Tuesdays IOW ~ Hospitality

"The ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it."
Ralph Waldo Emerson


Our house growing up was always filled with family and friends.... I can remember having upwards to 50 people (yes, Denita, in that house) over on days it snowed and crews could not work so everyone would end up at our house ..... you could hear the laughter from every corner as the adults gathered round the dinner table for a big bowl of chili and a game of Uno or Spoons. We kids would be everywhere.... and as the grown-ups played into the night you could walk through the house and find that mommies had put their kids to sleep everywhere, our bedrooms, in the livingroom, down the hall.... little pallets made of pillows and blankets strowed all over the floors and you had to step between them..... the adults would play games, talk, fellowship, discuss the Bible, and laugh all night long and in the morning we kids would wake to a huge breakfast of chocolate gravy with homemade drop biscuits, eggs, bacon and sausage,the adults would have set up all night long and still possibly have a game of cards still going in the morning when we kids would wake. Those are some of my most precious memories.... that is when I first learned to play Chess.... playing many hours with my mother, cousins, aunts, uncles.... its where I learned to play Uno sitting in dad's lap and getting to put down the cards for him. Its where I heard many a sermon or at least the beginning of a sermon from my uncle and cousins. Its where I learned a practical joke played on someone is for EVERYONE to laugh, including the person you have pulled the joke on.... and its where I learned that being a man/woman of God does not mean we are unable to have FUN!

We filled that house (and many others down through the years) until it was nearly bursting at the seams with family and friends.

Now that I am all grown up I look forward to each opportunity we have as a family to share our home with family and friends.... and although the only all nighters we have had are a couple of sleepovers with the girl's friends, I am ever ready to open our house to others whatever the need may be. Hospitality is not about how clean you can present your home to others.... hospitality is all about how you make others feel when they are in your home. I am so very glad I had wonderful teachers in hospitality growing up to look back on.........

1Peter 4:9 (ESV) Show hospitality to one another without grumbling.

Thanks to Heather at Mommy Monk for hosting this weeks IOW's.