Chris preached Sunday night on hospitality, and it was very encouraging to me. We’ve had a lot of people in our messy home over the last few months: Sunday school friends, a special needs man my husband spends time with a couple times a week, a neighbor, a vision therapist that works with our kids, my friend’s kids while she was in the hospital and recovering at home, my little boy’s Sunday School teacher and her husband. It has been very enjoyable to have company over. It would have been more enjoyable if I wasn’t so embarrassed about my house, but his sermon reminded me of some important things about hospitality.
The best thing though that he reminded me of is that hospitality is not entertaining guests. It’s letting them feel welcome, at home, loved, and cared for. They don’t have to be entertained or impressed with my housekeeping ability. They don’t come over to see my house. Hospitality has much much more to do with the state of my heart than the state of my home, my cooking ability, or even my speaking ability.
We have an “adopted grandma” in Louisville. I’ve been in her home many times. Her house is cluttered. Usually when I am over there I’m just stopping for a few minutes to drop something off, pick something up, or because she is babysitting for us. Her house is in its everyday state (cleaner than mine but still appearing very lived in), I can’t recall ever eating anything while sitting on her couch, and she is not incredibly witty or a strong conversationalist. But our conversations are always warm and I always leave feeling loved and cared for. She is not an excellent entertainer but she is excellent at hospitality. And because of her excellence at hospitality I’ve never missed the entertainment when in her home.
I still need to work on learning to keep my home cleaner for my own peace of mind and so that we can find a clean pair of socks easily in the morning when we are trying to head out the door, and don’t open those surprise containers in the fridge so often. But I am reminded that improving my homekeeping ability is not a prerequisite to practicing hospitality.