Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling.
Each of you should use whatever gift you
have received to serve others,
as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.
1 Peter 4:9-10
Some people have the gift of hospitality.
Logan has that gift. Logan was the “event coordinator” for Allume conference. She also spoke at the conference. Her topic was Using Your Blog for Real Life Discipleship. Logan lives what she speaks…she told of having young couples from her church into her home for a cooking lesson and taught them how to cut an onion…then blogged about cutting an onion.
This is Logan…and yes, I know the picture isn’t that great.
People have seen her in the grocery store and told her how great that post was because they didn’t know HOW to cut an onion. I am totally paraphrasing her talk…it was AWESOME. And went straight to my heart. I love Logan. We are a lot alike. Thursday afternoon in the elevator she got on and I said, “Logan!” We have never met, but she said, “Mary!” And gave me a big hug.
I also got to listen to Kristina. Kristina is a single mom with four kids. Kristina also has the gift of hospitality. She welcomes you into her life and is very transparent. She shared about writer’s block and how to get past it. She talked about visuals. And scents. She also told me I looked AMAZING. Seriously!?!? Well, I have been exercising, but AMAZING? I don’t think so!
Kristina has a tattoo…or tattoos, I don’t know, nor do I care. But I want you to read this post.
Did you read it? God shows up…in BIG ways, in places we don’t expect!
God met me at the Allume conference. But not in the places I expected, nor in the way I suspected.
He met me in these (and other) talks. In the keynote speeches. On Friday night, a totally unplanned visit with Kris gave me a whole new take on Lent.
He met me in a VERY. BIG. WAY. during a late night chat with Jacque, Lyn and Denise.
Then again, in a totally God-planned (that is the ONLY way this would have happened) chat, on Sunday morning before I left the hotel with Lindsey.
You see, each of these women offered hospitality to me. They are faithful stewards of God’s grace, in it’s various forms…and I was a willing recipient.
You know, I went to Allume expecting something, but I wasn’t sure what. I came away realizing that my voice is one of my gifts.
I should write for the audience that comes to my place (blog) seeking my hospitality.
I need to write. I need to be a faithful steward of God’s grace in the form it is given to me…even if my audience is only one person.
As the weeks have drug on it has been easy for me to lose hope.
Will things ever get back to some type of normal? People were not created to live in isolation.
Will we be able to see someone smile or will we always look at them and only see their eyes?
Will people gather without having to sit 6’ apart?
I don’t know the answer and I’m not posting this to debate the news media’s portrayal of the pandemic.
I’m sharing this today because I spent some time with the Lord thanking him for the things I DO have and not focusing on the things I don’t have. The things I have lost since March.
I looked up scriptures about hope.
I made a list in my prayer journal of things I’m grateful for.
Life goes on. Life crisis continues even during this pandemic. People die naturall and tragically. And babies are born. And weddings happen and new lives begin.
This crisis in our world isn’t a surprise to God.
And my hope and security is in Him.
If you scroll through the photos, you see things that made me smile this morning and reminded me of the goodness of God - even now.
With all the grief and sadness in the world I wasn’t sure how I would handle today. How I would allow myself to grieve this loss? Today when there has so much WRONG in our world. In a post @deidrariggs shared today she reminded us that life goes on. And I realized that today this is my life. And I can grieve this loss. My life goes on... I am thankful for the 4 days we had her. On Friday I will remember each event of her last day and I will remember her dying in my arms.
And I will be both sad and grateful. #infantloss #trisomy18 #stlouischildrenshospital
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