Include

Include

Most important of all, continue to show deep love for each other, for love covers a multitude of sins.

“HONEY, I INVITED THE NEIGHBORS to join us tonight for dinner on the patio.”

In a perfect world, Aaron’s statement would have been the prelude to a peaceful, lovely evening of quiet conversation and the melt-in-your-mouth steaks Aaron grills to perfection.

What Mark and Elizabeth received was a distracted, rowdy experience as Aaron and I simultaneously tried to engage in polite conversation while cajoling our toddler and preschooler to sit nice, chew with mouths closed, and not tell our neighbors about body parts and the proper anatomical names we’d been practicing.

It was pure chaos, and I regretted our invitation until Mark gave me a giant bear hug at the end of the evening, thanking me for including them with tears shining in his eyes. I suddenly realized that our boisterous dinner was a delightful change to their empty nest, and I resolved to include them in our family more often.

I adore my children, but I worry whether my childless friends want to be included in the zanier moments that are sometimes our real life. And so I tend to make the choice for them, excluding them from events I think they wouldn’t want to attend.

The thing is, life with kids is chaotic and loud and exasperating and hilarious and poignant and sweet. If I exclude someone from giant parts of my life for fear that she will be uncomfortable or annoyed by it, then am I really her friend? And is she really mine?

What if, instead, I freely extended invitations and offered inclusion, allowing her to decide whether she wants to yell excitedly along soccer field sidelines and give standing ovations to middle school plays?

Intentional including goes far beyond the parent/nonparent issue. I’m continually surprised at how often people say an enthusiastic yes to an invitation to join Aaron’s and my ordinary life. People, it seems, are just waiting to be invited, longing to be included. And, as followers of Jesus, we’re the ones tasked with inclusion.

Lord, bring to mind those we have excluded because of differences in marital status, children/no children, age, wealth, culture, or religion. Help us focus on similarities, offering inclusion based on commonalities. Amen.

-Julie

One Good Step: Extend an invitation to someone in a different life stage than you.