The Light in My Window

The Light in My Window

Thursday, October 29, 2015

Make Yourself at Home

Last week while browsing in a shop, I saw a decorative sign that read: "Welcome to our Bed & Breakfast! We hope you enjoy your stay!" I was tempted to buy it for our guest room, because it is very appropriate for the last couple of months. In the last eight weeks, we have hosted overnight guests in our home five times! Guests have included our son and his family of five, my sister, and three sets of missionaries - a couple who are missionaries to the military and hosted a conference at our church, a family from Romania, and most recently, our long-time friends and missionaries to Cambodia. Length of stays ranged from two nights to six. In addition, last Friday night we hosted a cookout fellowship in our home that 22 people attended.

I enjoy having guests in our home. Yes, it does involve some work. Laundering sheets and towels, making up beds, cleaning bedrooms and bathrooms, planning for meals, and stocking the refrigerator take time. But I think about verses like Romans 12:13 that tell us to be given to hospitality, and  1 Peter 4:9, where God commands us to show hospitality without a grudging attitude. Hospitality today is mostly missing in the lives of Christians, who say they are too busy or it is not convenient. But do you know what I have found? Having guests stay in our home is always a blessing that far outweighs any work that was done, or any inconvenience!

When I have overnight guests in our home, I want them to feel comfortable. We tell them, "Make yourself at home!" and we truly mean it. We are blessed to have a home that is very conducive to guests - it is a 2-story with the master suite on the main floor. Upstairs we have a loft study/sitting room, 2 bedrooms, a bathroom, and a large "bonus" room that can also be used as a bedroom if necessary. It is the perfect set-up for guests being able to have the entire second floor to themselves, but I always tell them to feel free to use the entire house - the laundry room, the living area, and to help themselves to coffee or a bottle of water or snack. And they do!

Since our most recent guests just departed this morning, this has been on my mind today. And along with these thoughts, I am reminded that if I know Jesus Christ as my Savior, that my heart is His home. Ephesians 3:17 tells us, " that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith." That word "dwell" is important. It means that Christ is not just a guest in your heart. He resides there. It is really quite a privilege for us to make a home for Christ in our heart. And I wonder, does He feel at home? Or do we keep Him at a distance? Do we say, "I want You to be at home, and to feel free to use every room and area of my life."? I doubt it. There are rooms and areas of our lives we want to keep for ourselves.

In reality, if Jesus is our Lord and Savior, He is not just a guest in our life. He is the owner. All that we have belongs to Him. Are we trying to be the owner and treat Him as a guest? Or does He truly have ownership of every room of our life?

Lovingly,
Kathi

Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Thankful for every little thing

I know, I have been missing in action from the blog lately. And this is not the post I was planning to write. I was looking forward to writing about fun times and happy events.

Two weeks ago, I was happily anticipating a "normal" week at home after our busy Anniversary weekend celebration at church. I was excited about dear friends who were coming for a long-awaited weekend visit. I was also looking forward to hosting a cook-out fellowship in our home that same weekend, followed by a visit from my sister from Georgia who had not been here in two years.

Then I got sick.

Not just a little sick. No, for some reason when I get sick (which is not that often), I get REALLY sick. This time, I had bronchitis and the flu at the same time. I paid a visit to my doctor right away who confirmed I had bronchitis and started me on some prescriptions with orders to rest in bed. After a few days of getting worse instead of better, it was determined that I indeed had the flu on top of bronchitis. My fever kept going up and I could hardly get out of bed. As if this wasn't enough misery, I have an auto-immune condition that causes me to get a bad rash whenever I get sick. It was more like a bad sunburn than a rash, and it extended from my head to my feet. Did I say I was miserable?

So you know what happened to all my plans as a result of this. My planned nice week of productivity went out the window. We had to call our friends and cancel their visit. I cried. We canceled the cookout fellowship. And because my sister has CF and no immune system to speak of, we had to put her visit on hold as well. We had some unexpected difficulties come up at church and at home which made me feel even worse. More tears.

During this time, as I lay in bed feeling awful, I realized something. I could cry and complain and be distressed and depressed. Or I could choose to be grateful...to find things to be thankful for even in the midst of all this. As Nancy Leigh DeMoss says, we can whine, or we can worship. So often we relegate being thankful to the month of November. Or we thank God for the "big" things like our home, our family, our church, our health, and our freedom.

I think God wants us to be much more intentional about being grateful, and to learn to be thankful for every little thing. After all, everything we have is because of His grace and mercy. We deserve nothing and without His grace we would have nothing. 

I was thankful that I don't have an outside job right now and that I could stay home and recuperate without being stressed about missing work. I was thankful for a comfortable bed in which to sleep and rest, and for a bathtub with warm running water to make my rash feel better. Believe me, there are many places around the world where people do not enjoy these little things, and especially in the midst of the floods that were going on in South Carolina when I was sick, I was even more mindful of that. I was thankful for a good doctor who called me twice and for medicine and for insurance to help pay for the doctor and the medicines. I was thankful for hot tea and for homemade chicken soup that was brought by two sweet friends from church. I was thankful for a husband who cared for me and who didn't complain about eating soup for practically a whole week. And so it goes.

Yes, we missed our visit from our friends. I have to trust God's providence that this was not in His plan for either of us right now, and hopefully we can make it happen someday. I can be thankful for God's providence. I am thankful that He does have a plan for me and that plan is always for my good and my learning and ultimately for His glory.

My sister did get to come for a visit. In fact, she just left this morning. Our time together was shortened and so we had to adjust our plans and did not get to do some things we had wanted to do, but we still had a wonderful 5 days of shopping, laughing, talking, making a couple crafts, cooking together, and shop-browsing. I am thankful that God allowed us this time together and that even this abbreviated time was under His sovereign provision.

The theme of thanksgiving runs throughout the book of Colossians. In Col. 1:3, and again in verse 12,   we are instructed to be thankful in our praying.  In 2:7, we are to be "abounding in thanksgiving." Abounding means overflowing. And in chapter 3, it is mentioned two more times - verse 15. ..."and be ye thankful" and verse 17: "and whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by Him."  Chapter 4, verse 2 - "continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving."

We do not always feel like being thankful. We are so prone to have a spirit of ingratitude. But God wants us to be thankful, for every little thing. To get started, you might want to do what I did a few years ago and make it a habit to write down 5 things you are grateful for every day. They can be things as little as a hot cup of coffee, a folded pile of laundry. Trust me, when you get into the habit of cultivating a thankful attitude, it will change you.

Until next time,
Kathi


Monday, October 5, 2015

A Heart to Serve


 It's been quite a week at our house. It began last weekend with hosting missionaries from Romania. We had known them as a married couple many years ago when my husband was still in school, but not seen them since. Now they are the parents of two teenagers. It was our pleasure to host their family in our home for a few days.

The day after they departed began 4 straight days for me spending every day, or most of it, at the church preparing for our church's 25th anniversary weekend, which just concluded yesterday and was a wonderful time of celebration. It began with breakfast for the two visiting pastors and their wives and ourselves and included a Saturday evening banquet, special services, a video presentation, and a barbecue lunch on Sunday. In no way did I accomplish any of this by myself - I was privileged to work with many wonderful and talented ladies. But I must say that it consumed all my time and energy and as wonderful as it was, I am thankful that it is over and I can now give my attention to things I have been neglecting, like my house, my laundry,  and my writing. Wednesday was shopping day, Thursday was spent setting up and decorating the gym for our banquet. Friday and Saturday were cooking and food preparation days, interspersed with trips to Walmart for things we needed.

As I reflected on the busyness of this past week, it could be characterized by one word: service. I would like to share with you a couple of thoughts I have in relation to serving the Lord:

1. Serving is rarely convenient. The timing of hosting a family in our home for the days immediately leading up to our anniversary weekend could've been better. I would not have chosen it that way, but as usual, the Lord had something He wanted me to learn from it. It was found one morning in my devotions: Romans 12:13 - "Distributing to the necessities of the saints, given to hospitality." The word "distributing" can also be translated "contributing." When I read this, my heart was pricked. Yes, it wasn't the most convenient time. But God had assigned me the task of contributing to the needs of His people by practicing hospitality. Missionaries who are constantly traveling have needs. They needed to homeschool their children, and we could provide a quiet place and the use of our internet service to accomplish that. They needed to do laundry. They needed some time to rest. What a privilege is ours as Christians to be used to minister to them! So many times I hear that it is "not convenient" for people to host missionaries in their homes or to have them in for a meal. I myself complain about it not being convenient for my schedule and responsibilities. But you know what? God changed my attitude. I can use inconvenience as an excuse not to practice hospitality, or I can determine that I am going to serve the saints of the Lord to the best of my ability and seek to be a blessing to them! In so doing, the blessing is really ours! And for those who have children at home, what is your attitude teaching them? Which leads me to the second thought:

2. As parents, we have a responsibility to train our children to have servants hearts.  It warmed my heart to see some of the children of our church pitching in with their parents to serve! We had a little girl doing jobs like putting salt & pepper shakers on tables, boys washing dishes, and young ladies serving food alongside their mother. These kids are learning by example to have a heart to serve. Raising kids with servants hearts does not just happen - they need to be trained. Our natural bent is to be self-centered. I am concerned about the lack of hospitality and having hearts to serve among our young people today. My husband and I did some things wrong as parents, but this was one thing we did right. All of our children, by God's grace, have grown into adults who have a heart to serve. We involved our kids in ministry from a very early age. They could set up chairs, put out hymnbooks, set tables, clean the church, fold bulletins, serve at fellowships. As they grew older, they helped in the nursery, played musical instruments, helped in VBS and Children's church, and a long list of other things. They gave up their bedrooms to visiting missionaries and guests. They have memories of being squished together onto a piano bench around the dining room table in order to have enough chairs to accommodate all our guests. I am not saying this to brag on them - I am saying that in order to have adults with servant hearts, you have to train children to cultivate hearts that want to serve. Our children were blessed beyond measure by the experiences they had in serving.  All of them are thankful for the opportunities they had in every imaginable aspect of service that have helped to equip them for their ministries today.

Of course, the best example we have of a servant is the Lord Jesus. He spent His whole earthly life in serving others. Joshua 22:5 exhorts us to show our love for the Lord by serving Him "with all your soul and all your might." What is your service saying about your love for Him?

Lovingly,
Kathi