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It can be easy in motherhood to find excuses not to open your home. The house is messy, the schedule is packed, there’s no space, our home isn’t good enough… but honestly, most of the time, these are just excuses.
I’ve been there before – feeling like my home is too messy or too small or feeling too overwhelmed to invite people over to my home. But over time, I learned that my hesitancy was keeping me from community!
No matter the season of your motherhood or the state of your home, embracing hospitality opens your heart to others, gives your kids a greater empathy for those around them, and creates an other-centered focus for your family.
Here are some practical tips to embrace hospitality, no matter your season:
Don’t stress your space
You don’t need a large or perfectly decorated home to open it up to community. Unfortunately, many of us are discontent with our own homes. We see people (in real life or those we follow on social media) who have bigger, better, shinier, prettier, cleaner homes. And it can be easy for us to believe that we can open our home once our home meets those standards.
But when you open up your home, even in its imperfect state, you let others in to your real life. It’s not a front. It’s not a social media filtered photo. It’s not fake. It’s your real, authentic life – laundry and all. Most of us think that everyone else has something better than we do, but the reality is that most people don’t have Pinterest-perfect hoems!
Opening our homes is vulnerable, but this vulnerability helps us to grow in intimacy! It helps us to form relationships with others, when they can see that we aren’t perfect. It helps us share in our struggles and imperfections, to hold each other accountable and to help each other grow. To see where we can show up for one another and offer help.
But while you shouldn’t let your home be a hindrance for you to invite people over, when you let your home (and all the stuff in it) overwhelm you, it will keep you from asking people to come over. If your house is always a huge mess or you are embarrassed about the state of your kitchen, are you going to want to ask people over? Probably not.
If this is you, check out this post about keeping your home when you’re not that good at it.
But remember: you don’t need a perfect home to be hospitable!
Keep your food simple.
If you love preparing an elaborate spread, get to it! But if opening your home is stressful, keeping food simple can make it easier to focus on the people instead of the details of what you’re serving.
Throw on the tea kettle, make some coffee, and make one pan of bars (I recommend pumpkin pie bars or cranberry oatmeal bars)
If you’re inviting someone over for a meal, keep the meal easy or familiar, so you don’t need to spend your time cooking or stressing about the process. You want to enjoy your guests!
Give yourself enough prep time
If cleaning or preparing for guests is stressful to you, give yourself time to get ready. Invite people over well in advance (a week or so) to have time to clean, get a few snacks, and not stress over any of it. It’s NO fun to run around like a crazy person, yelling at your kids, because you’re stressed out about hosting.
Involve your kids
What can your kids do to prep and learn the art of hospitality? Maybe they can make a special gift basket for overnight guests, a card, a flower bouquet, or pull out games or toys other kids might like. Ask them to help you in the kitchen to make a favorite snack. Be sure to also give them enough time for any chores you need them to do, like picking up the playroom or helping to clean the bathroom.
Practice contentment
I know what it’s like to live in a home that you wish could be different. Our first home was quite small, and we thought we would live there for five years max. We ended up living there for ten years! I constantly fought my feelings of discontentment about my home.
It helped me to stay off of Zillow (especially when we weren’t actively looking for a home!) and to create hygge spaces in my home. Investing in my home (not with a lot of money!) made it a place that I wanted to be. Thrifted decor, colorful and cozy spaces, and uncluttered rooms all helped me to feel more content.
I also made it a habit to pray and ask the Lord to keep my heart focused on the right things.
Create margin in your schedule
If you’re always busy, you’ll never have the time to invite people over to your home! If you want to embrace hospitality, you need to intentionally create space for it. Try setting aside one day a week or making plans in advance. Keeping an unburdened schedule helps to make this possible!
Invite new and old
It’s easy and comforting to invite an old friend to your home. This doesn’t require much of us. We know that they’re not phased by the toothbrushes on the bathroom counter or the dirty dishes in the sink.
But it can feel a little riskier to invite a new friend into your home. Someone who might judge us for the dust bunnies in the corners or the crumbs under the table.
And yes, they might judge you. But they might also feel honored that you welcomed them into your sapce. The new mom might feel so comforted seeing you scoop up her baby and give her arms a rest. The toddler mom may be so happy that her child is entertained by someone else for a change. The homeschooling mom who is desperate for community might feel overwhelmed with joy that you are the answer to her prayer.
This doesn’t just bless them – it blesses YOU as well. It’s so nice to share experience with another mama who is living this same life. Or to glean wisdom from a mama who is a few steps ahead.
We need to be willing to take the risk, putting aside our doubts and insecurities, knowing that what happens on the other side is nearly always worth it.
Embrace the biblical call
For the believer, hospitality isn’t something we should ignore. It’s something the Bible calls us to do! Even if it’s not something you’re naturally gifted at, you can open your home in obedience to the Lord. Because our God is one of relationship! He asks us to live within communities and families, because He knows that this is important for us and for our faith.
“Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling.”
1 Peter 4:8-9
Our homes are intimate places. Inviting someone in, especially someone you don’t know well, can feel vulnerable. But in those moments, we offer up a piece of ourselves. These are the moments when we deepen friendships, find common ground, and share stories and conversations over a meal or while our kids play.