Hostess with the Least

I enjoy providing hospitality for guests in our home! It is fun to plan and prepare for a party. Thinking about the menu and shopping etc. bring me a sense of joy that I can offer a relaxing enjoyable experience for folks I care about.

Like this past Saturday night when we hosted our largest gathering yet, 32 people (14 of them youth and kiddos)- what a blast to swap recipes, visit a little bit longer, share more deeply about life and stuff. And the best part was when Officer King let the kids explore his police cruiser! (My neighbors have now just recovered!)

And yes, I am one of those religious nuts who looks forward to guests arriving by actually praying for them and their families. Weird, I know, but it is a spiritual discipline that I started long ago and now have shared with you. It is a great opportunity while cleaning toilets, vaccuming, and removing clutter to prayerfully reflect on how God is present in our life together. Some times the prayers are very simple and thankful and other times they are full of earnest intercession.

This spiritual discipline works beautifully until approximately 2 hours and 15 minutes before the first guests arrive and then something happens. I loose all sense of having any Christian faith at all. Exhausted from all the preparations, I become the house-cleaning Pharisee establishing rigid rules for children and pets. Rules like the following:

• You cannot walk outside and back inside on my clean kitchen floor. You must stay in or out until people get here! I don't care if it is raining!
• You cannot eat or drink in any room in the house. You must fast until the guests arrive.
• You cannot play with any toys that will make a cluttered mess on the floor. Which means you must stand perfectly still and only breath.
• And you definitely cannot unmake your bed 4 times in order to put your baby doll to sleep!

Sigh, I guess I still have a lot to learn about having faith while entertaining!