Hope for Hospitality

Do you ever feel overwhelmed at the thought of having people over to your house for dinner? Like you want to really bad but you’re pretty certain you’ll burn the beans, send the twice baked potatoes flying across the room (true story) or forget to put out silverware along with sending your guests home with salmonella?

Confession: I do.

I haven’t always felt that way but in the last few years I’ve grown more inhibited in the area of hospitality. It took a few epic kitchen fails to put me in a, “I’m not good at this anymore. I can’t do this” attitude.

A few weeks ago I was thanking a sweet lady in our church for the ice cream dessert she brought us when I was down with my leg and asked her for the recipe. She said, “Melody, I’ll tell you what. I’ll give you the recipe but I’ll also make it for you when you have company over sometime.”

I said, “Yeah, well, about that…. I’ve not been doing much of that lately because I’ve lost all confidence in cooking and being a good hostess. But I really want to get back into it. Will you pray for me in this area.” She agreed to do that for me. I thanked her for the offer to make dessert and told her I would take her up on it hopefully sooner than later.

Since that conversation we’ve had several families over for Sunday lunch and guess what – I didn’t kill any of them! I found a few things that made it easier on me to serve and lessen the stress. I purposed in my heart ahead of time that this was not about the food or how I entertained. It was simply about being with people and enjoying the time together. And it worked out just fine. Sure, I forgot to put out the napkins but someone else got them for me. And actually the green beans needed more salt but it wasn’t a big deal. I didn’t make a dessert but someone showed up with two pies. It all worked out.

So a few things come to mind:

1) God hears our prayers. Even the simple ones from the kitchen sink.

2) Hospitality comes in all forms – sometimes it’s offering to make a dessert for someone else’s  dinner party. And sometimes it’s inviting people over for a simple meal.

3) Having people over doesn’t have to be a huge deal especially when we get our thinking right.

Check back for more on hospitality this week. We’ll talk about easy recipes, ways to keep it simple and alternative meal options. Hope you’ll join us and always feel free to join the conversation by leaving a comment.

Linking withKristin, Holley and Jennifer today.