In Which Another Mental Myth is DeBunked

One of the things I decided when I was hugely uncomfortably pregnant with the snickerdoodle was that I was going to make more of an effort to reach out to women in their final four to six weeks of pregnancy. I appreciated the meals that came after the snickerdoodle was born, but the people who either brought food or invited us over for meals in those last weeks before she made her appearance are burned forever in my mind as some of my most favorite people EVER!

There aren’t as many pregnant women in my life this year as there were last, but one of them is the wife of one of our associate (assistant? I always get those confused) pastors at church. I hesitated before even suggesting to her that we would like to either bring them a meal or host them here. I guess I’m still holding on to some of those “larger church myths” that have lived so long in my mind – one of which is that the staff of larger churches are far too important and busy and importantly busy to spend time with the little folks, especially little folks who will graduate and likely move on to smaller things in the next three years.

So I hesitated, but eventually sent her a quick email asking if such a thing would be a help.

Tonight they came for dinner.

I can’t say enough how glad I was that I let go of that myth.

We had such a great, easy evening that part of the way through, as we were chatting about something or other I found myself laughing in my head at this idea that these nice, enjoyable, fun people would have turned their noses up at dinner in seminary housing. Turns out that they were real people. Who knew?

All of this reminds me of why I love having people in my home. When we see each other exclusively at church, or out in social situations, we can often think of them as not quite real, but when we’re in one another’s homes we begin to take form as genuine people who do simple things like eat, and take our kids to the potty. It’s how we build community and it’s why God calls us to be hospitable.

Because it turns out we’re all real people.