I cried that afternoon.
Life felt frantic, and no matter what I tried, I couldn't get on top of it. After very full days and nights of work, Mark kept coming home to a house that was full of chaos, to a house that needed Daddy even though Daddy needed a rest. We were having discipline issues, schedule issues, sleep issues, budget issues, patience issues, babysitting issues, people-need-us issues - all the little things, the typical things that don't really need to create a tailspin, yet somehow were just too much.
And we were having a family over to our home that evening.
What could we possibly offer this family, these new friends whom we had invited with a desire to welcome and encourage them? How could we in our emotional frenzy provide peace for them? Why does the mama in this crew always come up with these ideas that might push us too far?
We smiled that evening.
One big reason why hospitality is worth building a bridge for over our life chaos is that we need people. We need others to see our challenges, heartaches, and passions - and then say, "Me, too." "I hear you." We need to have two hours set aside to just be with people - to have "eat, play games, talk, laugh, be in the same building as each other and ignore the phone" as our only agenda.
It is November. Holiday season. Basketball season. Parent-teacher conferences. School projects, PTO events, new piano students, wrestling camp, community services. The calendar looked full before November even was official - and I thought for sure that this hospitality bridge was going to be closed indefinitely. But maybe not.
Maybe the busy-ness is actually the time not to give up but rather to squeeze some informal fun into the schedule, to declare "this time is for us and for you and not for our to-do list or others' expectations."
So we'll keep building.
Life felt frantic, and no matter what I tried, I couldn't get on top of it. After very full days and nights of work, Mark kept coming home to a house that was full of chaos, to a house that needed Daddy even though Daddy needed a rest. We were having discipline issues, schedule issues, sleep issues, budget issues, patience issues, babysitting issues, people-need-us issues - all the little things, the typical things that don't really need to create a tailspin, yet somehow were just too much.
And we were having a family over to our home that evening.
What could we possibly offer this family, these new friends whom we had invited with a desire to welcome and encourage them? How could we in our emotional frenzy provide peace for them? Why does the mama in this crew always come up with these ideas that might push us too far?
* * * * *
We smiled that evening.
One big reason why hospitality is worth building a bridge for over our life chaos is that we need people. We need others to see our challenges, heartaches, and passions - and then say, "Me, too." "I hear you." We need to have two hours set aside to just be with people - to have "eat, play games, talk, laugh, be in the same building as each other and ignore the phone" as our only agenda.
It is November. Holiday season. Basketball season. Parent-teacher conferences. School projects, PTO events, new piano students, wrestling camp, community services. The calendar looked full before November even was official - and I thought for sure that this hospitality bridge was going to be closed indefinitely. But maybe not.
Maybe the busy-ness is actually the time not to give up but rather to squeeze some informal fun into the schedule, to declare "this time is for us and for you and not for our to-do list or others' expectations."
So we'll keep building.
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