Open Door, Open Heart

On learning to live open-hearted with an open door.

By Sarah Styles Bessey

Blog: www.emergingmummy.com | Twitter: @emergingmummy

Once upon a time … I was a good housekeeper.

No, I take that back.

I was an immaculate housekeeper.

Every Saturday morning, I scrubbed our beautiful little bungalow. I cleaned baseboards weekly. I washed the insides of cupboards and Windexed the sinks until they shone.  People would come over and I would scrub the house all over again before they got there. Having friends over would stress me out if the house wasn’t perfect, so I didn’t have anyone over. After all, it was hard to entertain properly, you understand. Entertaining meant the house was spotless, the lovely meal was prepared–in short, it meant a lot of work, a lot of striving for perfect.

When we sold our house, in the advertisement, the first words were: “This house is absolutely immaculate and like new.”

I was thrilled about that. And I was completely missing the point of a home.

One day, I went over to a fellow pastor’s home. His wife is one of my favourite people–the kind of woman that makes you think, “I’d like to be like her when I grow up.” She had a houseful of teenagers, worked full-time, was active at church and still somehow exuded a peace and calm that I envied. When I walked in the door, she hollered hello from the kitchen. There were teenagers in every room because all of her daughters’ friends liked to hang out there. Heck, I liked to hang out there.

The house was a little messy and lived-in. It was a bit loud sometimes. The level of comfort was high–you could put you feet on the furniture, you could grab a drink from the fridge without asking, you could drop in any time and know you were welcome, even if the laundry was unfolded.

I headed to the kitchen and she waved me over to a pile of carrots with instructions to wash and chop them all. We worked away in the kitchen and while our hands were busy, we talked and laughed and I even cried a bit about something. For some reason, working together made it easier to be ourselves together. When I remarked on how at home I felt at her place, like I was just one of the family, she laughed easily and said, “Oh, Sarah–that’s the difference between hospitality and entertaining. You are family.”

Years later, my house can no longer be described as immaculate. There are fingerprints (and nose prints, if we’re being real here) on every window about two and a half feet up. There are little girl tea sets on my shelves and highchairs strapped to my kitchen chairs. There is food stuck in the carpet and there’s that never-ending pile of laundry. (Do you have any idea how much laundry five people can generate? Hint: EPIC AMOUNTS OF LAUNDRY.)

And yet, I’ve never had more of an open door or more joy in my home. My friend was right–there is a world of difference between entertaining guests and practicing hospitality as a family. And, as believers, we are called to Hospitality. I learned to think of hospitality as making someone feel like part of the family. It’s not stilted or perfect or prescripted; its messy and real, no masks allowed. You’re not a guest, darling, you’re family. It’s working together, laughing together. We call it “tucking someone into your life” at our house.

I finally realised this truth: People aren’t here to see the house. And even if they are, I’ll just give them something fun to talk about behind my back then.  No, people are here in our homes and in our lives for relationship, for a glimpse of Jesus in each other. So I open my doors, welcome them in and let their kids dump the toybox out in the hallway. We yak over a cuppa tea, they change their babies on my carpets, we have Veggie Tales dance parties. And then we pick up a bit and go to the playground or draw on the driveway with sidewalk chalk.

Besides, having a clean house isn’t as much fun because approximately 2.46 seconds after I clean it, a Three-Tinies-Tornado blows through, leaving Rice Krispies and socks and fingerprints behind. When it was just the two of us in our 1,500 sq ft house, it was immaculate and easy to maintain and I never had people over if I could help it. Now I live with five people and we have friends with their mini-vans full of kids that come over, mail ladies that stop in after they drop their flyers off, babies rolling all over the floor and toddlers splashing in the bathtub hollering for more bubbles. There’s  dishwashers that need emptying, supper boiling over on the stove and toast crumbs from breakfast still on the countertops. We eat popcorn on the couch and the doorbell is ringing with neighbour girls that want to hang out with my eldest and my husband is laughing with our neighbour across the street.

When I gave birth to our third baby, my neighbours stocked our fridge and I could hardly breathe for the richness of community. I am still me (meaning, I still need my alone time) but I’ve released the need to be perfect before I open the doors of our life. And that, my dear, is almost a sermon in itself.

My friend taught me how to live open-handed, open-hearted with an open door to the people God will bring to you. Now we are living in our house, tucking each one we can into our family and the family of God.

About Sarah:

Sarah Styles Bessey lives in Abbotsford, BC with her husband and three tinies. She’s a happy clappy Jesus-lover, non-profit marketing director, blogger and simple living/social justice wannabe. She blogs at www.emergingmummy.com and tweets from @emergingmummy.

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