Thursday, March 3, 2011

Not-so-fine china

My husband mentioned recently that we've had more people over for a meal in the past month than any time he can remember.

I discovered that having something positive to focus on (like having a meal to get ready for friends) was a good dose of medicine for a bad case of the winter blues.  So I increased the dosage!

There are so many excuses I've had in the past for not inviting people over:  

  • house is old and needs work, wait until it's perfect 
  • kitchen is small and needs work, wait until it's re-painted and en-larged 
  • landscaping is not as I'd like, wait until it's perfect
  • don't have enough serving dishes that match, wait until I get more
  • I tend to have bad accidents in the kitchen, wait until I'm perfect
  • my grandmother's china is nice, but it's cracked and stained, too embarrassing to use???
I think you get the idea.

When my need for having people around outgrew my need to be perfect and impressive, I discovered that it is much more enjoyable to put aside all my flaws, get out my flawed china and start sharing my heart and home with others.

My kitchen is still small, my home still needs
Gravy some work (we weren't going to live here this long and here we are 21 years later) and my precious grandmother's china is far from perfect, but we've been having a great time getting to know others better in spite of it all.

My not-so-fine china is actually a beautiful picture of life.  Why wait until it's perfect to share it.  Maybe others will feel a bit more free to share their heart too when I realize ALL of us are a bit cracked and stained.

After all, my imperfections are easily shared in my songs, why not my home?

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