My purpose in sharing parts of my life with you is to encourage you to do the same. More openness among women. More authenticity. This is the road to personal change and freedom. Authenticity is part of the path for wounds to find healing. Eventually, this same road leads to action and service in the name of love.
I did something fun this week.
I led a book review with an amazing, welcoming group of women called the Salt Book Club. I reviewed a book called The Gospel Comes with a House Key: Practicing Radically Ordinary Hospitality in our Post Christian World by Rosaria Butterfield. (My husband says every book I read is the same. Whatever.)
My friend Melissa came along with me to the book club. She has an open front door and is an all are welcome kind of girl. Covid slapped her in the face when it came to one of her spiritual giftings – hospitality.
At the book review, she openly shared her reasons for bunkering down for almost a full year. She shared her conversations with her teen about how doing what’s right isn’t something you can see the full picture of when making the sacrifice. And, she shared how God gave her the opportunity to share her home with her brother, wife and two kids after he was furloughed from his job in Texas.
God always provides a way for us to share our giftings and live out our callings.
The author Rosaria leads a pretty radical life in the way of hospitality. She has an open door policy for dinner every single night. She wakes up at dawn for her devotion. She puts on beans, soup and rice and bakes bread. She homeschools and does all the stuff moms do throughout the day.
Around 5:30pm, her “stakeholders” (i.e., girlfriends, soul sisters . . .) plus their families and dogs come over with more food and welcome whomever shows up that night. They invite people who would not step foot into a church and the neighborhood families through the Next Door app.
This is radical to me – plainly because it’s Every.Single.Night.
This book has a few stories running through it. You will learn that Rosaria was previously a professor at Syracuse University, a feminist, intellectual and outspoken lesbian in a committed relationship. You’ll meet her neighbor Hank and his pit bull Tank, whose home is raided for the manufacturing of crystal meth. You’ll get to know Rosaria’s birth family with themes of mental illness and alcohol. You will hear Rosaria’s view on gender roles and how safety should not be the aspiration of believers.
It sounds like a good book, right? It is.
After reading her book and listening to her bible study on Right Now Media, here are five tips on hospitality that you can glean from this book – – and you don’t even have to read it! Nice!
- Find your own rhythm of hospitality. God gives us the grace we need for his commands.
- You are needed. God uses us in our mess. Be hospitable, even in your weakness.
- If you are hiding sin, you won’t practice hospitality. Check yourself! Ouch!
- What idols are holding you back from hospitality? Social media? TV? Alcohol? Middle class ease?
- Learn to be a host and a guest. We need both to form relationships.
Love you girls!
