Last week a group of us ventured through several regions and villages of Ukraine, visiting our volunteer partners that serve the widow. Here is my update – click here

Every one of us enjoys feeling welcome and at home. Hospitality is a spiritual grace, a gift from the holy spirit to be experienced whenever, and wherever Jesus people are present.

Churches often regard hospitality in the context of the Sunday gathering. They ask, “Do people feel welcome at our church event?” They place smiling greeters at the door and provide valuable instructions for those first-time visitors who aren’t sure where to go. But is this the essence of hospitality?

Hospitality is first found in the genesis of creation. God, the Gardner creates place, and space, and welcomes life into a place of sustainable flourishing. We belong here, and we know it. Yet, in our fallen state, humanity has adopted a theology of scarcity, believing the best route to personal fulfillment is to hoard, and even steal resources as if they belong to us.

Joong-Sik Park notes in his essay on hospitality is the primary context for evangelism, within which an authentic evangelism takes place. Yet, not in the sense that many evangelicals would suppose. Rather than seeing welcome as a means to an end, the means of welcome is itself the stage from which the love of Jesus is demonstrated in living color. “The Christian Gospel is the Word become flesh. This is more than and other than the Word become speech” (Niles 1951, 96).

Park says, “The whole life of Jesus was that of hospitality”, and as Pohl states, “Jesus gave his life so that persons could be welcomed into the Kingdom” (1999, 29). If God’s own creation wasn’t enough to reveal his heart toward us, Christ in the incarnation makes it crystal clear; we are a loved creation, and the Creator has done everything to welcome us back home.

“In Christian hospitality, the ultimate host is Christ, says Park, and we, as believers, are welcoming neighbors to the table of Christ’s resources, as we together “come as equals” (Pohl 1999, 158).

We, as a family, love to entertain, create space, and allow for human connections in our fragmented, and disconnected world. What we’re learning, however, is that to offer food, and a warm atmosphere is just the beginning of the sacred liturgy that is hospitality. We must incarnate this loving attribute by entering the lives of others and offering ours. It’s one thing to open a door and welcome someone in, it’s quite another to open the heart.

As the weather warms, Deb and I are resuming our walks. It hasn’t rained in a few weeks and the paths are looking quite weathered. I found the cracks interesting, the outer crusty layers breaking open. It’s as if the earth below is preparing to receive, opening up for the coming spring rains.

I’ve been enjoying a season of comfort, and increasing peace. Despite the challenges of carrying Brent through this past year, the ongoing atrophy of a war that continues to hurt those we care about, and processing my mom’s cancer diagnosis, hope is emerging again in the depths of our soul.

Outwardly, I think I still look like this cracking dirt.

The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad;

    the desert shall rejoice and blossom;

Here is your God…. He will come and save you

Isaiah 35:1,4

When Jesus came, he brought heaven’s rain upon the arid hearts of humanity. The thirsty, they will drink, and be made new again. Today, God’s Spirit is our promise. We are filled, and strengthened. Though we are weighed down, sometimes with burdens beyond our abilities to bear, I’m grateful for the hope in the coming rains.

I’m not yet blossoming, I still hurt. I’m not quite rejoicing, I still grieve. Yet, my heart is open to the kindness and mercy of my God. Fill us, Lord, we who are parched, thirsty, and opening up to you today.

My mom has terminal cancer. What was originally thought to be isolated has spread in her bones. The doctors suggest that optimally, she could live a few more years.

A few months prior the diagnosis, Deb and I were talking during a walk together about the future. We’ve been spared, comparatively, a lot of human suffering. We’ve witnessed loss in other families, neighbors, and friends. Yet, for a large family, at least on my side, with sprawling uncles, aunts, and cousins to fill two barns, most of my adult life has been spared the work of death and loss.

If I’m honest, I began to process my mom’s potential departure from this life when she told me last summer that the doctors found a lump. It took so long for the dreaded Canadian healthcare system to get her in for scans. Too long. My mom, I could tell, wasn’t itching to really know the truth, choosing to believe it would just all be dealt with by the professionals. Something inside me, however, began hurting, and praying for her.. and for my own soul that was gearing up for the possibility.

I’ve always been close to my mom. All of us four siblings have cherished her as our biggest cheerleader. She’s always been in our corner, believing in us, even if she was shaking her head. I’m not blogging a eulogy today, but I am trying to embrace the journey of grief. We will all lose loved ones. Even our Jesus wept and grieved over the loss of friends. I remember the first time I heard the phrase, “Feel your feelings.” I found it odd, even offensive at first. How could faith stoop to such a low estate as our own feelings?

Today, however, my faith is becoming content with pain. My faith is growing in ways I wouldn’t have ever believed in the past, when it simply denied my circumstance and clung to outcomes out of fear. Faith in the resurrection love of Jesus is comforting in the valley, the dining table is set in dark places. I will not fear.

I’m grateful that my mom is a believer, and this journey for her will undoubtedly be the most treasured one of all as she lives into the moments that we so easily take for granted. I pray our whole family learns to love more authentically and hurt the way we should now, so that we can be truly liberated in the freedom that removes death’s sting. To die before we die. To let go before we’re forced to surrender. This is the stuff of formation, and I choose grief, by faith, knowing I am truly comforted when my heart is truly broken.

Praying for wisdom for our family in Romania, to value her remaining time, plan the way we should with trips to Canada, and for the Lord’s mercy to overshadow us all. May she be granted many sweet days, months and years. I love you, mom.