House Rules: Rosemary's Reminders and Rules of Real (unconventional) Hospitality

House Rules

To start, I’m very type A and borderline OCD about the neatness of my house. Everything has its place. I have all my DVDs alphabetized and one day would love to alphabetize all the books on my shelf, by author, subject, title, etc. However, I’m writing this post to myself as a future reminder to reference and to whomever else just happens to be reading it as well.

I’m tired of making mental excuses for why people can’t just pop in and out of my house for mutual encouragement and community in the Lord.  Now, I’m a huge advocate for family time, probably more than most people are. If something isn’t helpful for all members of our family or simply doesn’t fit into our family’s schedule, we choose family time over that event, invite, etc. I think family time should be guarded and valued, but I also think our homes should also have a sense of openness to those God places in our lives as well. As I’ve been thinking about this particular subject, the lyric of a Mandisa song (yeah, haven’t listened to Mandisa in a looong time, so not sure where that random reference came in) comes to mind: “What if We were Real.” Authenticity. That’s what people are looking for, searching for, and longing for, actually. Authentic relationships are what spring out of hospitality done right, where the main things are kept the main things and everything else is just there.

A lot of what is written below is a tad bit sassy. Some of it is meant in jest, so read it in good humor, without jumping up to take offense. All of it, however, is true. Let’s not lower the standard for what is acceptable; rather, let’s work together to put the most importance back on the most important part(s) of life and allow all the rest to be what they are.

Without further ado, here’s a list I’m entitling “Rosemary’s Reminders and Rules of Real (unconventional) Hospitality”:

1.     Hospitality is (should be!) a matter of the condition of one’s heart, not one’s home.

2.     Family comes first. If you haven’t honored your family with the gift of your presence, quality time, kindness, forgiveness, whatever it is they need from you, etc., then you aren’t appropriately prepared to honor guests in your home. Honor family first in as many ways as possible. Honor others with the overflow.

3.     Don’t apologize for the condition of your home to your guests. You live that way, so you must be comfortable in it. Stop apologizing for or explaining away your way of life to guests in your home. They don’t know you or your life behind closed doors. They aren’t tracking the minutes of your day. Explanations are frivolous information to them. Apologies are ridiculous and set a weird train of thought in the mind of your guests (Guests may think, “Do I remark how great the place looks anyway? Do I tell them my house looks worse, even though it doesn’t?” etc...)

4.     If you do still feel an overwhelming need to apologize or explain away the condition or cleanliness of your home, do it to your family members. They’re the ones that live there. They are the real guests of honor.  Just because they live there daily doesn’t make them less honorable; it makes them more honorable. Also, don’t be shy to enlist their help to make changes around the home, if needed. After all, if it isn’t your mess, it’s probably theirs to deal with in the first place anyway. Haha. But for real though. Think about it.

5.     Your house should not be magazine clean. Period. If you want a magazine clean house, don’t be surprised when you get magazine clean friends. (i.e. ones that comment briefly on how they love everything in your house, then throw you away when next month’s edition comes out) Ok, that came off sounding harsh. All I meant by it was this – an over-focus on surface-y issues will produce surface-y relationships and friendships.. There’s nothing wrong with having nice things and taking care of them, just choose wisely what you put all of your focus on.

6.     Guests don’t come over to your house solely for a meal. They go to restaurants for that. They come over for the community and the mutual encouragement in the Lord that you, your household, and your home environment provide. Spend more time readying your heart before the Lord, asking Him to put a watch over your words and attitude, than you spend on preparing the meal.

7.     Embrace humor. Not humor at others’ expense. Not humor that is in the popular TV shows and media, that often makes light of God’s design and God’s commands. Rather, if the meal doesn’t go as planned, be ready to tell guests that Thursday nights at 6 p.m. are when you regularly check the smoke detectors in the house and that you’re glad they could join in on this weekly family tradition. Or that charcoal black isn’t just slimming in the fashion industry; it’s also been proven to have slimming effects in the culinary arts arena as well. You get the idea.

8.     Laundry. Everyone has stacks of it laying around their house on any given day – even on “laundry day” during that miraculous 20 minutes where every clothing and linen item in the house is clean, including the items you’re currently wearing. I’m definitely not saying to air your dirty laundry in front of others; but at the same time, don’t try to do weird things with it - like shove it in the pantry – when guests come over. We all know that everyone wears clothes and underwear everyday, so don’t try to be super-human about it. If you’re not wearing clothes and underwear everyday, that’s your prerogative too (and some information for a completely separate blog for another day/time). It just makes guests ask more (mental) questions than ever.

9.     Dishes in the sink. They’re there. Because we eat on them. Three, if not more, times a day. Yes, we wash them. Daily, even. But then we eat again. We like to eat. It sustains our lives. We don’t like to do the dishes. Our lives will be sustained quite easily without doing the dishes. We can go for quite the while with the rinse, leave in the sink, and move-on-with-our-lives method with our dishes. Sometimes, our sinks (yes, both of them) tend to get full by incorporating this method as a go-to routine in our family life. We’re okay with that. We hope you are too. If you’re not okay with it, you’re welcome to wash the dishes in our sink, at any given time, for us. We won’t be offended if you do, but we’re guessing you won’t touch our dishes. We’re betting your sink has the same amount of dishes. Calling your name. At your house. Right now.

10. Breastfeeding. I’m a stay-at-home, breastfeeding mom. Which means I stay at home and breastfeed my child. (I do a hundred million other things, too, but this is the one I’m focusing on for the moment.) Let’s face it. We all get cranky when we’re hungry. At my house we call it hangry (angry+hunger). My newborn (okay, almost 4 month old) is no exception. She gets hungry. She gets cranky. She gets hangry. And when she does, I feed her in the most natural, God-given way possible. I realize that I don’t have to do it in front of you. I could though. After all, I have a cover that was purchased for me from my baby registry for times like that. But no worries. To lessen the uncomfortableness for all, I have many other rooms in my house that I can excuse myself and my baby to while guests are here. And I just may have to do that. So be patient, please. Help yourself to anything in the fridge while you wait. Or, again, those dishes in the sink haven’t gone anywhere in a while. Be my guest. :0) No matter what you do in the downtime, we can all agree: nobody likes a hangry baby. First things first.

11.  Prayer. And I’m not just talking about the prayer around the dinner table to thank God for the food, fun, and fellowship, although that’s a given in our household. One much older couple friend of our family has taught me this by example: Pray over those who frequent your house upon their departure. This basically means that once the evening is coming to a close, you pray for the guests who have graciously visited your house. You can pray with them and for them, or you can pray over them and do it once they leave, if you’re more comfortable with that. Either way, lift up your friends in prayer – real, heart-wrenching prayer for them, their family, their struggles, and their spiritual needs.

12.  Hospitality is a Biblical pursuit. Here’s just a few examples:

Romans 12:13 “contributing to the needs of the saints, practicing hospitality”

1 Peter 4:9 “Be hospitable to one another without complaint.”

And these ones…. Which take hospitality to a whole new level… and which would require another blog for another time… :0)

Hebrews 13:2 “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it.”

Romans 12:20 “But if your enemy Is hungry, feed him, and if he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in so doing, you will heap burning coals on his head.”


*BONUS* 13. If you choose to play board games with your guests, keep in mind that it truly doesn't matter who wins and who loses. Unless it's your husband that loses, then it matters a great deal. ;0)

All in all, hospitality is for mutual encouragement, keeping the main things the main things, and giving honor where honor is due. Next time, remember this and don't get lost in the trap of making essentials out of nonessential, inconsequential, temporal matters.

 What other reminders/rules would you add to this list?