EP 20: Home Shows and Show Homes

One of my favorite Christmas traditions is attending holiday home shows, but having a show home oneself is not a pre-requisite to extending hospitality, which is something all believers are called to do.

The topic for this week’s podcast comes from a post I wrote over a decade ago, which you can read in its entirety below today’s show notes.

Home Shows and Show Homes

I once walked into a house I thought was on a holiday tour of homes and wandered through several rooms before realizing in embarrassment that I was at the wrong address. Fortunately, the home owners were hosting a party at the time, so I was was able to slip away quietly without making too much of a scene.

Is this the right place?

The reverse has also happened: Another year I visited a home that really was on the tour, but I had a hard time shaking the feeling that I’d come to the wrong place. It was almost as if the owners weren’t expecting us: “You’re here for the Open House? Tonight? I thought that thing was next week!”

Not that the home wasn’t lovely — it was. But, unlike most of the private residences I’d toured during these holiday fund-raisers, this house had dirty dishes in the sink, newspapers scattered on the floor, and sticky little handprints all over the bathroom mirrors.

In other words, this house looked lived in.

Moreover, the folks who lived in it were still there. They had not been spirited away for the duration of the tour, as was the usual custom. The owners of all those sticky little fingers spent the evening sprawled across three sofas watching television, seemingly oblivious to the steady stream of people parading through their home.

Come on in!

I’m not sure where their mother was that night, but had I spotted her, I would have shaken her hand. Because she did me a huge favor (and possibly many of the other ticket holders, as well): She demonstrated unselfconscious hospitality.

If she were worried about what others might think of her housekeeping, it didn’t show, and it certainly didn’t keep her from opening her home for a good cause.

I used to get really uptight whenever I was expecting company. I’d clean and scrub and polish and organize (and sometimes even sew and paint and landscape) for weeks in advance, snapping at anyone and everyone who got in my way or undid my work.

I was much more of a Martha than a Mary, and I consequently missed out on many opportunities for sweet fellowship, joyful service, and gentle encouragement.

Learning a better way

But over the years, God has changed this attitude. Maybe that home show assured me the world would not come screeching to a halt if I opened my house to guests when it was less than picture-perfect. Maybe adding eight or nine more children to the mix convinced me that having a picture-perfect home is not my highest goal, anyway.

I still love to entertain. Or maybe I should say, I love to extend hospitality. And I still love to tackle big projects before I do, racing the clock to see how much I can finish before the big event.

The difference is that now I do it with a smile on my face and a song in my heart — and a lot of helpers, young and old, at my side. And if the guests arrive before we finish loading the dishwasher (or planting the pansies or painting the baseboards), we leave the work for another day, grateful for what we got accomplished, but happy to take a break and fellowship with good friends who, after all, have come to see us, not our house.