by Kimberly | Oct 21, 2017 | 31days, lavish hospitality, parenting
Write31 update: I was going to write this post last night after our trip to Stone Mountain. But, even though we were home at a normal time, got the tired boys in bed after a quick bath and family worship, I just didn’t have it in me. Two days of eating a lot of carbs and stress of an all day trip, with Hashimoto’s I’m learning I have to slow down when I need to.
So, you are getting two posts today. I hope you don’t mind!
I am a mom of two preschool boys. They used to be newborns, then babies, then toddlers, and now in preschool. We have made it through every stage with naps, netflix, and mostly the grace of God.
But, one way that sabotaged every minute of my parenting is comparison. Comparison for when my kids walked or talked. Comparison in whether I was breast-feeding or making my own baby food. Comparison as to whether I was using cloth diapers or Huggies. Comparison on how fast my kids are reading or playing well with others or climbing on the big slides all by themselves. Comparison on if they scored goals during their first soccer game.
And I know the comparisons just keep coming. It doesn’t stop when they reach kindergarten or middle school or college.
And comparison is anything but hospitable. It isn’t gracious to yourself as a mom (or a wife or a woman). It isn’t hospitable to your other mom friends. So, just don’t do it. Its hard. But, rely more on the fact that God has created you to be the Mom that you are to the kids that you have right now. And He will give you the grace to complete your task!
Quote from Sharon Hodde Miller’s Free of Me.
by Kimberly | Oct 19, 2017 | 31days, lavish hospitality
Update on this blog series:
Thanks for reading. I’m learning new ways to practice hospitality – I hope you are too. I just had a good friend design a cover for the e-book that I hope will come out early 2018 (or regular book if anyone wants to publish it.). I will start pulling all these quotes from each day and writing in November!
Today’s post is about something that effects and affects every area of hospitality. Our humility. Left to ourselves we are not humble people. We are prideful and only care about ourselves. Our rights. Our ways. Our happiness. The selfie-generation didn’t just start a few years ago. It has always been.
With our God: come to Him with our weariness. He will give rest. Come to him with honor and adoration – He will show Himself to us. Come to Him with our desires – He will fill our hands.
With our spouses: Put their needs above our own. Seek to outdo one another in showing honor. My husband excels at this – all.the.time. He has told me in recent weeks that I’ve grown in humility in the time that he’s known me. That is in direct correlation to God putting him in my life almost 7 years ago now and the work of the Spirit in my heart.
With our children: We mess up as mamas. When I mess up (often), I will usually go to my kids, get right in their faces (affection), and talk to them really softly and gently. I think I do this because I want to mend the brokenness, and act in opposite fashion than I just did: loud, harsh, pushing them away.
With our community: When you open your home to people who don’t live within our houses, we speak volumes to their need – and our need. Our need for community. That alone speaks of humility because it says that we are not enough in and of ourselves. God made us for community. He made us for relationship. I stink at this sometimes, especially when going out. I was a poor representation of the gospel this past week at a new friends. It had been a bad day, it was my son’s birthday, and I don’t think I barely looked anyone in the eyes and I just barely answered their questions. I didn’t want to be there and others could tell. I can’t go back – but I can move forward out of my brokenness and let Him do a new thing.
Quote taken from Lord Have Mercy (Ellen Miller). Photo by Evergold Photography of a cupcake I made.
by Kimberly | Oct 18, 2017 | 31days, Books, lavish hospitality, mothering
As a mom of two preschoolers, two things I think about the most of anything is my children’s safety and their eternal life. One I can do something about and one I can only point them in the right direction.
Its funny, this week my 4 year old had 5 shots and 1 toe prick to draw some blood. All routine for a 4 yo check up. As I was holding his arms across his chest as they were sticking the needles in his thighs, I watched him scream over and over again. I didn’t feel like I was providing much safety for him. And after the pricks were over, he was calling for Daddy – all he wanted to do was go see Daddy. To have Daddy hold him.
Now, if something happens when Daddy is around, then he calls out for me. So the kid can’t make up his mind.
And now thinking back, I think of me, holding his arms down, covering his face to he couldn’t see the needles being put into his legs, closing my eyes in tears as he screamed, wondering if he would ever trust me again.
Isn’t that often how God is. We are safely in his arms. Being held in the palms of his hands, nothing can take us out of his grip. But, how often does his face cover our screams? How often do you think that God cries and longs for our hearts when we are hurting?
On this earth, I think we are to be “little Christs”. So, we are to be Jesus with skin on. Being hospitable to people may be holding them in their pain, letting them cry, catching their tears. My husband often does this. And I think of the safety I feel in his arms. And it makes me long for the Savior – who will never hurt me but was hurt for me. So that I may rest secure in Him.
Quote taken from a new book by Lavon Gray (thanks New Hope Publishers) Tuning Your Heart to Worship
by Kimberly | Oct 17, 2017 | 31days, Bible, lavish hospitality
How do you get to know someone? Thankfully in today’s technology-driven world, I think that is easier and harder. Let me explain.
You can get to know people on social media. This is how I love to keep track of new friends and old friends who live in different areas of the country/world.
You can get to know people by running into them at small groups or in church services. Or playing basketball, shopping, being in a creative group together or a book club.
But, I genuinely think that the only way to truly get to know someone is to sit down with them. Talk with them face to face. You may not want to genuinely know everyone – but for those close friends, don’t you want to genuinely know them and sit down with them face to face as often as you can.
With my husband: I can get to know him through texts, through what he posts on facebook, but most I get to know him when we are talking to each other without distractions. Or if we are sitting side-by-side traveling alone together.
WIth my best friends – I want to get to know them while sitting on their porches, sipping coffee together, or grabbing a quick breakfast together (without our kids).
With new people: it is hard to get to know new people at 40. It is. But, I have found it best to just sit down with them, have food or beverage present, and talk. Share. Be open.
That is what God’s Word does for us. Though we don’t have a face-to-face with God, the Word reveals God’s heart to us. He has been hospitable in creating the Word. He was hospitable when He sent Jesus. And He was (and still is) hospitable to us when He God-breathed the Word to be carried down to generations for us, believers today in 2017.
Quote from Noel Piper Treasuring God in Our Traditions
by Kimberly | Oct 17, 2017 | 31days, food, lavish hospitality, Uncategorized
We are halfway there. Thanks so much for reading. Can’t wait to finish out the month with yall.
Since becoming a mom, I think I’ve cooked less and less. I prefer simple meals or take out or Publix rotisserie chickens. I’m tried throughout the day. When my husband is home I want to do other things other than just stand in the kitchen and crank out a week’s worth of food.
I know cooking is healthier and easier on the budget for the family – but goodness, tough to get in the kitchen and do. Especially when half of my people around the table may not even eat it.
But, part of my responsibility (in our family) is to cook and make sure we have food to eat. My mister will cook but he is usually at work until dinner time, but he always gets up with the boys and gets them breakfast. I’m extremely blessed – also, with a nearby Publix or Trader Joes.
So, how do I welcome my misters with food? I thought I would be a wife and a mom who always had a homecooked meal on the table. Usually I was that kind of wife, but I’m not that type of mom. I mean, we eat every night. But only a few days a week is it a fresh homecooked meal.
Here are my tips:
Little Caesars Pizza.
Publix: bagged salad mixes, chicken tenders or rotisserie from the deli.
Dollar menu items.
Bagged veggies with sweet potatoes
Instant Pot
Crock Pot
A local food delivery or pick up service (we found a local place that has freezer meals on hand you can pick up. And a friend of mine does this as well).
Cereal.
Eggs, fruit, grits
Trader Joes freezer section.
Hope these items help you offer hospitality to your family by getting food on the table. What are your quick go-to food helps?
Quote from Karen Ehman A Life That Says Welcome
by Kimberly | Oct 15, 2017 | 31days, lavish hospitality, mothering
One of the deals with motherhood is that you tend to get interrupted. Whether you need to change a diaper in the middle of a church service, breast feed in the middle of the night, calm an anxious heart in the wee hours of the morning, get out of bed before your alarm clock goes off because a preschooler wants some juice. It might be to miss out on something you want to attend because you have a teenager who needs to get somewhere.
Interruptions come. That’s just a fact of life. The life of a mother, that is.
And I’ve learned that it usually doesn’t make me smile when I get interrupted. I like to do what I’m doing and that’s that. Whether its making dinner, working on a blog, or running errands, I want to do them how I want to do them.
I need God our gracious Father to show up in my heart and mouth and face when my little boys interrupt me. I need to be ready to color with them, read with them, talk with them about the same topic I’ve already talked about for 4 hours that day, sing one of their songs for the 30th time, and watch the same kids movie with them that they know by heart.
Thanks to Sandra for writing this blog post where I pulled this quote.
