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How to Show Practical Hospitality – Hospitality is important no matter who you are, where you live or how you want to live out this life. It’s vital for our happiness, our character, and our growth.
What is Hospitality?
According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary Hospitality is: “generous and friendly treatment of visitors and guests”. Sounds easy enough, right?
The bible teaches hospitality as this:
“Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling.” 1 Peter 4:8-9
Hospitality. It’s such a simple word. Yet such meaning. I don’t even feel worthy of writing on such a topic. But this idea, this act, this service, it’s deep down in my being.
Hospitality is loving people just as they are and inviting them in.
What Hospitality Looks like for Me
You see I don’t know much about the fancy way of greeting guests or dining with the nicest linens and perfect cutlery. I’m the practical girl who has ‘Top your own pizza girls nights’, simple tea with bible study and get-togethers with the stuff that I own and use every day. I have no china dishes or heirloom wine glasses or expensive tablecloths.
I’ve got practical. I’ve got a small homey place with only 1500 square feet. But I offer bread and laughter and an open table. If that’s what you’re looking for, you’re in the right place.
Sure, I love occasions for the finer things in life. And perhaps someday, space and finances and other things will allow for those picture perfect moments. But I’m a wife, a mother of 3, a baker, a blogger, a daughter, a sister, a friend and I’m sometimes running low on time and energy. And this is what I have to offer. So I offer it with my whole heart.
This is what I have; my easy (almost) perfect yeast bread, my 12+-year-old dining table, my unmatched dinner dishes. And with that comes, tea or coffee (your choice), laughter or smiles.
You see we don’t have to offer perfection to be hospitable. Not even close. I feel much more at home when I’m offered the simple, the familiar and the everyday look.
If you need a floor that’s washed daily, laundry that’s caught up every day, and the finest food, I’m not your girl.
But I love sharing what I have with my friends, family, and neighbors.
How to Show Practical Hospitality
Practical hospitality is about serving others in the best way you can.
- So, if that’s pizza, snack mix, and a huge heart. YES!
- Welcoming a stranger
- Bringing bread to the neighbors. YES
- Meeting at the park with a packed homemade lunch. YES
- Bringing coffee to a down-in-the-dumps friend. YES
- Paying it forward at the local coffee shop.
This is hospitality, my friend. Meeting a need and serving someone in love.
I’m still learning this concept. For so long, I put it aside and thought things would get easier or better. But there’s always something to make you decide against practicing hospitality. You just have to decide that your YES will overcome the excuses.
Make a way even with the crumbs, the chaos, the old dinnerwear and the boring chicken.
Don’t let your have-nots and what-ifs keep you from following the mandate to love others and serve them well.
This is a call to hospitality and I sometimes struggle with showing hospitality to strangers. And how about serving those who have been so much less than loving towards us? That doesn’t come naturally. But as the bible says. “Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.” Hebrews 13:2
So I press on to making my house a place for loving, welcoming and serving.
There’s always room at the table for you.
Til we meet and eat again,
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