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Kristen

This Is What Faithful People Do

November 22, 2022 by Kristen

This week, my family will sit around the table together for the first time in months. Only a mother with a mostly empty nest understands the tenderness of this statement.

My kids are almost entirely grown up and this old parenting blog remains idle much of the time until I have something new to say. It seems like I’m the kid these days, learning what comes next.

There are so many things I want to tell you about what God is teaching me right now: how leading with a limp will make you grow, how aging is surprising, how marriage humbles me, how parenting young adults is fun and hard and how ready and afraid I am to step into a role I’ve been preparing for the past decade.

Slowly, the words will spill out and find their place…

But for today, just a short simple truth that demands reminding: The holidays are here and there’s a beautiful opportunity Jesus has given us — a mark of our faithfulness is hospitality to others.

As my kids leave and come back home, I’ve been reminded what hospitality means to them, to me, and how the Gospel really does come with a house key.

The extra chair at your table, the empty seat in your van, the more-than-enough-food in your pantry? Fill it.

This is what faithful people do: they sit with people, they invite them over, they push back a chair, they lean in and listen.

The world is at its darkest, mental health is on the brink, people are lonely, a little lost and out of an overflow of what Jesus has done for us, we do for others.

This is what faithful people do.

It’s not about checking off a spiritual box of good works, it’s about being so dazzled by Jesus that we can’t not serve others.

“Radically ordinary hospitality shows this skeptical, post-Christian world what authentic Christianity looks like,” Rosaria Butterfield said. “Those who live out radically ordinary hospitality see their homes not as theirs at all but as God’s gift to use for the furtherance of his kingdom. They open doors; they seek out the underprivileged. They know that the gospel comes with a house key.”

An outflow of faithfulness to God  looks like hospitality to others.

We don’t have to be an extrovert, the perfect hostess or even a good cook, we just have to open the door.

This week, everyone is coming home… family, new and old and I will have more people then beds, more bodies than chairs, and it will be good.

Fill your couch. Fluff a pillow. Find someone hoping for an invitation and learn how you need them more than they need you.

This is what faithful people do.

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32 Comments Filed Under: My Life

Complete the Circle

October 19, 2022 by Kristen

Dignity is another word for decency—and when it’s missing, God created us to demand justice. 12-year-old pregnant girls Indentured teenagers Child brides Underage laborers Survival prostitutes Orphan-led homes Violated minors These words shouldn’t go together. When we see them side-by-side on a page, we are offended because innocence and evil shouldn’t commingle. It’s unnatural, unholy, and unacceptable. Our first reaction is to stop and help. Sadly, these ... Read More

14 Comments Filed Under: My Life

Woven Together

September 23, 2022 by Kristen

She tugged slightly on the thread and gathered the woven fabric under her fingers. With a critical eye, she leaned back to give her creation a better look. A smile formed at the corner of her mouth. It was good. I watched this play out as she sat at a large wooden loom, in a light-filled room, in a slum in the heart of Kenya this week. I wish I could describe the feeling of hope that settled into my soul --how the pull and push of the loom and the rhythmic cadence sounded like a  steady heart ... Read More

17 Comments Filed Under: Faith

Turning Your Pit Into a Well

September 16, 2022 by Kristen

I have spent much of 2022 in a pit. I don’t say that to alarm you. I share it because it’s true. On one particularly hard day, my husband was also struggling to hope and he said jokingly, “I need you to throw me a rope, so I can climb out of this pit.” I said  “Dude, you’re standing on my shoulders.” And so we wallowed in the pit together. Fun times. While I don’t have three easy steps to climb out of the darkness, I can tell you that deep pits that threaten to destroy us can become ... Read More

16 Comments Filed Under: My Life

Something New Will Be Born in the Pain

September 1, 2022 by Kristen

Nearly two years ago, I dropped shrunken dried bulbs into what I hoped would become a flower garden. I didn’t know that bulbs have a top and a bottom. I planted them upside down and covered them with thick dirt. I buried hope in the ground upside down. Stay with me. Did those large dormant seeds even stand a chance buried in the darkness ? Here’s the incredible truth about a seed: because it was born to grow, it reaches for the light. I don’t know how it happens, but somehow in ... Read More

16 Comments Filed Under: My Life

Jesus is Praying for You Right Now

August 4, 2022 by Kristen

When I was a child, I woke up in the middle of the night because I heard something in the next room. It scared me at first, the muffled words. My childhood wasn’t perfect, but my parents did their best. I got out of bed and snuck around the corner and saw my dad in his old blue robe kneeling at his favorite chair. His Bible was open: I stopped short because I heard my name. I have carried this memory with me—of my father— praying over me in the next room. These are heavy days and I have ... Read More

16 Comments Filed Under: My Life

Faith > Fruit

July 9, 2022 by Kristen

Faith > Fruit I need to talk about this here so that it’s a permanent part of my story. It will be wordy and messy— as most processing is. Faith is > greater than fruit. I told my husband last night I literally need this phrase  etched on my skin as knuckle tats. He gave me a worried look. I don’t make a habit of regretting saying yes to God in starting Mercy House Global —even on the darkest days. But when you talk about something being hard for so long and “hard” ... Read More

10 Comments Filed Under: My Life

One Day Can Change Everything

May 9, 2022 by Kristen

I listened intently to her story. In a lot of ways, it mirrored my own--the startup, the striving, the struggle, the surrender. It seemed like she was miles ahead of me in her business success and ministry scope, so her words inspired me to stay focused on the path, and maybe one day I would achieve the same. But then her story took a turn as she vulnerably shared details I couldn't have known from the outside--the debt, the disasters, the decline. Bankruptcy.  This word snapped ... Read More

10 Comments Filed Under: Faith

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