Early on in our marriage, Doug started making comments like, “We should invite ______ to come over for dinner sometime”.  With a nervous smirk I would reply, “uhhh yeah.. That would probably be nice”.  The hesitation easily overlooked by our stargazed, love stricken eyes but the welling up of doom in the pit of my stomach was quite obvious… at least to me of course.  Like are we seriously going to be “those” people now. Hosting BBQs on the back patio with our mocktails & Ritz crackers with cheez wiz as appetizers. Jesus, I’m going to need a whole lot more church just to digest the consideration.  I mean, our taj mah hall won’t be acknowledged as the true palace it is by other spectators. Lets just be real here. Our well-loved double wide was hard enough to come to terms with by those of us that were so blessed to be enslaved by the abounding debt that held us to it. But since the Lord directed us to make this our home, we did that with our entire heart.  To put that kind of thing out there for others to ridicule, judge, or even just look at us differently now.. That was a kind of vulnerability that I couldn’t quite get my head around just yet. Learning to invite people into our sanctuary was a foreign concept for the “new” me.  “Old” me did so many naughty things in private that the lingering  shame choked out new opportunities often. But “what counts is whether we have been transformed into a new creation”  Gal 6:15 NLT  and holy moly was I a new species for sure. 

So when Doug jumped directly to, “Great lets invite them over next weekend.  We could grill some blah, blah, blah… & make such & such….”  his voice coming from a tunnel now because fear had gripped me by the throat and was showing no mercy.  Struggling to maintain composure since he decided to call my bluff and due to the fact that every excuse failed me, I conceded to said arrangements.  The gift of loving someone that is different then you is that they assist you even when you don’t ask them to.  Truth be told though we aren’t really super uber different. I mean yes, he’s a guy and I am NOT. But for the “big things” in life we are very very like minded. Honestly, just not so much in delivery methods. So he delivered to me a new opportunity that literally sent me into a whirlwind spiral of feelings, thoughts, and actions.  What do I cook? What food do I have that I can cook? What money do we have to get food to cook? How do i cook? What ‘s my name again….AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH. Why? Why do people need to come to our house? Can’t we meet them at a restaurant. That’s worked fine up until now. Wait a sec…… people are coming to our house… this house…. What about the hole in the laundry room floor? And have you seen the kids’ rooms lately? What about that floor vent that I just broke in the sitting room? I mean it is in the first room that you enter…and omg… the door.. The door has been rigged with a jigsaw blade since the psycho neighbor lady broke in that time to pay me back from when my dog got out of the broke down fence & attacked her dog even though the police could never prove it was her. Oh yeah, when they dusted for fingerprints, they are the ones that left evidence… I know, I know. Fingerprint dust does not stain…. Ohhhhhhhh but it does… so there’s that. YUP all in the entryway of our lil’ piece of heaven on Earth. Oh the agony… day after day until the BIG day finally made its appearance. The yelling, the vacuuming, the swoosh of toys, tools, pans, GOD-ONLY-KNOWS what else being hidden in any available crevice that couldn’t possibly be exposed to our completely invited guests, the fumes of rage pluming from every crevice of my not so hidden being… WHY WHY WHY??? Why am I doing this? To make Doug happy? To be a better person? Christ, I don’t know why!!! GOD… WHY???? Despite my every attempt to sabotage it; the event came & went. Do I remember what we ate? Do I remember a single syllable of the conversation? Nope. I do remember the nausea, the anxiety, & then finally the relief when it was time for them to leave. I remember them never bringing up the broken vent or the jimmied door.  I remember their kind chuckles & their gratitude for us inviting them into our world. I remember how complementary they were on how peaceful our home was. I remember feeling encouraged despite all the undones that we got to share our “faith for” testimonies. This experience would be one of many to come, each with its own set of new stipulations. That’s right, folks. We lived through it. We grew. We built friendships. We built family and we built community. 

You want to know the one easy step to the most perfectly clean house.  It is: don’t live in it. You heard me. Don’t live in it.  Set up all your beautiful trinkets to put on display in your museum ..oops, I meant to say house.  But if you desire to build a life; a home, a family, full of friendships and community, then you’re going to have to allow people in while the repairs are still being made. And don’t worry, when the repairs get to a place of being mangeable, you graduate to the renovation. And boy oh boy… we’ll save that for another time.  

‘You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.’ John 15:3-4