You gotta love guests bearing gifts! We had Jeromy's new boss over for dinner with his wife and daughter. His wife happens to be a florist and blessed us with my all-time favorite bouquet of flowers....TULIPS! I was so excited to see them. Jeromy and I got married in March which was so providential because it coincides with tulip season. I carried tulips and we had bouquets in the church as well. They are so happy and cheerful and remind me that spring will be here before we know it. Last week we had a single man from church over for dinner who is a winemaker. What we didn't know is that the wine tasting room has leftover wine every night that they just throw away if they can't find anything to do with it. Can you imagine? What a travesty! When he found out we enjoy a nice glass of wine, he promised to bring us some to church. Hospitality is not something you do to get anything but fellowship out of, but gifts are always nice :D
Friday, January 18, 2008
Hospitality Made Easy
Posted by Samantha at 8:36 AM
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
Hey! I'm going to hijack today's blog with a quiverfull question, if that is okay. Do you have many friends that are allowing God to plan their families? I think this is my biggest struggle right now. I have to squelch my desire to talk to all my girlfriends about this new mindset because I want them to have the same lightbulb moment I did! I realize we may not have a lot of support in this decision and I will have to lean on Jesus more because of that, I just want some other families like us around! Do you struggle with this at all?
You can email me if you would rather answer off-blog. Thanks! Rebekah
Rebekah,
This has definitely been a journey and a process to get to the good place we are now. When God first revealed His will to us, we were so excited and started talking to everyone about trusting Him with their fertility. We quickly found out that no one wants to talk about that, and we pretty much lost all of our friends that we had at the time.
We quieted down with the rhetoric and a couple of people came to us to talk about it which was really neat. I really struggled during that first year or two of being judgmental toward people who only had 2 children or chose to stop having any. Everyone I looked at in a store or on the street with small families I assumed didn't trust God like I did. It was a very sinful attitude.
God led us to a church where there were many great homeschooling families who trusted God with their family size. Some of those families were large, some were small, and some were not able to have any children. God really opened my eyes to the fact that it is a heart matter, not one of family size. We don't just want alot of kids, we want how many kids that God knows is best for us. It was wonderful to fellowship with like-minded people during that time and we grew and learned so much from them.
Over time, I felt love and compassion fill my heart to replace the criticism and judgment that had been there before. I felt like God wanted my life to be the example to people, more than my words. I have still had conversations with people who are interested in talking about it, but I don't come to people in the place of the Holy Spirit anymore.
We now live in WA and it was hard to leave that community that we grew so fond of. When we moved here we became stalkers of 13 passenger vans! We were looking for like minded people and wanted to know where they were going to church. God really answered our prayers and led us to a church with a Quiverfull pastor. There is one other family at our church who is quiverfull as well. I don't think there is anything wrong with wanting your kids to grow up with like minded families and you wanting that support and friendship as well. My theory is, who else are my kids going to marry?
I am very lucky to have another 2 really good friends that are quiverfull. We live across the country from each other now, but are able to talk on the phone whenever we want. That kind of encouragement is so important when you are swimming against the tide of culture.
The National Center for Family-Integrated Churches on the Vision Forum website might be somewhere to look for like minded people. Many families that desire to worship as a family also are quiverfull. Not as a rule, but it is a possibility. http://www.visionforumministries.org/projects/ncfic/
Another idea is the quiverfull.com website. They have a digest that you can subscribe to and post questions like if there are any other like minded families that live in your area. You would be surprised.
Keep seeking the Lord in all these things, Rebekah, and He will supply all your needs.
Thanks for your encouragement. It must have been really hard to leave the community that you had. I can understand how you felt when you used to look at other "smaller" families. I am feeling a bit of the same, however, praise God, I don't feel condemnation for them, I doubt my own convictions! I think Satan is trying to get a foothold by really making me feel like I've misinterpreted what I know to be a new truth God has shown me. (And when I say "I" and "me", I do also mean my husband!) I think that is why I'm feeling a need for validation! We do have some acquaintances that are qf, but most of them are at the other end of the spectrum, they have had many blessings and they are starting to leave the nest. Hopefully I will meet up with some younger like minded families as we start homeschooling this year. I'm praying for that.
Just as a side note, all my kids are 27 months apart too, through no planning on our part! Wonder what the next one will be!
Thanks again.
I have trouble logging into to Google and have to change things every time I try to post a comment. Would you be willing to email me so we could talk through email? Thanks!
Rebekah
I love tulips too. I was just in the grocery store today and they had a beautiful display! It makes me look forward to my upcoming anniversary and the pending tulip bouquet. (I hope you are reading this Mike).
I do want to coment on the qf comments too. Mike and I decided to give our fertility to God during our child bearing years awhile back, maybe a month or so before we concieved. For many reasons, but mostly because we had seen so many couples tortured by infertility and we wanted to trust God with that part of our lives. That being said, families with two children trust too. Mike and I are at a place where we feel that this is the family God has for us. In fact in the last four months I have never once desired to have another baby and neither has Mike. Are kids aren't particularly difficult, our family just feels complete. There are a lot of "issues" I am still working through with being a stay at home mom and it would be a poor decision to enter into another pregnancy without working through who I am and whose I am. So do we trust God enough? I hope so. Yes God can close my womb if we chose not to have protected sex, but that same God gave us free will, and as much as a car accident can be an outcome of running a red light, pregnancy can be an outcome of intercourse.
I fully respect qf families and think the wives are much stronger than I am in so many ways. I will be excited to read how God blesses you in the years ahead!
Rachel, thanks for commenting! I remember going to your wedding a few weeks before our own. It was a nice easing into our big day!
Rebekah, I can't email you from your blogger name. You will have to post your email address when you leave a comment and I will be sure to delete your comment so you don't have others with access to it as well.
Post a Comment