Archives for August 2019

August 22, 2019 by Michelle Leave a Comment

Questions about Hospitality

Thought I would follow up my hospitality post with some questions or problems I’ve had myself, or people have asked along the way.

What if I’m an introvert? Consider that God didn’t give a special category for Christians who were responsible for hospitality. “Be hospitable to one another without grumbling. As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.” 1 Peter 4:9-10 (Notice that how we are hospitable will differ, depending on our abilities, but we are all to show hospitality.)
How do people know when to come over? I ask them! “Want to come over for coffee next week?” Sometimes I make a Facebook post, and some people will come because of that. Other people will not come unless you ask them specifically. If you have a regular time of hospitality, you may have friends and neighbors drop in, but in much of our American culture right now, this isn’t something I expect.
How do I deal with rejection? Sometimes you reach out the hand of friendship, and the people you invite don’t come. Maybe they have a good reason, but after several attempts, you start to suspect that they don’t want to be friends. I have found it is helpful not to worry about who is unable to come or why. That approach is bound to burn you out fast. Instead, rely on God’s sovereignty, and consider that God is well able to connect you with the people you need and who need you.
What if people stay too long? I tell them to go! Or just stand up and say, “We’re so happy that you came today!” If my children need to go to bed, I simply tell my children to get ready for bed. Sometimes I’ll schedule a coffee day alongside of an appointment. That makes it easy for me to say “We need to get ready for our appointment.” Mercy is going to pleasant and peaceable– telling people your expectations is helpful! Your friends and especially your acquaintances don’t want to overstay their welcome, so make it easy on them!
What if people don’t like coffee? I give them tea! Or ice water! People need love more than coffee!
What if my husband doesn’t like company? I arrange hospitality so that the needs of my family come first. Sometimes we serve the Lord together. Sometimes we don’t. I’ve tried to make family hospitality something that is fun and desirable– I’m sensitive to my husband’s schedule as well as my children’s schedules. If it’s a season that family hospitality is not possible or desired, I can work in hospitality in those spaces where I have freedom to do it myself. Meeting a friend for coffee, walking or exercising together, going to the park with a friend are all ways of loving others that need not disrupt a family schedule.
What if I’m tired and overwhelmed but still want to show hospitality? It is possible that you may need to team up more. Find partners who can help you at your weak spots. Consider ways that you can welcome others at church or in places you’re already serving.
How do I deal with expecting too much? I may need to change my expectations. For example, if I’m going to have someone over to my house, I may need to purchase a rotisserie chicken instead of making a truly excellent meal (something I love to do but can find overwhelming in some seasons). I can either live with messy floors or ask a friend to come early and help me wash them. If I’m carrying a great weight every time people come over, I’m probably doing hospitality the hard way.

Do you have any that you would add?

August 19, 2019 by Michelle 5 Comments

About that Coffee Sign…

The last few weeks I’ve had a couple friends ask me about my coffee sign and how I use it for hospitality.

You don’t need a coffee sign, of course. It’s really just a fancy welcome mat that tells people I am happy they came to my house. It does create some curiosity among my neighbors, and it makes it easy to identify my house– I have the coffee sign. They all know it.

Our society is fractured and lonely. Every time we reach out a hand of friendship, we are shining a light in a dark place. The Bible word for hospitality just means loving the outsider. We can do that with or without a house! We can include others and make them feel welcome no matter what our stage of life and no matter who God has given us to love.

Still, inviting others into our house is a powerful symbol of kindness and welcome. For those who wanted to know about my sign but didn’t ask, here is what I’ve said elsewhere about how I use my house as a place of showing love to others.

Because we move every three to four years, how we use our home changes with each state and neighborhood culture, as well as our needs and the needs of each church we’ve been a part of. When I was a new mama, my hospitality was pretty limited! I was sleep deprived and often overwhelmed. In fact, that time in my life is mostly a blur! A lot of my “hospitality” was meeting other mamas at the park! I attended a ladies Bible study at my church. We didn’t do a lot of evening hospitality– Lee was in residency for pediatrics, so he was home and not home at odd times. He was often home sleeping when he wasn’t at work. Most of my hospitality happened outside of my home: at church and in the community.

In New Mexico, I still had littles, but because Lee’s schedule was considerably lighter, my life got easier, too. Still sleep deprived. Still dealing w the mess that three littles can make! (Laurel was born shortly after we arrived in NM.) God blessed me with a few other mamas who had children similar ages as mine. We did lots of park days together. I was too overwhelmed to do much hospitality by myself, but God brought a number of women my way who teamed up with me to reach out. I taught a music class for babies; my friend Amy found people to come. My friend Sara and I started teaching candy classes. I had a big kitchen, so she would find someone and bring them over. Sara and I made a good team– I couldn’t have done candy classes by myself with three toddlers running around! I discovered that having people over forced me to clean my house, so inviting friends over for a Bible study was partly because I needed the friendship, partly for other children for my own children to be with, and partly for the external motivation to wash my dishes!

In Texas, Lee did his fellowship in neonatology, so it was back to grueling work hours for him and long hours alone for me. I was homeschooling the children. The church we were attending had a thriving women’s ministry, but it was well stocked with older women and didn’t “need” any official teachers. I learned that ministry doesn’t have to be an organized thing. I don’t need authority or a position to love my neighbor. During this season, we were given a coffee roaster, and when you have amazing coffee, you want to share it. One of God’s precious gifts was teenagers who lived next door who frequently came over for coffee while they waited for the school bus. I just asked how school was going, what they were reading and learning. They were awesome, and they taught me not to be afraid of teenagers. They like it when someone loves them and asks them about their lives.

In Okinawa, my kids bought me the coffee sign one Mother’s Day. Originally, I thought the coffee sign would be great so the neighbor kids would know when we were done with school each afternoon. Their mamas were unsure when to let them come over, so turning on the coffee sign after school made sense. Truthfully though, I’m a distractible mama and didn’t always remember to turn on the coffee sign after school! In Okinawa, we first got the idea to make lattes for parents and teenagers on Halloween. The kids’ school schedule was such that we could do a four day school week and save that fifth day for museums, field trips, and ministry days. That’s also when I started making an announcement on facebook that I would be having a drop in coffee day. I tried to make it long enough to catch the young mamas with babies but also grab the mamas who picked up older kids from school and could drop by after that. We did some evening and Saturday coffee days too for my friends who had full-time jobs.

In Virginia, we just had a lot of coffee, and lots of mamas who came over. One of the challenges of mamas with young children is the feeling of isolation while they are learning to love their children. A small group of young mothers started coming over weekly. I made them coffee, we read the Bible together and prayed, with the tinies playing, watching, and listening. This was a fun time because a lot of the mamas who came over caught a vision for using their home to serve God, and they started taking turns hosting the group after we left.

Now we are in Hawaii. I’m still figuring out how to use my time wisely. My children are entering a more intense time of study, so I’m having to be careful that I don’t assume they don’t need my presence while they are learning. If I assume the responsibility of their education, then I must not neglect ensuring their progress. However, I do have more freedom to use my time for God’s kingdom. One of the reasons I quit my job as a teacher long ago was so that I had time to serve others as well as my children. I love the freedom I have in my schedule to love others!

Every family reaches different people in different ways. You may have an unsaved husband who doesn’t want company in the evenings. You may work during the day and be unable to have coffee visits in the mornings. Consider anyone’s story (including mine) as simply an example of how someone else is working out the biblical commands to welcome outsiders. God will show you how you can use your own resources for his glory.

August 10, 2019 by Michelle 2 Comments

Bridging the Gap Between Homeschool and Traditional School Families

I’ve been enjoying the first day of school pictures of my friends. Keep sharing with me how God is providing friends, teachers, and a good education in your children’s lives! As for us, we’re getting ready to begin our twelfth homeschooling year. Our lives look different than some of our friends, but as brothers and sisters, we still love each other and wish the best for each other!

Quite a long time ago, the Sunday school teacher of our adult Sunday school class asked the class to refrain from talking about school choices with one another. Doing so, he explained, had caused contention, and had become a distraction among the group.

I was a new homeschooling mother. Our class had a mix of parents who sent their children to public schools as well as to Christian schools. I don’t know if there was a genuinely ugly conflict that preceded this instruction, but the announcement both took me by surprise and also caused me to take stock of my own discussions and comments about school. Had I said something hurtful? Was I unintentionally pushing families away? In part because of that announcement, I’ve been listening to my schooling friends and paying attention to my assumptions for awhile now. What I discovered was that more trouble is caused by our lack of communication than actually saying hurtful things. In fact, creating taboo discussions makes the problem worse!

A Better Way

In light of our desire to proactively build relationships with each other, we’re going to have to talk about school. Regardless of how you educate your children, school is a major part of a parent’s life. If we can’t or don’t talk about school, we miss an opportunity to learn how to love each other. We can’t pray for each other because we don’t know how to pray!

When we avoid talking about school, we can be overly sensitive and imagine judgement where none exists. My brothers and sisters don’t answer to me for their choices. I don’t know all of the circumstances that lead them to make a particular decision. If we didn’t think our choices mattered, wouldn’t we just do the easiest thing? Yet my job isn’t to persuade others to make the same choices I did. In the silence, we may feel discomfort and feel as though the different choices signal contempt as much as disagreement.

What do we say, then? How do we listen to one another?

Well, I have just a couple ideas that I like. Perhaps you can share some of yours.

Start Talking!

First, let’s bring up the subject. Start with “What school do you/ your kids go to?” When they give an actual school, don’t stop talking! Ask “Do they have good teachers this year? How can I pray for them?” When there’s a school holiday, make plans to meet a traditional schooling family at the park! Get together for lunch! Or get together for dinner any time! Many mothers aren’t sure if the homeschoolers even want to be friends with their children; don’t let that be true for you.

If your children attend a traditional school, you may also be uncomfortable talking about school with homeschooling mamas. Don’t be! Find out what they like to teach, and what is hard for them. Every homeschool mama feels inadequate for their task sometimes. Ask them how you can pray for them as they teach their children. Take a risk and ask them how they came to the decision to homeschool, and then share how God has led you.

When we ask these questions, we aren’t suggesting that we agree perfectly about what’s best for our own families, nor even what is best for children in general. We are communicating that we can love well even when we make different choices. Perhaps, some of us will change our approach or make adjustments in our lives as a result of these conversations. But if not, we can still love each other!

Avoid Harmful Assumptions about Each Other

As you learn to know and love your neighbor, you’ll find the negative assumptions don’t have room to settle down. We start to learn the back stories, and the challenges, and the burdens we both carry. Along the way, though, when you recognize the assumptions, you’ll have to root them out!

Perhaps you have experienced a time when you made an assessment about a person, and then discovered later you were horribly wrong in your thinking. Being slow to speak and quick to hear goes a long way in preventing these misunderstandings.

We don’t know all the reasons a person makes the choices they do. And we don’t know what God is doing in their lives. For these reasons, we need to be careful making negative assumptions. It is far better to assume the best possible interpretation of their decisions.

Don’t assume the only parents who are active teachers of their children are homeschoolers. That’s insulting! I see this on social media where a homeschooling parent will post a fabulous example of active parenting. It’s got a #homeschoolinglife tag or something similar. If I were a schooling family, I’d feel amused (and perhaps on some days annoyed) at the assumption that only homeschooling parents do cool science experiments with their family, or read big chapter books together, or plan educational field trips.

Don’t assume we know all the risks other parents face. Every family is different. We don’t always see the behavior problems, the hidden disabilities, the marriage and family disagreements, or the needs of individuals in each family.

Keep in mind that one parent may be open (and desire) a particular school choice, but the other parent may disagree. Don’t assume a person is making a school choice out of fear or laziness!

When I was new to homeschooling and my children were in early elementary grades, I made the faulty assumption that homeschooling young children was about the same as homeschooling highschool students. I learned as my children grew older that homeschooling older children carried additional difficulties that I didn’t understand. Other parents may make similar assumptions about children with special needs, or financial obligations, and so on.

Many of these assumptions will evaporate as we get to know each other, but in the meantime, think the best. Love does that.

Look for What You Have in Common!

As I talk with my friends who have kids in school, I’ve been encouraged to see how much we have in common. We care about whether our children are adequately prepared for the future. We pray for godly friends. We are happy when our children have opportunities to share the gospel or talk about spiritual things with a peer. It’s possible our school choices sensitize us to particular ways to pray and prepare our children, and that’s an asset when we are friends with Christians who are different from us! For example, I’ve become more aware of the need for our children to have opportunities to share their testimony and love people who aren’t Christians, as a result of friends who don’t home school and think I’m a little crazy for doing so! We share the desire for spiritual growth in our children, and I’ve caught some of their particular vision and applied it to our specific lives.

Pray for One Another

We all have blind spots, and it’s not our job to go looking for them in others. However, if we see what we believe is a blind spot in our sister, we can pray far sooner than speak up. God might make room for a conversation in the future, and our sister might make room in her heart to listen, and we might have the humility and even be on the right side of truth to say something. Until then, let’s begin with prayer.

If you believe home school families are missing opportunities to be salt and light, why not pray that God will give opportunities to your homeschooling friends to share the gospel?

If you believe traditional schooled families are in danger of being corrupted, why not pray for discernment, and for godly friends and teachers?

Whatever your reasons for making choices in schooling, take the time to pray for those who choose differently. We are part of the same team, and need each other. We benefit from the diversity within the body. We minister to different people as a result of different circumstances. May our conversations together be full of kindness and mercy!

August 5, 2019 by Michelle Leave a Comment

3 Ways to Get More of the Word in Your Mind

When you’re already super busy, how can we prioritize God’s Word?

At different seasons in my life, it seemed either time was short or my ability to focus was short! When you have the desire but don’t know what to do, how do you get more of God’s Word into your heart, and into the hearts of your children?

I have some ideas that have served me well along the years.

Keep it simple! Prioritize God’s word over materials about God’s Word. I sometimes need to remind myself that I’m putting on myself a greater burden than is biblical and right. Puritan theologians might be fun for you to read, but in survival mode you may need to save those things for later and just stick to the actual words in the Bible! Especially when my children were young, I read precious little outside of children’s literature and the Bible. In those days, I sometimes did my own Bible reading outloud while they were eating breakfast (captive audience!)
If your friends are chatting about theology and spiritual resources, or sharing good Christian books, don’t feel guilty if you don’t want to or aren’t up to reading all of those things. Sometimes those things take the place of Bible reading, and that’s like eating highly processed food when you’ve got garden fresh in abundance! Meditating on spiritual resources is not the same thing as meditating on the word of God, is it? Give yourself space not to be like everyone else. You’re not going to get “behind” spiritually by eating the good stuff. Our problem is when we forget what the good stuff actually is. Resources that are most helpful will be the ones that lead you to a GREATER dependence and confidence in the word of God.
Find Scripture Songs. While my children played, while we drove in the car, when we cleaned up, I played Scripture songs for them. Truth be told, I needed those Scripture songs as much as they did, and even though my children aren’t playing legos on the living room floor anymore, I sometimes sit on my bed and put on those same Scripture songs when I need something true and beautiful to lasso and corral my thoughts. Songs about God are good, but when my time is tight, scripture songs or songs that are scripture put to poetry are better for my mind. It’s a way that I can meditate on God’s word. I love beautiful poetry about God, but only God’s Words are living. (Over the years, I liked recordings by the Cedarmont Kids choir, Hidden in My Heart Lullabies, Steve Green’s Hide Em In Your Heart albums. A few weeks ago, my teenagers showed me how to search for Scripture songs on Spotify!)
I sometimes overlook the value of sharing Scripture with our friends and children. What does meditation look like for a mommy with a toddler? Sometimes it’s sharing out loud with my children the same simple phrases that God has laid on my heart repeatedly. O taste and see that the Lord is good! The Lord is MY shepherd. Phrases like these are valuable for us both! I’m also not limited to sharing Scripture with my children. Whether I’m sitting on the beach with my friends, at the dinner table with guests, or texting someone from church, sharing God’s word is one way to meditate on it– talking about ways we have found God to be faithful, ways to help us and our children to be more thankful each day. What are the Scriptures that you’ve been thinking about this week? What is God teaching you?
When you find passages from God’s Word that are helpful and challenging, write them out and put them where you can see them often. What Scripture do you need this week to remember?

That’s all I can think of for now. What ways have you found to add more Scripture to your life?