No Toilets? No Problem

No Toilets? No Problem

Don’t forget to show hospitality to strangers, for some who have done this have entertained angels without realizing it!

Hebrews 13:2

Aaron and I live near a large park that hosts, on one Friday every June, thousands of people for an outdoor concert. Our house is close enough to the park that we can set chairs out in our shady backyard and enjoy the music without the crowds and the unrelenting sun, and one year we talked about inviting our friends and people from the neighborhood to bring a chair and join us in the backyard.

Of course, that was while we had toilets. In the weeks after that conversation, we undertook what I thought would be a simple remodeling project in two of our three bathrooms—resulting in a house that was in disarray and had only one working toilet the week of the event. This improvement project wasn’t supposed to interfere with our party, but life isn’t always predictable.

As Aaron worked to get the tiki torches installed, I wandered outside to revisit our party plans. “Honey, I’ve been rethinking this party,” I began. He turned to me with a slight grin. “Don’t you turn into an introvert on me!” When I reminded him that we were down to one toilet and had a house that felt like it had been flipped upside down and inside out, he softly said, “I think we should go ahead anyway.”

He was right. Life is unpredictable. There will never be a perfect time to invite others into our homes and into our lives. If we wait until the time feels just right, we will be waiting forever and missing valuable opportunities to love others in the meantime. When we practice hospitality by opening up our lives and homes to those around us, including people outside our normal circles of friends, we allow God to do a work in our midst. And as Hebrews 13:2 tells us, we might even be entertaining angels unwittingly.

—Julie

— Today’s Act of Kindness —

What invitation have you been putting off because you’ve been waiting for the “perfect” time? Prayerfully reconsider your timing as compared to God’s timing, and extend the invitation anyway.