Hi Mommas!

I remember it was around October of 2013 when I was leading our large homeschool group, and it was growing so fast that I decided to take on a leadership team to help me. With the decision to bring on a leadership team a lot of changes ensued, and ideas to help us GROW our group and I knew then God was sending people to us and that I had a large responsibility to help mesh these women, kiddos, and families together for his good. Now at the time, I was still trusting HIM, I didn’t know exactly for what but just trusting and allowing him to use me as a tool to bring people together.

I was blessed by two women of God that had prior leadership experience in the church, homeschooling background, and even experience in a Christian school. God orchestrated it ALL,  now that I look back on it. One of the many awesome suggestions my fantastic leadership mommas had was to hold a monthly moms meeting for support to one another.

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We talked about a couple of options, but what we finally decided on as a permanent solution was meeting in my home. Now here’s the interesting part, I never told these women this during our planning stages, but this was fearfully paralyzing to me. So as we planned I agreed outwardly and squirmed inside! So here was the deal; I suffered from a spirit of perfectionism. I know some of you might have just eye rolled, and that’s ok, I know it sounds so silly! But I honestly have missed out on so many opportunities in life because the situation wasn’t perfect or ideal. Has this ever happened to any of you?


I needed to figure out…

How to Host for Others Even If You Aren’t Ready

Let’s go a little deeper even, as I learned and grew from my experiences of leading our homeschool group and learning from all these other people and situations that God was putting in front of me; I was often reminded of how we are designed for relationship with each other. With friends, our community – church community, neighbors, homeschoolers, maybe your co-workers, your family is an obvious one, but we are designed for relationship. God wants us “out there” doing life together.

2 Corinthians 12:9 NIVBut he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.

As I was reminded of that, I had to “re-wire” my thinking, for lack of better words. I had to remind myself what was important and learn how to push past my flesh wanting to say “no I can’t do this.”  I was paralyzed with fear that when I opened my home to these women, I would be judged – my house wasn’t nice enough, it wasn’t clean enough when was the last time I cleaned these baseboards?!? I could see my dirt! Now here’s what’s so funny – people teased me about how clean and organized my house is all the time! But in my head, it wasn’t good enough. If I just had more time and money I could perfect the baseboards, and the carpet has these spots that needed professional cleaning, and ugh they will see my kitchen really could use a total remodel…I could go on and on! Don’t get me started on the anxiety I had every meeting when more people RSVPd than I had chairs for! Panic attack, where would they all sit? Do you get the idea?

Let Them See Your Dirt; You are Hosting with Him in Mind!

But the truth is, if I waited to host them until it was all perfect I would have missed all of it! I would have missed all those laughs, all those moms that showed up for the 1st time and cried to us all that they just needed a support system; they needed to share and be heard – they just needed us. I saw some wonderful friendships form right there at my dining room table. I would have missed meeting each one of those moms right there in my dining room WITH the dirt on the baseboards that only I could see. I am still friends with some of the most special women to this day that we met in my dining room month after month. We need each other, the homeschool community and fellow mommas need us to open our homes to each other.

So this season and always – open your home no matter what imperfections may exist and let them see your dirt! I guarantee you that genuine women don’t care about your dirt, they are looking for friendships, connections, and support from each other.Sometimes we have to be vulnerable to help others. God doesn’t want us only showing our “perfections”, he makes us strong in HIM once we open up our weaknesses to others and ourselves for that matter.  God wants us to step out there no matter what stages we are in. Some of us are more reluctant than others to just open our homes and host, but Pray about it and let God lead you. I wasn’t a great host by nature, I didn’t have a plan but God did, and he used me. People don’t want to see us be perfect; they just want sincere connections. God will grow you and use you when you step out in faith for his purpose even if it may be in just a small way of opening your home up to others.

Lord, I pray if anyone is reading this and they have ever struggled with anxiety or perfectionism getting in the way of doing life, getting in the way of serving, or any other way that keeps them from being their best that you release them from that stronghold today! Place on their hearts to see that YOU make them perfect in their weaknesses! Amen

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