My house has been cluttered since Miss Lucy moved in. The floors have collected dust and dog hair and who knows what else. Our dining room table is full of art projects and estate sale finds and car seats and diaper bags. And the coffee table is overflowing with baby blankets and coffee cups and Scentsy catalogs and crayons.
We spent yesterday with my family celebrating my aunt's 60th birthday. It was a blast. We took our annual cousins picture, and I adore it. I'll be writing more later this week about family and the blessing it is to want to be with your family.
So today my amazing hubby let me sleep until almost noon with Miss Lucy. I was up around 9:00 and could barely keep my eyes open. I guess the past couple weeks just finally caught up with me.
When I woke up, I was keenly aware of the state of our less than clean house. But right now, there's not a ton I can do about it. I'm keeping up with the laundry the best that I can, and I do the dishes and tidy the kitchen every night, but that's about as far as I get when it comes to house keeping.
I knew we were having friends over for dinner and swimming this afternoon. And as much as I wanted to care about the state of my floors, I have a 13 day old little miss who needs to be fed 1st. Instead of canceling and making up an excuse about why we couldn't have them over, I decided that open doors in our home were far more important than dirty floors.
And I was right. We had an amazing afternoon. The big kids and dads went to the neighbors' to swim while my sweet friend Cheryl and I sat on the couch. She showed me some tricks to photo editing while she played with the gorgeous pictures she took of Lucy on Saturday. And I, of course, fed that sweet baby.
Later we cut veggies and grilled meat while the kids played and colored and explored outside. And while they were here, I never once considered the mess on my dining room table or the dirt on my floors. And honestly, I don't think they did either.
There are silly things that keep us from community. Dirty floors and excuses about the way our homes look is usually at the top of the list for most of us. We think people will judge us or think we're not good enough, so we don't invite them in.
I'm learning, especially in this season of newborn life, that the greatest blessings often come when we forget about the imperfections of our homes and open our doors to love and connect with others.
I'm guessing I'm not the only one who has a tendency to want to close the doors both on my heart and my home because it's messy in there. Our culture has become accustomed to over sharing the good and closing the doors on the messy and imperfect.
The irony of that is that it's our messes and imperfections both in our hearts and on our floors that make us relatable to other people. When we fail to share the messy, we miss out on the blessing of true community. Because let's be real, no one wants to be friends with someone whose floors are never messy and whose heart never hurts.
So the question becomes, who can you open your doors to? And why haven't you already? Whoever it is, I'm betting that they won't care about the state of your floors or the tidyness of your home. At the end of the day, we all need community, but we'll never get it if we're waiting for the perfect day or a clean house.
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