When Paul told me he’d invited someone over for the evening I didn’t exactly tell him it wasn’t ok, but I wasn’t exactly supportive either.
It’s not that I don’t like having people in my home, or even that last minute invitations bother me … it was that my day had been busy and I hadn’t washed dishes and the sink – and counter – were a mess.
But I couldn’t tell him that, because we’ve been through this dozens of times and we both agree – people are more significant and messes aren’t allowed to keep us from loving people. But sometimes that is really hard to live out.
So I told him that our house is too uncomfortable because we don’t have a couch – or even soft chairs – for everyone to sit at. We would be stuck sitting around the table all evening and, I emphasized it again, it would be uncomfortable.
He said something I don’t ever want to forget; “Jess, we are comfortable. We love people and we make people feel welcome and that makes them feel comfortable. We can’t let what we have or don’t have keep us from doing what we know God made us to do.”
It’s profound because it should be a simple truth to live out. But I know it isn’t always.
There are distractions and pride. But more so; I know I am not always comfortable and welcoming.
But I know it has significantly more impact on a person when I have prepared my heart to welcome them into my life – mess and all – then when I simply prepare my home and open the door.
We had those people over, amidst the everyday mess of a home well loved with everyday life and with our uncomfortable furniture and unfinished floors, walls, and ceiling. We sat around the table – the only seats to be sat on – with a table full of nuts and seeds and dried fruit and hot tea and olives and hummus and chips. An odd selection perhaps to your typical American, but our guests were not born here and a quick google search told me those were the snacks most common in their country – and I had in my pantry. When they left he told me that it felt like he had been sitting around his mother’s table.
Another time, a new friend was in my home and, while looking at my wall map together, she swatted my hand away when I sheepishly went to wipe the dust off it. “I’ve never been invited to be in a home that wasn’t perfect,” she told me. And as she left she hugged me tight and told me; “Your house feels like home in my heart.”
Lest you think all of our exchanges with folks over our less than perfect home have been positive, we were once told that imperfections in a home revealed the imperfections of the people and that, for example, if ones sidewalk is cracked (as ours very much was at the moment) one should prioritize fixing it because of what it revealed about those that live there.
That exchange stung and, truth be told, we allowed it to hurt us far more than we should have allowed.
Friends, our homes shouldn’t be messy pig sties. But perhaps our standards need some tweaking – if it is good enough for our husbands and children, it is good enough for company. If it is mortifyingly embarrassing, perhaps there are some bad habits that need to go and disciplines that need to be established. But the truth I have seen unveiled in personal conversation is that people aren’t having people over because their home isn’t perfect.
And what I have come to learn is this: the imperfections in one’s home do indeed reveal the imperfections of those living there. A massive remodel in our current home has revealed the massive remodel my own heart needed – and will continue to need throughout my life here on earth. I am not perfect, and my house will never be. But my home is perfect for loving and nurturing and caring for myself and my men.
And the Bible tells us to love our neighbor as ourselves.
I have been meaning for some time to start a series on hospitality. The aforementioned remodel did a number on my focus, good intentions, and self discipline. Even now, the thought of continuing to faithfully write makes me feel like I shouldn’t even share this for fear of failing at a series. So this might be part one. Or this might be an independent piece. Whatever it turns into, I hope you will be challenged and encouraged to consider opening your imperfect home and that, whether you ever hear the words or not, you will know you are giving displaced people a piece of home by offering them yours because imperfect people live and love in an imperfect home.
