about nuclear war at our dinner table. The birthday of our younger daughter. The pressure of deadlines for big work projects.

We share this not to make any point about our list. The point is that you have your own list of bewildering ups and downs, sudden events, celebrations and goodbyes, burdens and joys. They are many, and God wants to equip you—by his grace—with everything you need to bear them and to allow them to be transformed in this journey of Lent. But how?

As we consider how we all want to arrive at heaven in our home and how many things we’re dealing with on a daily basis, we’d like to highlight Level 2 of your Trinity House, Person & Relationships. We all know that dealing with everything life throws at us and still glimpsing a bit of heaven in our home is not, fundamentally, about having enough resources or downtime. It’s about whether or not we’re loving each other well through it all.

You see, God seeks to give us the grace to weather life’s erratic ups and downs through our attentiveness to and understanding of one another. He wants us to be his love, concern, and provision in each other’s lives. And when our relationships fail to be other-centered—when we are left to struggle through on our own—that’s when purgatory and even hell creep in.

And that’s probably the biggest reason why we need Lent so badly. Throughout the year, we tend to become more and more addicted to impersonal things and activities. The more we spend ourselves on food, alcohol, shopping, sports, workaholism, gaming, screens, etc., the less of ourselves we have to be Christ to each other through all that life throws at us.

When our selfish and addictive behaviors make us unavailable to our loved ones, then purgatory and even a form of hell grows stronger in our homes every day. Thankfully though, Lent is here, allowing us to recapture time from our distractions…and invest this time in growing our relationships.

And this is the heart of the Trinity House Lenten Challenge—to set aside distractions and addictions and focus on relationships. As we settle into Lent, let’s all make sure we’ve given up enough stuff to make room for the growth in our relationships—with God and our loved ones—that will make Easter truly joyful!