The Difference Between Hospitality and Entertaining

Christmas has just ended.  I ran across a blog recently that spoke volumes of wisdom to those of us who love to have people into our homes for a meal - holiday or every day.   I love to cook for others.  Often, in my desire to have community around a shared meal, I end up seeking to impress and to entertain my guests.   I am reminded that there is a difference between serving (hospitality) and impressing (entertaining).  I had never read Jen Wilkin's blog before, but I am so glad I did!   She has much to say about the differences between the two.  You should read her words here!

Here are a few of the quotes I loved the most:

Entertaining is always thinking about the next course. Hospitality burns the rolls because it was listening to a story.

Entertaining seeks to impress. Hospitality seeks to bless.

Entertaining invites those whom it will enjoy. Hospitality takes all comers.

Orderly house or not, hospitality throws wide the doors. It offers itself expecting nothing in return. It keeps no record of its service, counts no cost, craves no thanks. It is nothing less than the joyous, habitual offering of those who recall a gracious table set before them in the presence of their enemies, of those who look forward to a glorious table yet to come.

It is a means by which we imitate our infinitely hospitable God.

While we are in the middle of a holiday season of eating with friends and family and neighbors, let's put the important things first.  We love and serve others because Christ Jesus loved us first - while we were still his enemy.  We love and serve others for their good and benefit, not to receive praise.  We love and serve others as a joyful celebration - of time with family and friends and neighbors!!  My table is happiest when it is surrounded by those I love and those I am getting to know.  And when the rolls are burned (read her article!)!! 

Leading and Following

Throughout the past few months Steve has had to lead our family through some chaos and difficulties.  Often we have disagreed about things.  For those of you who know us, this isn't unusual - we are about as different as it gets.  I am pretty strong willed and stubborn - good qualities in any Southern woman, to be sure.  But they can make leading me a little on the difficult side.  I was telling a friend about a recent date where Steve and I discussed, argued, and even cried as we fought through a certain situation... all while we ate our pizza, said hello to friends, and talk with the waiter!  A little weird, I know.  But it was important for me to be heard and for Steve to be able to listen and ask questions.  This led my friend to come up with a list of her own questions.  Here they are:

"How did you know that Steve could lead you? How did you first learn that? What made you begin to trust Steve to do this? You said you are both stubborn, how has this been good for you guys?"

So this is an interesting topic and one that I think should be discussed pretty often.  It gets sticky - so beware!!

First off, I am starting with some basic assumptions that I feel are based on the Word of God.  Steve and I are equal before God.  We are called to submit to each other.  We are called to serve each other.  But Steve is called to lead me and our family.  That is his role.  My role is to submit to his leadership and to help equip him to be a leader who honors God and his family.  But that doesn't make me of lesser value in our relationship.  Our roles are different, but equal.  It took me many, many years to figure this out.  But in my old age I have come to value these differences and enjoy the reflection of God's relationship.  God the Father and Jesus and the Spirit are all equal yet each has a different role in the relationship.

Now, to those questions!  The question of leadership for me went way back to before Steve and I started dating.  Yes, way back in the 80's!  We were friends and I had gotten to know him well.  I knew
that he was a man who loved God more than anything and that he was seeking to honor God as he made decisions - big and small.  I knew this was a man who would strive to honor God as he learned to lead me. I knew this before we dated.  I observed these qualities.  No, he wasn't perfect.  But he was strong enough to let me fight with him and still be confident enough to stand on his beliefs and make decisions.  I was confident of these things before dating even entered the picture.

Trust.  I don't think this happens instantly.  It grew over time.  I saw Steve's desire to value me and love me well.  He was honest and open and willing to let me speak into his decision making process.  He trusted me.  He listened.  He still does.    Being stubborn is part of who I am.  But I do not fight for the right to make decisions for our family, God has given him this role/responsibility.  I fight for the right to be heard.  I need to know that my opinion will be heard and thoughtfully considered.  I need to know that Steve is not too proud to change his mind if I have a better view of something or a more clear vision.  He is humble.  But I have also had to learn to be humble enough to let him step out in disagreement with me when he feels that he is making a good decision.  I need to be gracious.  I need to willingly follow.  Humility on both parts is important (not easy!!), but essential.


How is being stubborn good for both of us? Hmmmm.... being stubborn gives me the drive to fight when I feel that God has clearly spoken.  It gives me the determination to argue for what I feel strongly about.  Again, it has to be tempered with humility (which I definitely need more of - lots more!).  It also has to be tempered with the desire to want Steve's best - to mutually submit to Steve as he makes decisions for us and the family.


The part that makes stubbornness so dangerous is pride.  And trust me, we have walked through lots of fights where my need to be right or in charge or stubbornly assertive way out weighed my need to mutually submit and serve one another.  It is an ugly thing to see a prideful, stubborn husband or wife fighting for their wants instead of what God has called them to want.  That undermines Steve's ability to trust me.  It undermines my ability to be a good wife and mother who seeks to put the needs of my family before my own.  It is an ugly, ugly thing.  I know it well in my own life.

The hope that each of us has is Christ Jesus himself.  Read Philippians 2.  Jesus is the perfect example of humility.  He has the right to want all things.  Yet he chose to purposely humble himself.  "2:1 Since there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, and participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, 2 complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.  3 Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.  5 have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross."

Hope in Him!  Hope in him to grow you as you seek to "let this mind among yourselves" and to "count others more significant than yourselves".  Sound hard?  It is!  Sound scary?  It is!  But the work is His to do - just ask Him to do it!

The Search for the Perfect Pot Roast Has Ended!

Today is a stormy, gloomy sort of day.  These are my favorite days.  Nothings says climb back into bed like a day like this.  Oh how I wish I could spend all day in bed.  But...  there are things to do...

...cooking supper being one of them.  I don't use that word "supper" very often.  But it takes me back home to growing up in Kentucky.  My mom would call us for supper.  Mmmmm.... makes my mouth water.

Anyway, back to rainy days and eating dinner (or supper).  I am always on the lookout for a pot roast recipe that will wow my family.  I have tried zillions.  I want to share two with you.  The first wowed me - and only me.  But I LOVED it.  The second wowed my family.  So to save you some time and energy and to avoid the never ending search, here are my two top picks for pot roast.

NOTES:  Be sure not to buy the expensive cut of meat - but a nicely marbled chuck roast that you can often find for less than $2.00 per pound.  That makes this even better!  Also, I know lots of you have one of those fancy dutch ovens.  Mine is from Aldi's!!  It was $20.  The seal isn't great - but it works just fine.  So use a dutch oven of any kind if you can.  It seems to be better than the crock pot.  But I think both recipes have variations for crockpots.

First, Martha Stewart is my favorite.  She's amazing.  This roast is one of the reasons why.  The tomato paste gives it a think, sweet, tomato-y flavor that I love.  Sadly, I have only gotten to cook it a few times since my family has a different idea of super roast.  But PLEASE check it out here.

Second, The Pioneer Woman has a GREAT recipe.  And her directions are very detailed - with quirky commentary and lots of pictures.  Anyone can make this recipe.  And everyone will love this recipe.  Click here.   

Dinner is served:  the Pioneer Woman's pot roast, broccoli, corn bread, and home made banana pudding for dessert.  Inexpensive but satisfying - perfect for a rainy day supper.

The River

Today we travelled to Alton, IL to check out the flooded Mississipi River.  There is something so fascinating about a river overflowing her banks.  Jayber Crow says it like this:  "I was sitting not six inches above the surface of the water, and you can't be that close to a flood and not feel the size and power of it and also, a kind of fascination.  If you let yourself, you could sit for hours and watch it, just to see the next thing that would float by..." (Page 88, Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry)

I love the river.  I have always loved rivers.  Growing up in Kentucky we were close to the great Ohio River.  On weekends you could find me driving through the corn fields to get to a favorite spot overlooking the swift moving water.  Sitting and watching the drift wood float along.  So peaceful and quiet.  It was perfect.  I learned how to drive on those roads next to my river.  When I was little we would sit on the banks and watch my parents ski there.  So many memories... so much water.

Have you ever been to the Confluence where the Missouri River runs into the Mighty Mississippi?   You can't get there right now - there's too much flooding (The flooding of June 2013 is the sixth highest on record!).  But later this summer you should go.  Walk out to the very tip of the land and stick one foot in each river.  Sit on a rock.  Watch the two rivers mingle.  You can see it happen!   Sit on a rock and just watch.  Better yet, throw a big stick into the Missouri and see how far out into the Mississippi it goes before making a quick right turn and heading down to St. Louis.  Do it!

Speaking of the Ohio River, Jayber Crow goes on to say, "Sometimes, living right beside it, I forget it.  Going about my various tasks, I don't think about it.  And then it seems just to flow back into my mind.  I stop and look at it.  I think of its parallel, never-meeting banks, which yet never part.  I think of it lying there in its long hollow, at the foot of all the landscape, a single opening from its springs in the mountains all the way to its mouth.  It is a beautiful thought, one of the most beautiful of all thoughts.  I think it not in my brain only but in my heart and in all the lengths of my bones."  (Page 310, Jayber Crow, Wendell Berry)

The Weather

Sitting on my patio watching storms roll in is a sweet afternoon delight.  My favorite days involve thunder and lightening and lots and lots of wind.  If Steve would let me, our bedroom window would be open about two inches each night just so I could know what was going on outside with the weather.  As a kid growing up in rural Kentucky I slept with the window open.  I could hear the chickens very early in the morning or the cows lowing in the neighbor's fields.  In the Spring, the smell of the magnolias would waft through the window.  The cooing of a dove will forever remind me of being tucked in my bed, nice and warm.  These days I can hear the whippoorwills in the middle of the night and the distant howling of the coyotes, haunting and strangely comforting.  I snuggle in just a little tighter when the wind picks up and blows in through the open window.  Pure contentment.

I found this poem years ago.  I found a kindred spirit.  The author, Steven Schreiner even kept his window open two inches as well.  For him those two inches not only let in the weather, but also hope after mourning.

The Weather
Ever since I can remember, I have been in love
with the weather, an extension of hope
or despair.  It comes to the window
in the morning, after crossing the country
all night:  the plains outside Topeka,
between the mountains of Ouray, across the flat
farms of Iowa where the corn turns a brilliant
green when you awake.  And when you sleep
and startle from some nightmare
of yourself in deep trouble, fighting your own
life, and should open a window, it comes
there too, it's already there
and walks right in as if it's been waiting
just for you.  I always hoped
the air would warm, I don't know why, with my radio
tuned to weather and my window open two inches.
The days moved by degrees in me, spring
coming around 52, then 55, and soon
summer, the tiring days, the mornings
bright as crystal.  If in your life
there was un unexplained event, losing a father or
having the wrong one, you were probably also looking out
into the frosted trees, for some extension
of yourself, some frostbitten hope, that soon
it would grow green again in the places
where the black earth steamed under you.

The Weather, from the book Too Soon to Leave by Steven Schreiner (Ridgeway Press, 1997)

A Valentine Legacy

The Lord graciously blessed me with parents who love each other.  They have loved each other for many, many Valentine's Days.  True fidelity.  That is an old fashioned word, but one of my favorite words.   It means loyalty, faithfulness in a relationship, constancy, steadfastness, and true-heartedness.  For 46 years my parents have acted out fidelity.  My sisters and I had a living, breathing marriage tutorial right before our very eyes.  I have watched and learned.  Not that their relationship (or mine) is perfect.  But I have seen them seek to honor God and each other as they walk through this crazy thing we call life.  See how young and in love they were oh, so long ago.

Thanks Mom and Dad for loving each other - and me! 

And while I am thinking on it, I never got to see my grandparents together.  My grandfather died way too young.  But I have heard stories!  I like to think that my parents also had a great example to observe as well.  Check this photo out!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Favorite Valentine Thought from Hafiz

The Beautiful One whom I adore

Has pitched His royal tent inside of you,

So I will always lean my heart

As close to your soul

As I can.   

Hafiz is one of my favorite poets.  From the poem "The Woman I Love", as collected in the book "The Subject Tonight Is Love" (Translated by Daniel Ladinsky)