The Little Rental That Could

Today I did something that I haven't done in several years. I opened my home. We had 3 sets of neighbors come over and we served them hot apple cider, banana bread, apple bread, cupcakes for George's birthday. We gave them all little gifts and basically just hung out for nearly 3 hours.

A tremendous amount of work has been done on this little rental to make it presentable to others. Its a small miracle that we were able to have people over and feel great about it.

But the biggest miracle of all is that a chapter has ended for me. I wanted/needed a season where I felt like my home was safe, my time was strictly for my little family and a few select friends and...its going to aound horrible and selfish, but its been several years since I had any desire to open my home and have people around.

I'm not exactly sure what prompted my over-protectiveness of my home. Maybe it was the years of pastoring when I felt like my time and space belonged to an entire church of people. Maybe it was from blended family issues. Maybe it was simply because I had a little baby and wanted his first years to be relatively calm and ordered. But regardless of all that analytical stuff....

It was really really really fun. Shane has a very special gift of hospitality, and I absolutely loved watching him serve our neighbors today. And little George is such a people person...he ran from room to room barely able to contain his excitement that our home was full of people.

I would never have thought this little rental, which still doesn't necessarily feel like home to me, could be the setting that the Lord would use to get me functioning again in the hospitality way.

But isn't that just like Him? He uses whatever He wants to bring beauty and joy to others. Even a little rental house for a little family trying to serve Him and find His purpose in hard times.