Learning Hospitality

I have 2 dozen chocolate chunk cookies in a lovely container and a chicken pie sitting in my freezer. I made them the weekend before last with the intention of dropping them off to my neighbour who is going through a very difficult time right now and would probably appreciate them. But they are still here, because, well, I think I just didn’t have enough courage to go knock on her door. Terrified is probably a better word. Terrified that my efforts at loving her family will be laughed at, or rejected. And yet, this is what I asked God for… practice learning to love people.

 

So the cookies are too stale to give anyone now, but I’ve moved on in my ambitious quest to learn how to be hospitable. Last Saturday I had some people over for dinner, and I think it went fairly well. After telling a number of different people “we’d love to have your family over for dinner!” and hearing “we’re very busy” over and over, one family finally said “we’re busy. But we could make it work”. So I went with that. All day I practiced things to talk about, and practiced breathing deeply, and we had a completely wonderful time except for the fact that I completely forgot to offer coffee and tea after dinner, and have been beating myself up about that since then.  Now I am still afraid to try the cycle over again and ask around to see who might be able to come but I have had one more success than failure. I’m getting excited about the warmer weather because that means we might be able to use our backyard space and invite somewhat large families over that simply can’t be accommodated around my little dining room table!

 

I thought I was ready for a bigger step, but it turns out I am freaking out just a little bit.

I decided a great way to practice hospitality would be to host a party – one of those selling-something parties where all I do is make some food and clean and people have a reason to come more than my witty banter (which is frankly rare).  I was talked into it by two different friends who really wanted to come to something like this, so I took the plunge. My Usborne Book Party is tomorrow night. I really wish I could stop worrying so much about it! Yes it’s very small and the people who previously committed to coming are now phoning to cancel. I’m just hoping I can make it through this, and remember the things I’m supposed to about offering food and drinks and making people feel comfortable in my home!

 

This is another little thing about hospitality I’m learning – having a spotless house and the best food doesn’t necessarily make people very comfortable at all. Being real does.

My daughter’s Kindergarten Prep class started meeting two months ago, and the first day I dressed her in her best, and put on what I would normally wear on a Sunday. I wore makeup, I straightened my hair, I wore good shoes. And not one person there talked to me. As I looked around the other moms were mostly in sweats and not one of them wore makeup. Most of them were considerably older than me, and they all looked like they knew so much more than me. I didn’t blame them for moving on quickly after I said hello. The next week I wore my normal day clothes (I still wore makeup, but only because I feel more nervous without it) and suddenly everyone was friendly!

I guess I’m guilty of this too. My friends with immaculate houses I would never in a million years invite to mine. I’m sure they would find it a disgrace. And I don’t feel comfortable there – like anything I do is going to disorder their perfect world.

 

I’m writing this post mostly to myself so that when I come and look back a year from now I can laugh at how I used to struggle so much with this. With the pride that is thinking too little of myself with the fear of others judgment of my life with the cluelessness I feel in loving others well. I pray that as I push myself through this mess something on the otherside will give glory to God. Maybe helping others to be comfortable here means being clean, and putting others first but more importantly being real. Maybe hospitality is more about the effort than the outcome. Maybe I’ll make it through Wednesday night!

 

 

 

 

My Kids are Crazy

I think it's every mom's responsibility to think her children are special and brilliant and unlike every other child in the whole world. Let me tell you that I am aware of this, and aware it sounds just plain annoying to non-mom's and even other mom's. So take all I say here knowing that I know that about myself. 

While I think my kids are both special and brilliant I also think they are crazy.

Take last night for example. 

Miranda has been learning how to read this month, and while she can make it through the first half of the Bob Books set 1, she has become far more interested in learning how to read and spell words that are in here sphere of interest. Words like play, though we haven't got into vowel blends yet, are very interesting to her, so we go with it. 

So last night Jason and I were sitting in the living room talking while he plugged in the laptop and got some other things ready for a Missionary recruiting gig he has today, we heard a fury of footsteps above our head that sounded like Miranda running from her bedroom to the stairs, and back to her bed again. So Jason went up to see what the fuss was all about. On the top of the stairs was a note. 

I    EPy

MiRANDA

Jason laughed to himself and went into her room for the translation. The story is, apparently, that she had dropped her precious stuffed puppy, and didn't know where he was. She missed puppy. She knew she wasn't to get out of her room to tell us about this (this has happened before) so she wrote us a note so that we would know when we came upstairs. She intended to write "I miss puppy" but she couldn't think of the word for 'miss' and she tried to spell puppy herself! We'll have to work on reading that word today. :) Jason was good not to burst into a fit of laughter while up there with her, but we laughed a great deal downstairs afterwards. I think it's great that she thought to write a note. What I don't understand is what would make her mind think that instead of getting off her bed to pick puppy off the ground, she would be better served by searching her room for a paper and pencil and writing us a NOTE and then leaving it on the stairs and scurrying back to bed?? Really!

Now Simon on the other hand is doing weird things too. It must be all these days in a row each week stuck inside our house.  He's mostly past his toilet-diving phase and but is still really fascinated by the bathroom. Two days ago, he wiggled free of my grasp and crawled up the stairs at lightning speed. I went after him only to find him in the bathroom, up on Miranda's bathroom stool, with his toothbrush and toothpaste in hand. He needed to brush his teeth, I guess! Since then he's been up there brushing 4-5 times a day. Anytime we're on the top floor, really. And at 14 months he's way better at it than Miranda was up until just recently! The kid has a thing for orall hygine, I guess! He also may be toilet trained before he is two. He is very curious of toilet useage, but lately only when Jason goes. Yesterday, as I was brushing my own teeth in the bathroom, Simon pushed the stool up to the toilet, stepped up onto it, pulled down his pants and was trying to figure out how to undo is diaper! The sight of him trying to pee like a big boy nearly made me fall over with laughter! Wow. I hvae to remind myself that at this age Miranda hadn't even taken her first steps! The two of them are so different it's hard to beleive they are related!

My kids are crazy. They make me laugh. 

Painting Pictures of Egypt

So there is this place that my mind goes back to when I’m beginning to panic and I’m trying to hold back tears. And a place I am reminded of in my sweetest moments. This place feels like bare feet stretched out in long grass, like the smell of a summer forest after a fierce rainstorm, like warm river water washing over my shoulders, like the feeling of complete and utter freedom in waking up from a night sleep under the full moon and stars. It is a place where I first discovered the communion that is possible when friends shed the masks and layers of youthful self consciousness until all that remains is the nakedness of words and the truth of our souls laid bare before one another by firelight. It is a place where I discovered that there are others who are willing to care about me unconditionally and be concerned enough with my soul to shepherd and mentor me and give of their life to me for God’s sake. It’s a place I learned not just to believe in myself- though that began to happen-, but to believe in God.

And it is a place I was given, though I didn’t deserve it, leadership and opportunity to give of myself and serve Jesus until there were days when I wasn’t even conscious of myself – just the community of believers and those we served. I was wood consumed in the fire, joyfully, having tasted that place never wanting to return to the world outside. The rhythm of the day could not be replicated elsewhere… I had formal times of prayer alone or with others no less than 12 times a day – taught 3 hours of Bible study and leadership classes, was taught and mentored for an hour, and found myself doing all matter of tasks in between from washing dishes and toilets to leading songs and telling stories, to writing curriculum and leading children to Christ. I saw miracle after miracle there. My muscles were strong and my skin dark from the sun.

I met people there unlike any I’ve ever found elsewhere. I found people like me. I found a place where I didn’t have to pretend, didn’t have to hide, didn’t have to try so hard to figure out the game that I forgot to laugh. I hold onto the remembrance of this place fiercely.

A few weeks ago I was in the car, praying and thinking as Jason drove and the kids slept and I had put on a new cd that a friend had given to me – Sara Groves Conversations. And I was just praying for Camp Cherith (the place I went to camp every summer for 8 years as a child, and spent 10 summers of my life as staff) that God might give me a chance to return there in some way, or find a way that I can help the ministry of the camp from where I am.

And this song comes on : Painting Pictures of Egypt. And being the first time I’d ever heard this song, the following lyrics struck me like a blow to the stomach:

And the places I long for the most
Are the places where I’ve been
They are calling out to me
Like a long lost friend

And the place I was wasn’t perfect
But I had found a way to live
And it wasn’t milk or honey
But then neither is this

I've been painting pictures of Egypt,
Leaving out what it lacks
The future feels so hard,
And I wanna go back!
But the places that used to fit me,
Cannot hold the things I've learned
Those roads were closed off to me
While my back was turned!

And it definetly struck me – I have been complaining to God and begging him to show me how to be fruitful where I am, because daily I am frustrated at feeling worthless, fruitless, living a life void of purpose which is the exact opposite of how I should be spending my days! But perhaps the reason I cannot be fruitful in any of the endeavors I have tried to pour myself into here – on the other side (post-Cherith) is because I haven’t let go. And I haven’t come to accept that there may be other things for me to do and to be now.

Maybe I have to accept that for a long while, it might look like nothing.

Five years ago, it was about this time that I was sitting in the auditorium of Willow Creek church, watching a gangly man with a charming voice prepare to address 5 thousand children’s ministry workers and explain in words we could understand what had lead to the downfall of Big Idea. I feel blessed to this day to have heard Phil Vischer speak. He told of his chase after a vision he thought he was supposed to have and how it ruined his life and the lives of hundreds around him, and that God pulled him from that wreak to show him that now, where he is in 5 years is not his business, it’s God’s. It is interesting in the Christian world today – especially in some ministry circles it is pretty cool to have a ‘vision’ to deal with strategic planning to have a growth plan and to treat God’s work that you just happen to be a part of as something you can actually control by reading enough books by John C. Maxwell. I was getting on that train myself. I had plans and a vision for myself in children’s ministry. I thought if I worked hard enough at it, read the right stuff I would actually begin to like it as much as I LOVED working at Cherith and I would have success and fruit and I had my plan as to how I was going to get ‘there’. Well, Phil up on that stage, who is as successful as any Christian these days could possibly get posed the question : For the first 100 years of his life, what did Noah do to prepare for his BIG JOB of building the ark? Huh. I don’t remember anything in my Sunday School memory of the first 100 years of Noah’s life. No mention of shipbuilding school, zoology degrees, internships with the great carpenters. All the Bible tells us is that for one hundred years Noah walked with God. That’s all. And he didn’t try and plan it, create a strategic plan to get himself there. It happened to him, because he was walking with God.

Phil Vischer – creator of Veggie Tales - now has a new company – Jellyfish Media. He chose the Jellyfish because it is unable to locomote – all it can do is go where the tides take it.

Reminding myself of this doesn’t stop the nostalgia for a place where I felt loved, and fruitful, and useful to God. A place where I was in constant community. But it seems I have a lot of praying to do about this. Now is not the right time in the life of my family to give myself over to a ministry, no matter how much I believe in it. Now is the time to simply walk with God. And it might mean I never get to go back there. Being in the wilderness for a while is okay, and won’t last as long if I am following God. And of course – at the other end is what?

Hope.

The promised land.

Whatever it looks like I must remind myself if where I have come from was so beautiful, My God will provide beauty in the now, and the what is to come too.