A Fresh View on Guests

Even though we've been married for over 7 years and we have parents come and stay often, we don't get many friends that stay over. So, when they do, we love it!

In April we had some friends from New York in town for a wedding and they stayed with us for a night. It was such a fantastic treat. I went to high school with Sarah and met her husband when we all were dating over 10 years ago. Now they are in the stage of parenting a newborn. It's a beautiful season in their lives and even though we live so far away, we've been so blessed to be able to share a little of it with them.

You say 'baby' to the boys and they immediately get excited. But, then you add on that another Joseph is coming, and boy the stakes go up! Samuel and Joseph have an S and a J over their beds respectively and Sarah and Joe were going to be sleeping in their beds. How appropriate. This, to two boys engrossed with their letters, is HUGE.

In preparation for their arrival, we picked up and cleaned, but instead of running around the house like crazy trying to make our home look like something it never looks like, and make a new working mom feel completely inadequate, I wanted to take this opportunity to teach the boys a fresh perspective on preparing for our guests... to pray for them.

This is something I often neglect, but after reading this series from Passionate Homemaking how I prepare for visitors has a new focus. Here is the post on her blog that expresses this idea better than I ever could.

So before they came, instead of shooting for perfection, we focused on praying for these things:

Safe travel – Pray for comfort and joy as they travel.
Encouragement – Pray for wisdom on ways you can specifically encourage them.
Refreshment – Travel can be exhausting. Pray that they would feel more refreshed when they leave than when they arrived.
Connection – Pray for good conversations and meaningful memories.
Blessing – Pray for God’s grace in their lives and an ever deepening relationship with Him.

Even when we had a few emotional melt downs (the kids, not me), had finger prints all over our walls, the yard was a mess, and our guests had to help out with dinner or else we would have eaten at 9pm, they felt loved and cared for. Mission accomplished.

It was such a fresh, godly perspective on having others in our home and it truly changed the way I viewed their visit. It gave us all an opportunity to bless them by choosing to not focus on the physical preparations of their arrival, but the spiritual.

And even though during this season of our lives, our parents are able to bless us way more than we can bless them, we will now be more attentive to pray for their time here as well.

We love you Joe and Sarah and baby Christian! You are so special to us. Thanks for being such awesome friends!