hospitality

Because the world has enough critics…

May 23, 2016 by Edie Wadsworth 2 Comments

(I gave this talk at my sister’s church on Friday night and I wanted to share some of it with you, too. At the end, there’ll be a way to download the pdf of the talk, in case you’re interested.)

There is a message that burns in my heart. I call it the Jesus way of hospitality. Thinking about it and writing about it has caused a radical shift in the way I think about the people I encounter everyday, especially those who are closest to me.

The reason I’m obsessed with this kind of hospitality is because I’m not naturally very good at it and I see so little of it in our world. We are SO easy to be critical and judgemental and full of gossip about the people in our lives, but not so willing to lay down our lives for them. And since the world has enough critics, I hope this message will light a fire in you like it has in me, to show the world a better way.

The trouble is—I’m just like the next girl. I want to sit and work and live RIGHT inside my comfort zone, with people who are just like me. I want to fit in and be part of the in crowd. I want to sit with the important people, whoever they are, at the head of the table. I’m the disciple who asked Jesus if he could sit on his right or left. I’m usually way more concerned about the Pinterest way of hospitality—the kind that wants to impress people instead of carrying their burdens. I’m guessing that’s your default too. That’s why we need to take a new look at what Jesus had to say about being in this world with other people.

The Jesus way of hospitality was radical and uncomfortable and difficult.

The Jesus way of hospitality was always taking the disciples by surprise and questioning their motives and their methods. Why are you feeding people when there’s no food? Why are you inviting children and the blind and lame, and worse yet, why are you always in the company of prostitutes and tax collectors and why are you always eating with sinners?

The Jesus way of hospitality looks a lot like being your sister’s keeper and forgiving her sins and seeing her need and feeding her. It is a hospitality of the spirit AND the flesh, it is a hospitality of inconvenience and ultimately of suffering. There were no pretty tablescapes and no Pinterest worthy meals in the New Testament—just a little broken bread and a some words of forgiveness and healing.

And nobody loves the Pinterest idea of Hospitality more than me. Have you SEEN my Pinterest boards lately?

I look around at all those pretty meals and tablescapes and I drool. I’ve been blogging for eight years and hospitality has always been my thing. If you visit my blog, you’ll find all kinds of resources for meals and decorating and hospitality. I ADORE holidays and tablescapes and all the pretty things. And I’m Southern so I’m supposed to be good at this, right? I LOVE finding new ideas on Pinterest for how to get supper on the table and how to make a bed out of duct tape.

But often, you know who is blessed when I’m setting beautiful tables and making lavish meals and keeping up with the Jones’s? I am. I’m proud of myself that it seems like I’ve thought of everything. I make handmade place cards and homemade pie crust and put flesh flowers into carved out pumpkins and it looks beautiful. But if I’m not careful, the people who have been with me leave my presence feeling shallowly impressed with me and not really cared for and loved on at all.

Often, My hospitality has been impressive but it has not been life-giving.

My hospitality has been pinnable but it has not been sacrificial.

My hospitality has so often been for me and not for my neighbor.

With Jesus, there is a better way. He is Hospitality incarnate.

(To read the rest, download the whole talk below as a pdf and share with your friends who might be looking for a better way than the way of the critic. If you’re already subscribed to my email list, you’ll get a message that says Already Subscribed, but it will send you the pdf anyway. If you aren’t subscribed, it will add you and you’ll get an email from me about once a week. Unsubscribe after you get the download if you don’t wish to get my weekly emails! No hard feelings, I promise.)

Click Here to Download!

Weekly Planning: What I’m Cooking, Reading, Working On, Etc

February 1, 2016 by Edie Wadsworth 7 Comments

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I’ve been a planner junky for as long as I can remember and I love that it’s now ALL the rage. Have you ventured over to YouTube or Periscope to see all the planner videos you can watch? Heavens to betsy. Trust me, I’ve watched my share of them too. The whole thing is fascinating to me.

Speaking of planning and fellow planning friends, I love my friend Sara’s new etsy shop and her canvas bags. Aren’t they adorable?!)

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I spend an hour or so every Sunday night planning out the week, writing a master to-do list that I then pick from everyday when I’m making my daily list. One of the things I love and hate to plan is meals. I’m so much happier and so much less stressed when I head into the week with an idea of what I’m feeding the peeps.

It saves so much stress and time and money.

I tend to jot down a list of meals and then make them in the order that it makes sense for us, depending on what’s going on at night, etc. I wrote a whole series about meal planning if you want more ideas & check out my Pinterest boards on food. I’m pretty obsessed. Follow at your own risk.

Here’s what we’re having this week in no particular order:

Italian Grinders with steak fries (we actually had this yesterday and it was SO GOOD!)
Crock Pot Pork Tacos with Shannan’s salsa
Chopped Thai Salad
Cheese Tortellini Soup with pizza bianca
Paleo Honey Sriracha Chicken with salad
Salmon Pastrami on Rye (oh heavens, these are good!)
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip muffins (for snacks & breakfast)

In case you’re not sure about pizza bianca, let me make your acquaintance.

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Other goals I have this week:

Get my tax stuff in order and to my accountant. #blesshiseverlovingheart

Remember my motto THERE YOU ARE from this FB post.

Make serious headway in my current read, All the Light We Cannot See (it’s taking me forever but the writing is SO GOOD, I want to savor all the words and all the metaphors) and finish my f

Teach two classes. (One of them is in my town tonight if you’re local?!)

Run 3 times, weight train twice.

Post my book list for 2016 (it’s daunting to decide!)

Get my email Lenten devotional series ready to go again. I think I’m going to do it on the blog this year but still working on the details. I’ll also be reading Grace Upon Grace during Lent this year and doing some discussions about it on Periscope. (Periscope is a free live streaming app, my name there is lifeingrace!) Lent begins February 10th so order your book soon is you want to read along with me!

Launch my new (and free) 14 day E Course on essential oils and how to use our starter kit oils to keep your family happy & well. (It’s actually now live!)(This is different than my paid course, in that it’s not nearly as comprehensive and doesn’t cover the same material. But it will give you an idea of how you would integrate eo’s into your family’s daily routine, for those who are interested but not ready to dive in just yet.

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Happy Monday!! What goals do you have this week?! Are you a planner?!

And, I’d love to know if you’re a meal planner and what tricks/apps/etc you use to get dinner on the table. Also? How about if you link to one of your favorite recipes in the comments. Then we’ll all benefit from your generosity!

What It Really Means to Bear My Brother’s Burdens

September 28, 2015 by Edie Wadsworth 21 Comments

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I like bringing people food.

I’m sure that surprises no one. I like to cook and I like to be helpful so cooking for people when they need a little encouragement is exactly my jam. It’s my preferred way of “bearing of my brother’s burden.”

I know how very much it blesses me when someone does it for me.

I read these somewhat paraphrased words from Bonhoeffer this morning and it reminded me of the underside of bearing my brother’s burdens, the side that’s less sexy and less fun and less creative—the side of burden bearing that no else can see or give me credit for.

“The Christian, however, must bear the burden of a brother. He must suffer and endure the brother. It is only when he is a burden that another person is really a brother and not merely an object to be manipulated. The burden of men was so heavy for God Himself that He had to endure the Cross. God verily bore the burden of men in the body of Jesus Christ. But He bore them as a mother carries her child, as a shepherd enfolds the lost lamb that has been found. God took men upon Himself and they weighted Him to the ground, but God remained with them and they with God.

In bearing with men God maintained fellowship with them. It was the law of Christ that was fulfilled in the Cross. While it is true that only the sufferings of Christ are the means of atonement, he shares with his disciples the fruits of his passion, so that the Christian must now also bear the sins of others. But he would certainly break down under this burden, but for the support of him who bore the sins of all.

The passion of Christ strengthens him to overcome the sins of others by FORGIVING them. Christ bears our burdens, so ought we to bear the burdens of our fellow men, which is quite literally his sin. And the only way to bear that sin is by forgiving it in the power of the cross of Christ in which I now share.

Forgiveness is the Christlike suffering which is now my duty to bear for my brother.”

I’ve been thinking about it all morning.

Bearing my brother’s burdens means quite literally bearing his ultimate burden, which is his sin. It’s not so easy to do that and it’s not so easy to show others that that’s what I’ve done. Not nearly as evident as when I bake someone a pie or make them some soup.

When Christ forgives us, He is giving us life’s greatest blessing and bearing our greatest burden, showing us what it really means to be our brother’s keeper. We take on the burden of our brother’s sin by forgiving him and we do so by the same Power and by the same Name that we have been forgiven.

I think I’ll be pondering that one for a long time to come.

And I’ll still make soup.

Have you ever read Bonhoeffer? This is paraphrased from his book Life Together.

Happy Monday, lovies!

My VERY Favorite Fall Dinner Trick {And 7 Must Have Recipes}

September 21, 2015 by Edie Wadsworth 22 Comments

All the anxiety that dinner making can cause quickly slips away when fall is here.

Why?

Because SOUP dear friends, our most beloved SOUP is officially back.

Some of you who are new around here don’t even know that I like to call myself the soup whisperer. Fall is EXACTLY my jam, not because I can finally make soup, but because I can make it without my family rolling their eyes and turning down the AC.

Soup often means bread so they don’t fuss for long.

I’ve written about my best trick for getting dinner on the table before but honestly, soup is my best trick.

So, I thought in honor of the first day (it is the first day, right?) of fall I’d give you a list of soups in ORDER THAT I LOVE THEM. Which is like picking your favorite child and then telling the whole world. So don’t tell the other soups please. They all think they’re my favorite.

If you’re a novice to soup making, let me change your life by teaching you how to make the world’s easiest suppers that taste like you’ve been slaving away all day.

You might first want to read about my favorite kitchen tools.

Then about how I stock my pantry.

Once you have a good soup pot, a good knife, a cutting board, an apron, and a stocked pantry, there’s no soup frontier we can’t conquer together. Also of note? I like to make EVERY HARD recipe into a soup because then it’s not so hard and you look fancy because you just made lasagna soup.

(Mic Drop in the kitchen, that’s what that is.)

Please also see my chocolate chip pumpkin bread recipe!

I kinda feel like I need a drum roll as I give the family recipes.

Okay, here goes. My favorite soups IN ORDER THAT I CHERISH THEM.

Okay, it’s really a tie between the first three.

1. Pumpkin Chipotle Soup with Chicken & Barley

I made this last week with GROUND CHICKEN and I must say that I think I like it even better, if that’s possible.

2. Italian Sub Soup

3. Cheese Tortellini Soup

4. Swedish Meatball Soup

5. Creamy Tortilla Soup

6. Broccoli Cheese Soup

7. Best Ever Beef Stew

Okay friends, that’s my top 7 or the FAMILY JEWELS as I like to call it.

For more soup, go here!

A Heart of Hospitality

November 24, 2014 by Edie Wadsworth 33 Comments

“Frodo was now safe in the Last Homely House east of the Sea. That house was, as Bilbo had long ago reported, ‘a perfect house, whether you like food or sleep, or story-telling or singing, or just sitting and thinking best, or a pleasant mixture of them all.’ Merely to be there was a cure for weariness, fear and sadness.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

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Shauna Niequist gave a great talk on hospitality at Allume. Something she said has stuck with me ever since—”People should leave your presence feeling better about themselves, not better about you.”

Oh the sting of the truth. I blew it again this weekend even though I’m almost ALWAYS reminding myself to think of others first. I was in a situation where I met a handful of new people and I immediately slid into my default mode of trying to make sure they knew I wasn’t JUST a stay at home mom. Before I had been with them for ten minutes, I’m pretty sure they knew I had a book coming out and was a physician in my former life. I was doing it before I even realized it. It’s just who we all are at our core—so hopelessly self-centered. Immediately, Shauna’s words pricked my conscience and before the night was over, I was able to show interest in them and find out some things about their lives. Maybe one of these days I’ll learn. Perhaps I should revisit my own words on hospitality…

from my ebook 31 Days to a Heart of Hospitality—

We’ve talked a little about what hospitality is and what it is not. We’ve even conceded that we desperately need each other.

But hospitality doesn’t come just because you have a better understanding of what it is.

Hospitality follows closely behind its friend, humility.

C.S. Lewis gave the best definition of humility I’ve heard when he said, ”Humility is not thinking less of yourself but thinking of yourself less.”

And that may be our biggest barrier to hospitality. We are so often so full of ourselves that there’s no room to welcome anyone else. Our thoughts are so consumed by all the details of our own busy lives that we can’t even find the time to be curious about other people. Humility takes the stance, ”I don’t know you or understand you but I’m willing to empty my heart just a little of myself and welcome you in.”

We come to relationships and even to strangers with such a hidden agenda, one that we don’t even see. We need them to like us, to do something for us, to make us feel a certain way. When it comes right down to it, we manipulate the people in our lives to do what we want them to do. When is the last time you came to a relationship, emptied of yourself, without your own agenda, and sought to know the other person and find out their need? I wish I could say that’s my normal posture but so often, it is not.

Wouldn’t our marriages and our relationships with our kids be different if we weren’t always trying to get our way? It’s called putting yourself in someone else’s shoes—-living in their skin.

And that is the very humility and love that Christ demonstrates toward us.

He comes to us in the humblest of means—by bread, wine, water, and Word, His body broken for our redemption, His blood poured out for our salvation.

I despair this morning that I’m so full of self, that I come to every single relationship ready to plow my way through my own agenda.

But Christ has made the perfect exchange.

He takes on my pride and gives me His humility.

He takes on my lies and gives me His truth.

He takes my sin, death and darkness and gives me life and salvation.

We wear humility and we get a glimpse of what it’s like to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes.

Hospitality is learning to live toward others with His borrowed love, in His perfect humility. He gives us what we don’t have in exchange for what He has in abundance.

Lord, give us Your humility, teach us to give ourselves to others and forgive our stubborn selfishness.

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As a thank you for meeting me here so often, I’d like to offer you a free copy of my ebook on hospitality. Maybe it will inspire you or challenge you this week as you welcome people into your home and heart.

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To get a pdf or epub file of the book, subscribe to my monthly newsletter, which is going out bright and early in the morning and will direct you to a private landing page on my blog where you’ll have access not only to a free copy of the ebook but to all the archived freebies over the last few months, including two beautiful printables and a menu plan for October, November, and December.

Click here to subscribe!

Also, only a few more days to take advantage of my Young Living November special! Also, be looking for a free webinar (maybe next weekend!) about how we use the oils in our family. Young Living Essential oils have changed everything about how our family manages health and wellness. We are slowly but surely getting off all our OTC and even some of our prescription medications, plus we’re fighting off a host of common fall and winter infections. Read more about it here!

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The Place Where You Are Cared For

November 17, 2014 by Edie Wadsworth 34 Comments

Every memory I have of her house is nearly the same—the morning’s bacon fat is hardening in the iron skillet, her handwritten list is on a spiral steno pad topped with her reading glasses, the breakfast dishes are littering the sink and the smell of supper is already floating from the oven, her Bible is splayed out on the dining room table, its margins full of her heart’s murmuring. I tear up every time I think of her and as much as I’ve always loved decor, I can’t recall any details from her kitchen save those.

What I remember is how I’ve never felt more cared for in anybody’s home.

I was working 70 hours a week as a resident and she often picked my kids up from school until I could pick them up. I would drag in, exhausted and often tearful, wishing that I had dinner waiting for my family on the stove and sad that life was so busy and overwhelming. She didn’t make me feel less than. She reassured me that my kids knew how much they were loved and she’d read a little scripture to me and then send me home with enough food to feed my family and make me feel like life wouldn’t always be this way. That was nearly 18 years ago and it’s as clear to me as if it were yesterday.

I’ve spent the last 18 years trying to be Susan to the people in my life.

She changed everything about everything for me. She inspired me without condemning me. She loved me with food and words and childcare and with an indescribable hope that this way of life—this way of love—was possible for me too.

So, if you’re in a season where nothing looks like what you planned, hold on to grace. Hold on to hope. Thank God for your Susan, who has been Christ’s hands and feet to you and then get ready, because your day is coming—your day to make a place where people feel cared for.

And just a little warning, Susan’s life is harder than you think because loving people always is. Making a safe place for another human heart will require that you bear burdens that no one else sees.

I’m so thankful for her love to me, for making a place where I knew I was loved. I will never be able to repay her.

This is the Jesus way of hospitality. What a blessing to have been the recipient of so sacred a gift.

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Tell me the story of your Susan. We all have one!

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