Year of Hospitality
It is March. I have successfully avoided writing this post for 3 months of 2015, and I am not sure why I dragged my feet about it in the first place. In January, I visited Grace and Peace Fellowship, a local church which contains many of my favorite people, including relatives, friends, and former neighbors. At the time, I was feeling distant from God and people. I hoped that a change of scenery for one Sunday would help refresh my spirit.
Have you ever been at that point? For me, it wasn't that I hated my church or the people, nor did I want to deny God forever. I admire our church leaders and I learn wonderful things about God from them, but at the time, I felt like I was going through the motions. Church was starting to feel monotonous. There have been a lot of changes in my life since last summer after four years of an arduous journey. One of the things I am having a difficult time with since my situation has improved, is reconciling the difficulty of those years with the abundance of my new situation. It's not that I'm seeking to "make sense" of those years, because I have a hard time thinking about them, let alone have the stamina to process it all right now, but I want to find some way to transition from those years into this new chapter.
In the sermon the day I visited Grace and Peace, Kurt Lutjens, the pastor, talked about the hospitality of God. He talked about the fact that God made this amazing world, filled with such things as 600 varieties of oak trees and a myriad of shark species. He described God as this individual who is full of joyous hospitality and welcomes us into a life and land laden with unimaginable abundance. He talked about hospitality as being not just a matter of inviting people into your home for a meal, but treating people with openness and love, welcoming them into your experience as they cross your path. God was described as being extravagant, not just with his Creations, but with his love and willingness to draw us to himself and fill our lives with care and healing. For the first time in months, I felt that, perhaps, I liked God again, and maybe, just maybe, I was going to name 2015,"The Year of Hospitality."
After the service, fittingly enough, I had a marvelous Mediterranean food lunch with two friends. We enjoyed the delicious food and opened up to each other about our lives and recent struggles. Hospitality in action.
For some reason, though, I kept trying to think of something else to name my year. I worked on painting my new apartment and dreamed of the parties or quiet visits from friends I hoped to have in the space. I went on vacation to visit my family and made new goals for my career. Life started feeling a little bit more abundant each day. This idea of HOSPITALITY kept resurfacing, but I was a little afraid of it. I'm an introvert. As much as I like having people over, if I name 2015 "Year of Hospitality", does it mean I have to have people over all the time? As much as I like to be open and loving towards others, I am also a very private person. Maybe there was some other topic to focus on this year...
Try as I might, though, the subject continued to press into my experience over the past three months, through conversations, articles I read, and even another inspiring sermon about the hospitality of God this morning from my own pastor. I can't avoid it any longer. This is my year of hospitality. I don't know what this will entail, but I hope to experience God's abundant hospitality and see him more in that light, and let that be reflected from me for the people in my life.
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