Week 9

Which forms of service are hardest for you to practice? Why do you think this is so?

There is something about having people over that freaks me out.  Seriously, my husband would probably have people in our home every day if it was up to him alone.  I don’t know why, but I get a little crazy when people come over.  I want my house to be spotless, and I never feel like things are good enough.  It is ridiculous because I know that our friends don’t really care at all.  I know that they do not notice that my kitchen is outdated, that there is likely a layer of dust on the bookshelves, and that if they dare to put their hand in a couch cushion they are bound to find some stale goldfish or cheerios.  But I continue to feel this way.  The ironic thing is that I have not always felt like this.  When we first got married, we lived in a tiny little apartment with mismatched couches that were from my husband’s apartment.  Seriously they were terrible.  At one point we had a crate in place of a dining room chair because the chair had broken, we did not own a television (that was a great conversation starter), and our home décor was a mix of stolen street signs (courtesy of my husband’s teenage years) and random items we got for our wedding (random being the key word).  And yet, I didn’t notice or care enough to be self-conscious about it.

I guess as I get older I feel more and more pressure to meet other people’s expectations.  I think this is the reason hospitality is such a difficult service for me to practice.  I assume that I will be judged because my home is not out of a magazine.  Why I get so caught up in what someone else might think I do not know.  At the end of the day, what does it matter?  This is my life, my house is sometimes dirty, and there are always dirty little fingerprints to be found.  I would not change it.  It is crazy when I think about it that I allow this to get in the way of serving.  Yet another area of life to do some work on.