The reason I write about hospitality is because I believe, as a woman, it’s one of my greatest tools for sharing real life, real love, real truth, with those around me.  By opening my home (and heart) on purpose, I have opportunities for feeding hungry hearts.

As a woman, I have an incredible opportunity to open my heart and my home to someone else, and in so doing, to give them a glimmer of light, of love, and of hope.  When I have someone over for coffee and cookies or soup and salad, I can use the time to show off the things I’ve bought and made, hung on my walls and draped over my furniture.  I can relish the things I’ve dug from the trash and refinished, or purchased from some pretty place, just because they’re pretty.

Or, I can see every visitor as a chance to give salt and light, to offer seasoning for a bland life and sweetness to a heart in need.

What if, when we invite someone over, we pray for them before they arrive?  What if we think before they come about what questions to ask to really know them as a person?  What if we actually look at the treat we serve as an opportunity to brighten their day or physically offer nourishment?

What if we let ourselves off the hook to have it all together, to show how creative or talented or organized or funny we are, and stop fearing that we’re not all those things?  Instead, we could ask God to fill us with His creativity, His intentionality, His wisdom, and His sensitivity to know what someone else has to teach us or learn from us.  

What if we spent less time (ahhhh, this zinger is aimed right at my Pinterest-happy-heart) with all the artsy-craftsy-shoulds, and just asked God to give us the creativity He wants to give us, pouring out of relishing HIS creativity, and reflecting thankfulness for what we have?  

[tweetthis]What if, instead of seeing our children as a nuisance, we get intentional about training them in the art of welcome?[/tweetthis]

 And if, instead of trying to cram time with others into our too-full-agenda, we look for ways to invite others into our everyday lives, and to cross off what isn’t necessary on our never-ending-calendar?

I’m not saying we can’t like, or make, (or “pin!”) or buy pretty things, friend.  That may be a beautiful outpouring of what God is teaching us about His creative self.  But I’m becoming convinced that God wants to first genuinely nourish us with Himself, so that we can offer genuine nourishment to those He puts in our lives.  I believe that God wants to give us good spiritual food (time in His presence, equipped by the Truth of His written, inerrant love letter to us), so that we’re not trying to survive, or to give and give pretty words and pretty experiences, while subsisting on “crumbs.”  (I’ve written more about practical ways to do that here.)

[tweetthis]”God is a gracious God who longs to fill His people with Himself. He doesn’t expect us to survive on crumbs.”[/tweetthis]

Sweet friend, feeding hungry hearts of others through hospitality is a gift we can give we can give others, when our own starving hearts are nourished by God’s love.

Do you find yourself trying to “get stuff done,” to live a pinterest-perfect life, giving and giving of yourself but surviving on spiritual crumbs?  How can we encourage each other today?