I learned something interesting quite by accident yesterday. We invited a family over for dinner who we had never met. They have three young children, just like ours. The same day I also needed to run our kids up to stay at the grandparents’ house for the weekend. That entailed some brief packing and then about two hours of travel time.
That week two kids caught colds, then the day of we had some other guests drop by earlier. The colds meant that my ability to do pre-tidying disolved. All I managed to stay up on was the laundry. So the house was very “lived in” Friday afternoon.
My meal plan also didn’t work as I intended. The pizza dough recipe I tried wasn’t actually for a bread machine (which would have been ready in about 2 hours), but I didn’t figure it out til after I got started. I tried to salvage my plan, but my dough ended up rising for the whole 2 hours I was gone. I don’t know a lot about baking but I was pretty sure that wasn’t going to turn out well. Then there was the minor detail of the missing mozzarella cheese. By this point I was late and had to run out the door with the kids and withOUT doing the dishes.
When reality hit me an hour later (denial is a powerful thing!), I had to launch a Plan B. I called a pizza place with a drive-up window. Then I might have pushed my speed a wee bit, trying to get home a few minutes ahead of them so I could race through the house with a laundry basket, gathering up all the toys, laundry, mail, school papers, and other clutter.
It didn’t work. They still arrived at our house first and walked in to our lived-in, dirty dishes, school stuff everywhere, granola on the floor (different granola than my previous story) mess. My heart sank when I rounded the bend and saw the car in our driveway. These strangers were going to see how we really lived! WERE seeing it now!
But you know what? It was totally fine. They were normal people who probably forget to buy enough cheese, print the wrong recipe, and have young kids who make messes at the most inopportune times.
Scott told me later that when they all walked into our house, the kids immediately felt at ease. They dove into the toys and had a ball. And the adults could totally relax because we clearly were used to kids and messes.
So it got me thinking about whether I might over-emphasize neatness and appearances. OK, clearly I do. It’s the classic “Martha” trap. Martha and her sister Mary hosted Jesus in their home one day and Martha got pretty ticked at her sister because Mary was sitting and talking with Jesus instead of bustling around like Martha was. It’s easy to read the story and just assume that I am nowhere near as silly as Martha.
But I really am. I easily find myself more focused on and worried about truly, in-the-eternal-scheme-of-things unimportant details and my relationships suffer as a result.
I’m so thankful for the chance to meet this family. I’m thankful that they were so gracious to us, and that I had this somewhat awkward moment (I think I was the only one who felt awkward and only for a moment). It showed me that a clean house, a tidy house, clean dishes, etc… all are “good” things to have. But it showed me that hospitality is FAR more than just those good things. It’s about opening yourself up to people, offering kindness and friendship; it’s about providing them a place to feel comfortable.
So, come on over to our place sometime. I need to practice this new people-focused, rather than keeping-up-appearances focused, hospitality. I can’t promise neat and tidy, but I can promise a friendly smile, a place to sit, and great entertainment from our kids!
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Does the bread maker work? Is Scott still amazed at all it can do?
If you are ever up here, you may come visit my very lived in house due to “Messmakers ‘R US”?
I read this quote once
“Trying to clean your house with small children is like trying to shovel during the middle of a blizzard”
So true to be people focused! We are to give them our best and be prepared, yet when our best plans fail we continue to keep the focus on them and not self-focused embarassment of our house. Not saying this is you, but some need to be careful to not use “people focus” as an excuse to be lazy or unprepared. Maybe we need to mix the Proverbs 31 woman, who is completely prepared, with Martha who needed to adjust her focus when the plans changed. What Martha was doing was GOOD, she just picked the wrong time to do it. Should we keep our guests in mind to? Some like casual, paper plates, while others may feel special if you pull out all the stops. Some feel more comfortable walking into “lived in” while others may not. Are “keeping up appearances” for pride and hope for praise or to serve those we love?
Charles Spurgeon suggests, “We ought to be Martha and Mary in one: we should do much service, and have much communion at the same time. For this we need great grace. It is easier to serve than to commune.”
Just some thoughts.
Kat
Kristin, that is such an apt description of the frustration of housework.
Kat, I have never been invited into a truly messy house. These “lazy” people who don’t have “presentable” homes know they don’t. And thus they don’t ever extend hospitality. I personally believe the standard for home presentability is prohibitively high. In my experience women have swallowed the lie that their home should look like a magazine, their cooking be gourmet, and their dishes be fine china before they invite people over. This is completely false, and tragically this lie bars women from welcoming others into their normal lived-in homes with normal food and well-used furnishings.
So instead of scolding people into doing more cleaning and learning to cook well, which only perpetuates the lie, I want to tell the truth. We need to be encouraged to share what we have and be who we are and welcome guests in. If you are a great cook, great! But if your idea of home-cooking is heating up a can of soup, that’s great too.
You can be great hostess and show God’s love with hand-me-down furniture, mismatched and chipped dishes, Hamburger Helper and Kraft mac and cheese, and an undusted, unvacuumed home. I hope that if more of us welcome guests into our real lives, that will encourage them to do the same. Then hospitality in all forms can spread freely.
Yes, I agree the standard is not a magazine cover. I was careful not to set a standard when I shared my thoughts. The standard is simply God’s standard and that is our best. Certainly one’s “best” may be hand-me-downs and Hamburger Helper! For sure! Hand-me-downs and Hamburger Helper can be beautiful, warm and welcoming just as anything else. I guess it is left up to each person to evaluate their heart and question themselves, “Am I really giving the best I have? Is this really the best I can do?” My point was just that it is easy to make excuses and lower standards when answering this question. Of course if you answer that question with, “No, it’s not so I’m not inviting them over or I’m embarassed about it,” then you’re focused on yourself again and not your guest. The heart behind giving your best is to lavish and love upon your guests no matter what you have. It is a lie that we need gourmet food, fine china, etc, but it’s also a lie to act defeated and not even try or work hard to be prepared to serve our guests (really our King) with excellence (again, not saying what ‘excellence’ is).
Martha Peace does a great job evaluating what God’s standard is. She writes in her book “Becoming a Titus 2 Woman” about being a worker at home and in her book “The Excellent Wife” she has a chapter on the home. Also, reading Proverbs 31 is fascinating as it talks about her VERY hard work to keep up her home and cloth her family in FINE linen. I can’t imagine her working so hard and her house being in complete disarray. Maybe she had seats made out of hay but I bet they looked good and were very comfortable!
Kat
I have a good friend and she and I have an agreement – we never need to do any extra cleaning for eachother. When we manage to find time in our busy lives to get together, we take it. We embrace that time and savor it. We don’t sit and fuss about the cleaning, because that takes away from the joy of being together and sharing our hearts while our children play.
I have to say I am able to enjoy her visits more than friends of mine who are obsessive about cleaning. I never feel like my house is clean enough or put together enough. I worry about it and scurry about spending extra time cleaning that I could be spending playing with my kid.
I agree with all that you said in this post. I work full time, and I try to remember that things just need to be clean enough, and that is okay. It doesn’t have to be HGTV ready.
Really like the post and I can totally relate. Puerto Ricans and most Deaf ppl we work with do not call before popping over and Hannah is always dragging out the weirdest stuff to play with and has to have it in every room. So when ppl show up it’s totally embarrassing for me! Although i have heard it said that as long as ur bathroom is clean then most ppl really don’t care what ur house looks like. I also like the Martha and Mary combination, very good point!
Wonderful story Joy, and I agree with everything you said here. I have always LOVED the story of Martha and her sister.
Joy, we’ve learned the same lesson (or at least have encountered the same teaching!) on this. I just posted about it, too:
If You Want to Come Over…
I’m so glad you shared about this – it’s so real, and so true! And we do get caught up in the appearance of things sometimes. Glad it all worked out and that these new friends were at ease with the “real” you guys.
So glad to hear that you were able to have a weekend away!