Hospitality From the Inside, Out

Hospitality From the Inside, Out

 (My wife doesn't have a blog, but was asked to write this article for a soon to be published church cookbook.  I told her it was so good it needed to be shared - so here it is) -

If you are a Christian, the Lord desires that, like Him, you are hospitable, or loving to the stranger/outsider.  It has often been said that, “you cannot export what you do not have”, and this certainly applies to hospitality.  One of the common hurdles about hospitality can be the feeling that it is a rather large, extra-ordinary event….something unfamiliar, “out of my comfort zone”.  A demeanor of hospitality toward your children and husband is the best ways to overcome that hurdle and prepare yourself to extend hospitality generally.  Hospitality is “loving your neighbor” with   home and hearth.  I have found over the years, that the more I put thought and energy into  extending hospitality to my family, the easier and more natural it is for me to do so “abroad”. 

 What a blessing it is to arrive at someone’s home, and know immediately that they are pleased to have you…they are looking forward to your company.  This is something that is hard to “manufacture”, and when it is less than genuine, it is nothing short of hypocrisy.  We have so very many opportunities at home to practice the grace of making people feel welcome…our own people.  Does your husband feel that he is welcome to the home when he comes in…that you are looking forward to seeing him?(for more than just an extra set of hands) J  Are your children invited to join you at table, assured that you want their company, regardless of their foibles and various shortcomings, and assured that you are HAPPY to serve them again?  Welcoming the stranger in assumes that you have worked hard on their behalf, and joy and grace will be extended.  Graciousness is not something that you can pull out of your hat on Saturday evening when the guests are coming.  Gracious hospitality is the abundant overflow of the daily grace-cycle: we are blessed abundantly by our Lord, and that grace spills over to those closest to us and beyond.  We cannot give grace FROM our home, if there is no grace AT home.

  When it comes to meal planning with our families, efficiency, rather than consideration is often the ruling factor.  We are all striving to meet that grocery budget, and certainly we are all spinning multiple plates throughout the day that make dinner preparations challenging, to say the least.  But those things don’t change when we decide to have someone over; in fact we have just further complicated the issue. So, well… we just don’t have anyone over, and “at least the family has been fed”…sigh.  The Lord never commands what He does not give.  Take Him up on that…He would desire you to consider the needs AND desires of your family in meal planning…kindness extended in the trifles of preference, presentation, breaking the monotony, etc.   When we think about having someone else over, we often feel stymied to come up with a meal that would be a blessing.  But if we are well practiced at preparing meals that please our family, it is easier to extend the principle to others.  And our families are secure in the knowledge that we love and care for them….they see that kind consideration is not something that mom saves just for the guests.  They swim in a pool of kindness all week long, and the guests are soaked with the by-product.

The same of course would apply to table décor, etc.  Certainly, everyday is not a formal affair….but aren’t you blessed when you sit at a table that is comfy, cheery, clean, etc?  Surely those that we sit with at table regularly are as well.  Preparing a table for guests is less daunting if you have had more “daily” practice adding color, lighting some candles, etc. Even take home pizza or boxed mac-n-cheese looks better next to a vase of flowers or some candle light…or, just a de-cluttered table.  The wonderfully freeing news with all of these things is that this will look VERY different from family to family. J

The point is not to stress us out in terms of heaping burdens on our already burden-prone shoulders.…..the point is to ease into genuine, Christ-like  hospitality “out there”  by way of a natural spill-over of what we are already receiving and giving of home and hearth  “right here”.

Faithfully extending hospitality to those less familiar will not feel so daunting and extra-ordinary, if we are more ordinarily extending hospitality to those familiar, regular guests that we have. In fact, we probably would create an atmosphere that more often than not, would be a blessing to just about ANYONE at any old ordinary meal.