Hospitality in the Midst of Nothing to Give Today

Cold chills.  Shakes.  Tinglies throughout my body.  Slept all day with brief periods of awakeness.  My head hurts like someone is hammering the back of my head.  Got the sweats.  I'm not sick.  But today hasn't been a good day.  For me to sleep all day long, you know something isn't right.

I haven't read.  I haven't watched my soaps.  I haven't cooked.  I haven't done anything other than sleep.  I feel like a slug.  I hope I'm going to be able to sleep tonight after sleeping the entire day away.  Seriously, I was up for maybe a total of an hour all day today when I ate leftover pizza for lunch.

I've got to make chili so Al has something to eat for dinner, but I'm still so groggy and out of it, I don't know how I'm going to do that.

During one of my periods of awakeness, Corri called and asked me to call her Indiana lawyer about getting another continuance on her court case because of rehab and out patient therapy.  Lawyer's secretary doesn't work on Fridays and lawyer wasn't in either.  Left a message with my number to get a call back.

That is the absolute only thing I have accomplished today.  Like I said - slug.  Oh, I did manage to do the five dishes that were in the sink during one of my periods of awakeness.  Still a slug.

Before I started feeling so poorly, Al and I had a come to Jesus meeting this morning.  He shut off the television and listened to all I had to say about getting Corri's room ready for her to come back on Sunday, which means vacuuming and arranging the furniture so it's welcoming and she can feel like it's her space.  His work stuff needs to be shoved into a corner and her bed needs turned and dresser put back so she can put her stuff away.  I told him I don't care what it takes, if I have to go to TJ Maxx and buy a little nightstand or another chest of drawers for her, then that's what I'll do.  It won't match and it won't be pretty, but at least it will be functional and give her a place for her stuff.

I told him we need to get into our bedroom and get all the crap up off the floors.  I need help putting my hanging sweater organizer together so I can fold my sweaters and get them off the desk.  We need to rewash all the things on the floor.  Get the stereo out of that room so I can move my jewelry armoire and get my jewelry put into it.  We need to get the Goodwill bag of clothes out of there and into the car to drop at Goodwill on Monday.  Let's get stuff up and out of here.  Let's wash the shelves in the master bathroom closet so we have a place to put our linens.  We've got plastic tubs filled with stuff all over the house.  They need to get gone.  If we have to buy a bigger storage unit to store our stuff, then that's what we'll have to do.

He listened to everything I said, including the fact that there will be no more lazy Saturdays where he stays in his pajamas and monkeys around on his computer, playing games or reading his sex stories.  Enough is enough.  He is a major procrastinator and he's worse than I am.  It needs to stop.  Nothing will get done otherwise.

I told him he is on me about curtailing my spending and other than buying the bible study books, which I told him about, my spending has been curtailed.  But this is his "spending" that needs to be curtailed.  He spends time.  He does nothing. 

I don't know if he is serious about making these changes, but we will see.  He sent me a planner from work and had me type out all these things we discussed.  It's a start.

I'm trying really hard to do this entry for today.  It's difficult because I'm not concentrating very well.  That's how out of it I am.  But I don't want to skip a day.  I'm in the habit of writing and I don't want one day to ruin that for me.

The Sisterchicks devotional for today had a really lovely little vignette about true hospitality.  Hospitality really means "love of strangers."  In the story section of the devotional, the writer talks about how she was a guest in someone's home in Amsterdam, and one night, in the middle of the night, they took in a stranger who came to them for refuge.  There was nowhere for her to sleep except with the writer, so she wound up sharing her bed with a complete stranger who didn't even speak English.  The stranger slept that night, and all day the next day, recouperating from whatever had befallen her in her quest to arrive at this safe place she was now in.  She didn't awaken until later that night to come down and have something to eat, but this same stranger, who as being shown hospitality by the host family, gave the writer a gift of her own hospitality.  She brought her a glass of juice, then sat down on the bed beside her and proceeded to sing for her, in the loveliest, clearest voice the writer had ever heard.  This girl had nothing but the clothes on her back, and yet, she was able to be hospitable and show love to the stranger with whom she was sharing a bed in the simple act of a glass of juice and using the gift of her voice.

I had to sit and think about when I've been shown true hospitality.  The thought that keeps coming to mind was my very first trip to New Orleans for my brother-in-law's funeral.  I was family by marriage, yet, I was a virtual stranger to my in-laws, whom I'd never met, and it was clear by sight that my family, who was still living in a cramped FEMA trailer after Hurricane Katrina, didn't have a lot to share, but my mother-in-law welcomed me nonetheless.  She gave what she had to make me feel comfortable and part of the family.

When have I shown hospitality to a stranger?  I can't even remember.  Maybe in my 20s when Amy and I lived in our apartment.  We showed hospitality to a number of strangers in some of the Navy guys we brought home with us.  Granted, we wound up sleeping with a number of them, too, and some turned into boyfriends, but these were strangers to us.  We didn't have much, but we opened our home to them and gladly shared what we did have - it just so happened that we probably shared too much at that point in our lives when our promiscuity was at its highest point.

Too many people think that true hospitality is all about making a beautiful house, having dishes that match and silverware that matches, and putting out a spread to beat all spreads.  They are totally missing the point.  Certainly it's nice if you have that ability to have all those things, but the real hospitality comes in the form of the love of that stranger and how welcome you make them feel when you give from your gifts of what you do have to give.

I can't make excuses for my lack of hospitality these days.  I mean, I could.  Like how my mother has made me feel that our home is less than adequate because of all the clutter and the lack of things we should have, but I can't really blame her.  This falls squarely on my shoulders.  The embarassment of how this place looks is the reason why I don't invite people to our home.  It's something I'm going to have to get over.  I don't care that my dishes and silverware match.  I've been made to care about the boxes stacked in every room of the house and the piles of stuff on the floors pretty much everywhere.  Those things shouldn't matter if I'm showing true and authentic love to strangers in my home. 

My home is what it is.  It isn't big and beautiful like my brother's home, but what little we have, I would gladly share with people.  That is the heart of hospitality.  Now, I just need to get over the appearance.  I'm working on it.

In many respects, dieting is like a washing away of fat.  What greater joy is thre than to step up on the scales and see the pointer a few marks to the left of where it was acouple days before.  When we lose, we feel cleansed, and the cleansing is not just physical.  Emotionally we begin to feel better about ourselves.  Our guilt, our poor self-image, our pain all begin to wash away, too.  This is the best washing of all.  We are renewed both inside andout, and we become a fitting and holy temple, a righteous dwelling place for the Lord!

Today's thought:  Each pound lost cleanses me physically, spiritually, and mentally!

Truer words were never spoken, but it strikes me as sad that our self-image and self-esteem are so tied up in our weight.  Yes, I want to lose the extra person I'm carrying around with me, for sure, and I know it's going to make me feel better, but I also know that I need to learn to like and love myself for who I am, and how I am.  God loves me all the time, and he wants me to love myself, not only when I'm losing weight to make myself better, but also right now.  I need God's help to be cleansed physically, and spiritually and mentally, not just when I'm dieting, but all the time.