Tonight I have company… a LOT of company, and I’m in heaven. No, my house is not ready, but the potatoes are in the oven for the potluck potato bar, and I spent the morning baking and decorating a strawberry cake. I ditched the piped roses and headed on over to YouTube for a tutorial on carving roses out of fresh strawberries. Eat your heart out, Martha Stewart. Thanks to Jiffy Mix, I’ll even make some semi-homemade cornbread.

I love cooking for people–cleanup, not so much–because I get the chance to think about them all day. I like to pace the work through the day between the regularly scheduled activities, but as I work, I ponder about the needs of those coming and pray over them. In case you haven’t guessed, my spiritual gift is hospitality, but that doesn’t make me a superwoman who loves to vacuum and dust. Yes, I want my house prepared for my guests, but ultimately, I want my heart prepared, already sensitive to the needs they may have and ready to set aside the busyness of kitchen work to listen.

You see, my other spiritual gift is service, and boy can I ever serve. I can run circles around other people also trying to serve or even those trying so hard to spend quality time with me, trying to share their hearts with a crazy lady overly consumed with cleaning as she goes. Oh how I look back and wonder how many opportunities I’ve missed to speak life into another woman’s heart or to have her speak life into mine.

Over the years, I’ve learned to change how I think about having guests over. It’s no longer an affront to me if they help me in the kitchen. They wouldn’t ask if they didn’t want to, and for most people, if they hang out with me in my kitchen, they want to spend time with me. I’ve asked God to slow me down and help me listen.

So come on over, pull up a chair in the kitchen, or grab a dish cloth; I won’t stop you.

…and that’s the view from My Front Porch.