A Welcoming Place

A Welcoming Place

Accept each other just as Christ has accepted you so that God will be given glory. Romans 15:7

This verse from Romans is full of meaning and promise for those of us who endeavor to make a home. In the original language, the word accept means “to welcome.” So this verse is saying to us, “Welcome one another, as Christ has welcomed you.”

Actress Jane Seymour’s mother was born in the Netherlands and had lived in Dutch Indonesia. There she endured three and a half years in a Japanese concentration camp and vowed that if she and her friends survived, they and their future children would always open their homes to one another. As a result, this remarkable woman has had a very open, warm home, and even as a widow in her nineties, she still welcomes and cooks for a continuous stream of friends, family, and other visitors. The ripples of her hospitality have gone further than she would ever have imagined.

Everyone desires to be wanted and included, so opening our doors to others meets a great need. The fact that most cities have an ample number of motels, hotels, fast-food franchises, and other restaurants doesn’t mean people don’t need home cooking! If you are a single woman, you may think a welcoming home includes a family and children or at least a certain standard of housing, but it doesn’t have to. You can welcome people into a small apartment or a dorm room. The single women I’ve known who have had the most interesting, fulfilling lives are those who invite others to share whatever they have in whatever places they live. They make room in their busy lives to practice hospitality wherever they are. And as they do, they, too, are refreshed and filled. —CHERI

Lord, give me your Spirit of welcome, acceptance, and love for people. Help me to make room in my life to be sensitive to the needs of others and to invite them into my home.

When there is room in the heart there is room in the house.

—DANISH PROVERB