Hospitable?

Hospitality seems to be the theme lately. Papa (otherwise known as Pastor Roger) spent the last two weeks preaching on hospitality, we had a "hospitality" themed small group gathering and today my daily devotions were on, yep...hospitality. I think it is clear that He is trying to tell me something here!

It has been very interesting to look at hospitality from different angles. Learning the difference between being hospitable and entertaining. Learning that hospitality should start in your own neighborhood. Learning how to pray for your neighbors...but to pray with "your eyes open", meaning, listening and paying attention to the needs of your neighbors and trying your best to help fill those needs. Learning where hospitality (particularly to our neighbors) fits into God's plan for the mission of the Church. Each one of those 'angles' on hospitality could easily be their own separate blog post. Hospitality is important.

In my devotions this morning the angle was a little bit different. It skimmed the usual hospitality ideas, but this devotion was focused on being hospitable to our own family!

I don't know about you, but I am guilty of this. When we are having guests over we tend to go 'all out'. We get out our 'good' plates (in our case, this means the NOT paper kind!), we make a real dinner (not just chicken nuggets), we make sure the house is clean...etc, etc. The kids know when we are preparing for guests. They can tell, even if we didn't say anything about it.

What kind of message are we sending our kids (and husbands!) if we are always 'putting out our best' for our company, and on normal days we skimp? My devotions today were reminding me to continue to make things special for our kids, to continue to be hospitable to our own family!

And trust me, I know that there are many days when chicken nuggets, paper plates, and a dirty bathroom are what our families are going to get. There are just some days (or weeks!) when there is not time for a nice meal and a specially made desert. This goes back to the "seasons" post I wrote a few weeks back. But...even during the crazy seasons of life, we do tend to have a few (or maybe just a couple) of days each week when we 'could' make them special for our family.

I plan to seek out those types of days, and try to use them as opportunities to be hospitable to my husband and kids!

And just so that I don't leave you with a pictureless post...here are some soggy fall leaves on my back porch. It has been very rainy here for the last few days. I am hoping that all this rain doesn't cause the leaves to fall before the peak foliage season hits!