I want to continue my conversation with Hannah Taylor - the girl who’s been living with me for the past 2 months - so that you can grasp more of the heart of hospitality!
This conversation was so special and RICH and we talked about questions like?
What does it look like to stay flexible and adaptable with JOY as you surrender your home to love others well?
How can you feel at home and plant your roots wherever you find yourself living or whatever season you are in?
What does hospitality look like in other countries of the world FIRST HAND?
How can Breaking up our compartmentalized lives allow God to break through to OTHERS and create a lasting impact?
I know this conversation will both CHALLENGE you and BLESS you…and I can’t wait for you to listen!
Together, Let’s be more intentional about cultivating relationships not only with the people IN our home, but bringing in those outside the home.
No matter how you feel, You have so much to offer! You can confidently welcome others as you are and TRUST WHO God is within you.
Connect ~ www.NourishingMichelle.com/connect Email ~ Hello@nourishingmichelle.com IG ~ @NourishingMichelle FB ~ www.Facebook.com/NourishingMichelle
Full Episode Transcription:
Welcome back to The Nourishing Mompreneur Podcast, where we get encouraged and empowered as we pursue our greatest potential within the walls of our home. Hey Mama, my name is Michelle Hiatt, and I'm so thankful you're here. Do you feel like your life is good, but something in you feels unfulfilled? Do you feel stuck in the trenches of motherhood, exhausted and working so hard, but feeling like you're getting nowhere? Do you have big dreams you hold in your heart, but you've been living small? Are you motivated for more, but don't have the clarity or the courage to do anything about it? Do you want to discover God's best and see if it's really possible to be an excellent wife, an intentional mother, and be successful in business, all for the glory of God? As a wife of 16 years, a homeschooling mom of five, and an entrepreneur, I know exactly how you feel. Every bit of it. I truly believe that the most important work you will ever do is within the walls of your home and that there is purpose in every season. If you are a fellow business-minded mama, with a heart for home and a love for Jesus, let's process this journey and grow together.
Michelle Hiatt
Hey friends, so this is part two of our topic, our conversation on hospitality with Hannah Taylor, my sweet friend and the girl that's been living with me for the past few months. You are absolutely going to love this conversation. It is so rich. I feel like the Lord just really breathed on our time together. And I just believe that the words that are spoken are here to challenge you and confront you in the most amazing way because God is calling all of us deeper and higher and I just know that this conversation is going to be something that's going to spur you on and so I'm excited for you to listen, I'm excited for you to grow individually in every capacity as you just seek to have a heart surrender. So I want to continue my conversation here.
Michelle Hiatt
First of all, if you have not listened to part one, please go back and listen that you got to hear that just so you have context on this conversation. It is so fun and so good. But today we're going to talk about some more about Hannah's story.
Michelle Hiatt
What is her story? Why does she speak on this conversation? Why did I ask her to talk about hospitality? What is the heart of it? What does it look like to stay flexible and adaptable with joy? What does hospitality even look like in other countries around the world firsthand?
Michelle Hiatt
Hannah has traveled all over the world. She's had some really neat life experiences. And more than anything, we just talk about God's heart for his family and how we interact in our home how he loves family, desire his family and wants us to cultivate family here on this earth because we are preparing for his return and we are becoming the Bride of Christ and He is forming us and shaping us in beautiful ways through relationships with others. Anyways, there is so much beauty in this conversation. I can't wait for you to listen. And don't forget to send me a message over on the website NourishingMichelle.com send me a voice note with SpeakPipe or leave a comment and let me know what is on your heart. What do you want to hear? How can I serve you? How can I customize these conversations to help respond to what is most burning on your heart?
Michelle Hiatt
Hey friends, welcome back to the Nourishing Mompreneur Podcast. This is part two of our conversation on hospitality with my beautiful friend Hannah. So I'm so excited. Thank you for hanging with me a little longer so we can just share so much more of our heart. I'm so glad that we are breaking this conversation into two parts because first of all, I honor your time and I know how it feels to be on the listener aside when you see a podcast and you're like, oh, that's an hour long. Yeah, I don't have time for that. So hopefully this is a little bit more bite sized for you just because it is something to absorb and digest. And so I'm really thankful for Hannah joining me for this conversation and I really want to start out with this. This part with her just sharing her experience on staying flexible and adaptable. And really just sharing her story and what this conversation of hospitality has looked like in her life.
Hannah Taylor
Yeah, so I, I grew up in an amazing home, and my dad was a youth pastor for my entire childhood. And my mom just partnered with him so beautifully in that and so from an early age we had people in our house all the time, like so many young young kids and my siblings and I have three siblings. We were just used to kind of roaming around with like a ton of people in our house. And on top of that we were moving around a lot too because the Lord would have us in a place for a time a couple years or so and then we'd be on the go again. So growing up felt like very nomadic. And people would often say are you military, like is your dad in the military? And I was like, well not like the physical military. The spiritual one yes, yes, indeed. And so the Lord would like take us to so many different places and I was learning from my parents like okay, how do we, how do we do this? Like how do we approve and then plant down and be wholehearted there? And then okay, well, we're on again, we're leaving. We're going somewhere. Else and and then just in my walk with Jesus as he was teaching me as I was taking ownership of really knowing him not just knowing about him, not just mimicking what I've observed from my parents, but actually saying what I want to know you like, I want to have a relationship with you. I want you to lead me, where you want me. And I started to read the Bible and would just spend hours when I was around 14 is when the Lord started to beckon me and just really teach me in secret what it looks like to be surrendered to Him and to really yield my life to Him.
Hannah Taylor
And it's something that humans can't teach you like you can you can to some extent you can learn and you can glean but it has to be the the Holy Spirit of God that teaches you these things and and so I started to read through Acts and I mean, really just just the whole Bible, but the Lord was really showing me an Acts, how he was desiring me to live. And I would then read these missionary biographies like Amy Carmichael and Hudson Taylor and Jim Elliot. And I was seeing like, wow, they see the worth of Jesus in a way that I don't and I can't give any excuse like sometimes I think we can look Acts and we can make these excuses of why we can't live like that. But then when you look at more recent in recent history, people that have lived in such a way that it then makes you responsible, like, Okay, I don't get to make an excuse because they didn't have excuses either. So what are my excuses for not being recklessly abandoned to the Lord and so early on, I started to just wrestle with the Lord like I don't want to waste my life. I I know that there's only so many decades here that I have and I want to I want to live for eternity and I don't want to waste time.
Hannah Taylor
So He started to, to really just just draw me to himself and I realize you're my whole you're you're You're everything to me like you are. You are everything that you say you are and that means if you take me places that are hard to go to or if you bring me around people that are hard to be around if I'm home if I'm at home with you then I'm at home anywhere and and so and my home isn't even this earth, my home is heaven and and I don't have to live to make myself super comfortable on this planet because I'm passing through here. I'm a I'm a pilgrim. And so, so yeah, I mean, the Lord started to really speak to me and draw me and take me certain places and I would just have to really take leaps of faith and say, Okay, what I sent you're leading me here to this country or to this group of people and I would have to wrestle with my parents about it a little bit, and then that's when they started to see and show me this whole new level of yield in this as a parent saying, okay, you know what we believe the Lord is calling you to this to England or to Israel, or wherever the words have me go to and like you said, like they they really do trust the word leadership in my life, and I've gotten to see that in them. And now I get to, I'm so eager to when the Lord gives me children to get to imitate that from what I've seen. So yeah, it's just been it's been a really beautiful journey of getting to be blown with his spirit.
Hannah Taylor
He gave me a dream last year and in the dream, I was in the Old City of Jerusalem. And it was really busy and there was so much commotion and it was beautiful and exciting and like there's so much to do. And I knew he was asking me to go to Gethsemane. He was asking me to leave the Old City and go to Gethsemane and, and I looked at the path to Gethsemane and the further you went down on the path to get to Gethsemane, the more narrow it became. And it was dark and and there could be like wild animals I knew like in the back of my head like, there might be wild animals on this path. Like, but I knew I had to go. And the words just been teaching me from that dream. Like the beauty of a surrendered will, like how Jesus when he was in the garden, he said, "not my will but yours."
Hannah Taylor
And there's so much that we can fill our time with in our lives with and yet he's saying Will you come with me to Gethsemane will you come and like lay your will down and lay your life down and not try and save your life not try and have the best life you possibly can but actually, let me live through you like it's no longer I who live but Christ who lives within me. And so I've just been seeing him like, really let that be the fashion deeper and deeper into me as I walk with him and just what does it mean to really surrender my will and just the joy in it to not just like yes, like Christ sweat blood in the garden and it was agonizing. But then there's also the joy set before Him because He knew okay when I serve when I yield myself in this way to a good father, even if it looks offensive to the onlookers I know he has me like I surrender my myself to him because he's faithful. And so I'm I'm experiencing like the joy and like sometimes the anguish of it. Of Okay, well I don't know what this is going to look I have no clue. I mean, I'm sometimes I feel really alone sometimes I feel elated, but like you are steady, when I feel the most like angsty or like when my soul feels lean. I know Okay, I just need to re surrender because there's that's where the joy is gonna be is just in totally laying myself down.
Michelle Hiatt
That is it. This is the joy of surrender lived out truly and we talked about surrender has been probably the underlying theme of every single episode and I think it will forever be the theme of my life because I don't ever want to stop surrendering and re-surrendering. You never want to settle or get stuck as you journey with the Lord and I think it's beautiful just to hear about the joy that you found in it and the mindset of going through a lot of transitions in life because you've been on the move since you were a little girl and continue to be in transitions and from earthly worldly standpoint, unsettled. But your heart has been rooted your heart has been full of joy and I can tell you that was actually the next question. I was going to ask you is like, what are some mindsets or what is the mindset that you have? Because I've watched you just in the short time you've been here you travel, you go here you go there, like you've had your own sense of change and challenges, but you have such a peace and a joy that just just shine so bright from you. It's like where does that come from? How do you do that? Because, you know, for us, and a lot of times as women as moms, we have schedules We're busy. And when anything disrupts that when anything gets in the way when there's transition or unexpected change or welcome change. We take it hard, it's frustrating. It feels like frustration. We don't always often find joy in that. And so what you're saying is just remembering that hey, just like Jesus had the joy set before him. He endured whatever the Father's Will was. He was a man on mission. We can walk in that complete surrender to and find joy in that even when we don't understand what it looks like or even if it feels a certain way our faith can surpass our feelings in that and we'll really find joy with that kind of mindset.
Hannah Taylor
Yeah, absolutely. And I think too, letting yourself be weak before God in secret. Because I have I have found for me when I am just completely vulnerable in the keyword vulnerable before the Lord about like, I have no idea what you're doing. But I trust you and sometimes it takes me a while to even get to that point of saying but I trust you because I have to get all of my like, cares and all of my fears and just because He says,
Hannah Taylor
"Cast your cares on me because I care for you."
So when I let myself be weak before the ward, he has been transferred like converted that before people as strength. And He showed me in the word what I'm saying or I wouldn't be saying it.
Hannah Taylor
He says,
"For He was crucified in weakness but lives by the power of God. For we also are weak in Him, but in dealing with you, we live with Him by the power of God."
Hannah Taylor
And so as we are weak before him when no one's around, it actually is converted before man it's converted as wow like they're really strong like they're really joyful. But in me like I know my weakness. I know how barren it feels when I'm not when I'm not fixated on Jesus when I'm not just beholding him. I know I know how it is. I know how my I know how I feel when I'm not actually aware of him when I'm not practicing his presence like brother Moritz talks about and I think one of like the biggest things that the Lord has taught me is the sweetness of this gonna sound cheesy. I just thought of it but the sweetness of weakness and just how absolutely precious it is to the ward when we come like little children when we're like, just hold me I have no idea what to do like you because this pathway with him is so narrow that when we start to look when we when we deviate ever so slightly we're we're completely like I actually want to be hopeless if I look away for a moment I want to feel like I've no idea what's going on because I want to be so in step with him. That if we're walking together and I start to you know, look a little bit in the plow starts to go this way. Then okay, I'm I don't know who I am anymore because I'm actually making everything I am in you. So when I'm not learning to be weak in you and let you be my strength and I don't know who I am. And like that's a scary place to be but like, that's actually the normal Christian life. And that doesn't give any space to depend on ourselves because we're actually building a house on the rock and not on sand.
Michelle Hiatt
It's so good. And I say that all the time our strength is in our dependency. It is not a posture of weakness. And I think this I hope you guys can hear this because this is why I wanted Hannah to talk about this because it doesn't matter that she's not married. He doesn't have kids yet, or doesn't have a home of her own like this is all about the posture of your heart, being surrendered with your home and whatever that space looks like and wherever the Lord is taking you. That's really what it matters, what matters. And I think as women being surrendered with our home is the most vulnerable and sacred place that we can offer up but it's worth it because he's worth it. He's worth all of us. And I know for me it's so interesting because you know we have these, these dreams. You always dream of like the white picket fence and I heard a pastor's they want he's like, stop like it's a dream. The American dream is a dream. It doesn't exist it shouldn't, it's not the goal. Our goal is for our roots to run deep in him and so even this past year as we've been wrestling through a housing situation of our own like are we gonna move are we gonna buy this house? Are we not are we you know, and as I look at it, I'm like, Yeah, this would be like a forever home. And I just feel so good in the thought of like just planting our roots. But the Lord is like no, no your roots. They don't run deep downwards into a place they run deep upwards into me. My roots run deep and I couldn't find a verse to reference on the moment but it is about letting our roots and our hearts be in him because our home is in heaven and our hearts need to be so as you would say tethered to him that that is our identity or your identities out of that. And I'll just say from a mother's perspective, it is encouraging to hear from somebody who grew up in a home where you moved a lot. You didn't end up traumatized and wounded and jaded towards a life because of change and transition. I think as mothers we always want to protect our kids. We want their lives to be so easy. We want them to be comfortable. We want them to feel settled. We want them to feel rooted. But guess what, ladies? This is not life, this is not reality. So don't try to protect them from the very thing that God wants to do in their heart to prepare them to who they're supposed to be. So let's allow God to work and wholeheartedly embrace transition in different seasons. Because he will protect our kids hearts and ultimately we have to trust Him with their hearts. And it does. It's not up to us. So I just love that from somebody who grew up in that kind of transitional situation almost like a military lifestyle and my kids have moved a lot too. I know from our life in our example, like our kids are really rock solid. Our home is tight knit and our culture is solid. So that's just so there's that. Okay, one question I want to ask you, moving on, is I know you traveled a lot around the world. You've experienced different cultures. Maybe you can share some of the places you've been. But I really want to know what hospitality looks like in other countries and other cultures? Because when we think of hospitality, we get a picture in our mind of what it would look like maybe in our world or in America, but what does it really look like with a broader vision?
Hannah Taylor
Yeah, yeah, totally. I mean, so the word is taken me to quite a few places. And the first place that comes to my mind when I think hospitality is the Middle East. And those of you if you've ever been to the Middle East, or if you know anything about Middle East, you'll probably be like, yes, we have heard about this because it is just ingrained in their culture to be hospitable. If you're not hospitable, you're just you don't really fit in the culture. And they're so family centric, and they don't have a lot of the walls and like the barriers that I think in the West we often are able to put up just just because so we've ever known. And, and so I had the opportunity to live in Israel for a time and just being being around the Jewish people was one of the most beautiful experiences of my life and getting to I mean, every single every single Friday was like preparing for a holiday. Like every week it feels like Thanksgiving, they get around the table and they feast and it's their Sabbath like they they bring in the Sabbath on Friday, when the sun goes down and then they rest on until Saturday when the sun goes down and there's just this lavishness and this open invitation to bring people that are like strangers or close friends like they just bring them in and they they gather on the table and they they worship the Lord and they feast and there's just there's just not like a hindrance of time and like they're happy to inconvenience themselves to prepare as long as it takes to make it like a really special time and just getting to be welcomed in as family in that kind of context is really special.
Hannah Taylor
And I would also say I was in Cyprus that the island of Cyprus a couple years ago, and I was out on a run with a friend and this. These kids were riding their bikes, and they were they're riding next to us and they were like, Hey, come come to our home. We want you to meet her mom and in our American minds with a company Gosh, this isn't safe. Okay, and it's just so normal. It's so normal and this family was a precious Muslim family and their mom welcomed us in literally she didn't even know she could barely speak English and she welcomed us in like she had known us our whole lives and she started making coffee and she got all of these like cakes and just brought them in and we were talking to each other on Google Translate and it was just so normal. Honestly, they welcome in strangers without batting an eye like they just there's there's not this fear. I think there there can easily be like a fear mindset in our context. And with. There's so much simplicity, it seems like in these other contexts and even in South America, and like when I've been to Brazil, there's just this willingness to open up the home and to provide everything even if it's not even that much it's like, even if you have the smallest amount of bread, we're just going to give it we're just going to surrender it. And so I've gotten to see on a lot of different ways of life, what it looks like to just welcome people in so that those moments would mark me.
Michelle Hiatt
Wow, that's amazing. And it seems like just for simplicity purposes. You know, we think of hospitalities entertaining because we live in America. It's like we have to entertain. We've got to have the table looking like Martha Stewart set it or Joanna Gaines, we have to and I'm completely guilty because you know, I like beautiful things. So I always that's just who I am like I just do everything with excellence. So in some ways, it makes it more work for yourself. But I'm learning to let things go more and more like you know what? It's good enough. It's not perfect, but that it doesn't matter like all prepare to a certain point in that I just want to shift and focus on the relationship because it can be consuming to try to have everything you want it delicious. You want it beautiful, you want everything fresh. You want all these things but think keeping things simple is really important because hospitality doesn't have to be complicated. But one thing that does seem like a common theme is that often it revolves around the dinner table and it revolves around a meal. It revolves around some kind of substance like food that brings people together. Is that what you've noticed?
Hannah Taylor
Yeah, absolutely. I think the way, the way the Lord has designed family and meals and all of that is with such intention because it's such a sacred act getting to eat together. And it's actually a very intimate thing because especially when you put distractions away and you get phones off the table, and you just look at each other and you ask each other questions. I mean, it's so it can be really scary in our current day because we love to have our screens in front of our faces and we love to distract ourselves because to be known, this is where this is where I feel like there's a lot in this to talk about, but to be really known is the desire of every human heart. And that happens so beautifully around the table and there's there's an exposure of yourself that occurs when you're when you have nowhere else to look and you have nothing else to distract yourself with except just looking at the person in front of you and saying, let's just know each other like let's let's talk about what what's going on in our lives and what our journeys have been and let's just really seek to be unified. And I think in our in part one of this when you're talking about how it's easy to want to, I don't know feel afraid when someone's going to come into your home because you want to look put together and you want to come across a certain way. Well, I think I think something that would be so powerful is if the body of Christ actually made this part of our lifestyle because actually getting to live with you, Michelle and getting to experience life with you has probably I know for me, has diffused that intimidation of okay, what if I come across a certain way that I don't know if I'm going to be disappointing or it like what if I'm not who they think I am or whatever and I think the enemy loves to keep those barriers up because he doesn't want us to actually walk in the unity that Jesus prayed for and bled for giving, and he said that we're going to be known to the world by our love for each other. He didn't even say you're going to be known to the world by your love for me. He said, You're going to be known for your love for one another. And so how much better of a scheme from the enemy then to cause us to want to compartmentalize our lives and our routines and all of these things that actually the Lord wants to invade that because he knows that in that place of being around the table together, and experiencing life together that's actually going to be what catalyzes the Divine Love of God, that He promised.
He said, "Father, I pray that they would be one as you and I are one. And that the love that you and I share would be in them as I am in them."
Hannah Taylor
And that can't be catalyzed in our lives until we're willing to say, Okay, I'm going to lay down my life and, and give it to Jesus and I'm gonna live like, he wants me to live, which means living in close proximity with people, even if, like you do not and have never bothered me, but let's just say we are the complete opposite ends of the spectrum of personality and there was so much tension Well, guess what? He still promises his love in that place. And I think it's actually at the dead end of our natural love and our natural, convenient ways of relating to each other that when we even go past that, that's what's actually going to catalyze the love of God that's going to make the world say, "Who is your God? How do you love each other like that?" It's not just going to be inconvenient. It's not just going to be in when we oh, I just see you at church on Sundays or prayer on Tuesdays or whatever. And that's convenient. It's like no, how can we fight against the systems that our culture set in place to compartmentalize our lives that these other cultures that I mentioned, don't have those in place? And how can we live more like how the Lord has desired us to live so that the world would know that we're His? And not just oh, you guys look like y'all behave well and you have your lives put together? No, it's like we're real, like, we're not perfected yet. Like, we're walking together but our love that were his love that we're experiencing that we're offering each other is what's making us more like Jesus, because he said "The glory, His glory is going to be put in us."
Michelle Hiatt
Yeah, that's so good. It's a whole I told you this before I had this on my heart to do for a long time. This is a whole nother conversation but just the topic of discipleship through diversity, and talking about how when you have different people together different stories, different personalities. different walks of life, and you put them together, there's diversity there, and there's tension there and there's friction there and there's change and there's things that just may not be comfortable or preferential. But when you embrace that and you allow that very person, that very situation, to be the very thing that disciples you into who God is calling you to be. It is for His glory, and it is beautiful. Because so typically, we want to run from those people, the people that we want to run with that frustrate us God has placed them in your life. For a reason to help you become the woman that you are called to be. So don't run from that. Don't despise that. And you know what I think of the word discipleship. Here's the thing, it's not a class, you take it church, it's not it's not what it is. Discipleship from a Christian sense, I think is so much about the process of making someone become like Christ, and we need other people to help us do this. So your discipleship, through diversity through rubbing elbows with people that are different than you through dining with them at the dinner table is so simple but so precious and so important because it is not about us and what we always just want and think and feel and what we desire, but it's really about our lives, accomplishing what He desires. And that's us being one with him just like you said, and us being one with each other. And I'll just skip over the verse that I was reading today and that has been held on my heart is just an Acts. I've been reading through Acts and it's just so evident. How God desires this oneness, this people in the early church they are of what heart, of one mind, they're in one place when the Spirit of God comes, there's just this sense of unity that is so precious and powerful and God is able to work in such a big way.
Michelle Hiatt
Acts 2:44-47. It says,
"All the believers met together in one place, and shared everything they had. They sold their property and possessions and shared the money with those in need. They worship together at the temple each day, met in homes for the Lord's Supper, and shared their meals with great joy and generosity, all while praising God and enjoying the goodwill of all the people. In each day the Lord added to their fellowship, those who were being saved."
Michelle Hiatt
And so I think that the bigger vision is, hey, we're here. We're called to not play church, but we're here to be the church. We're here to be who God desires and the people that he longs with, and he wants to God desires to dine with us. He wants to dwell with us. He wants to inhabit our hearts. He wants to inhabit our home. So let's open up the table. Open up the table of our hearts and our homes to welcome not just his presence, but the presence of others because in that he can be glorified and beautiful things can happen to be accomplished.
Hannah Taylor
I'm reminded of something that Dietrich Bonhoeffer shared in his book Life Together, he was talking about how easy it is for us to feel really spiritual when we go to a building and we and we worship God in the same room. And how there's actually a side of the face of Jesus that is only reserved for those who are willing to really rub elbows and be like what iron sharpens iron and one of our pastors said that the crucible that the Lord has chosen as his tool for conforming us into the image of Jesus is the Church is the Body of Christ like the thing that he has chosen to make us like Christ is each other. And so that actually looks like the next time there's tension or the next time there's hesitation or fear about someone coming into your your world or your home, around your table. Actually, exchanging not for maybe like a prayer of gratitude like Lord thank You that you're going to use this to make me more like Jesus. Thank You that you're gonna conform me more into His image by this discomfort that I feel instead of being kind of using an excuse like well okay, well maybe this is a sign that I shouldn't do this actually. Put that on its head because we we serve a God who is He's the God of the upside down kingdom. And so when we feel those fears, it's it's actually maybe a signal of, hey, what are you going to do to make me more like you?
Michelle Hiatt
Yes, I think it's just a reminder that like, when we follow Christ, we're going to look different and it's going to be more and more all the time as the world changes and as the world sways a particular direction. As you follow the Lord and faithfulness and obedience you're going to look different in your life is going to be different. So don't be deceived to think that just having a million friends on social media or having all these surfacey connections on the cyberspace is going to satisfy the heart of the Father or your heart, because it's not. And I'll tell you one thing if there's one thing that I learned this last year, is that the value of face to face relationships I did not realize how important it was for me on a personal level like I always thought my relationship with the Lord was individual. It's personal. It's my personal relationship. I didn't realize how having people and allowing them in my proximity was actually going to be the very thing that expanded my own heart. Toward the father and I've seen him show up in our family and literally transform our home, our family, my children, in such a deep way because we have chosen to move towards this relationship, culture, if you will, because we believe that it is honoring to the Lord and so gosh, there's just so much here but I just want you listening, to not feel overwhelmed to not to not write this conversation off. I know this is uncomfortable for you. I know this is like really confronting and I know there's a million excuses. That you've already thought of like, well, I can't I there's just no time there's there's all these reasons why like, you're just trying to keep your own head above water. Like I get that I honor that.
Michelle Hiatt
But I just want you to know that this conversation really does matter because your heart and your home is connected. And we've got to remain flexible and surrender because our world is changing. And we want our hearts to be open so that we are available to be the hands and feet of Jesus as He calls us to be and more than anything we want people in our life to help us be who were called to be to help form us to disciple us through their differences through those actually frustrating moments. There are opportunities for God to really show up and meet us and grow us in a really specific and special way. And you know, one thing I've noticed in my life is that every time I've moved, and it's been many, there's been grief, there's been tears and I'm like, Man, Lord, am I holding on to everything so tightly? I mean, I don't know for me, my home is special to me. Doesn't matter where I live or how long I'm there. There is something that I just treasure about it and there's always this bittersweet emotion as I lead from one place to the next and so I always questioned I'm like God, I just want to open my hands up wider like I want to hold on to everything in my life loosely. But you know what? Every time I move there still these these things I have to wrestle with it. But what I've learned is that nothing has opened up my heart to more surrender regarding my home and regarding my time in that capacity, then actually allowing others in in relationship, all that we're talking about.
Michelle Hiatt
So I just want to encourage you to open up your heart and open up your home. And one thing specifically is just invite someone over to dinner once a week. That's such a simple thing to do. I mean, that's something that I really tried to literally schedule into our life into our weekly routine. Our weekly rhythm, our family culture is to have at least one person over for dinner once a week just to carve out time because there is sacrifice. I literally got coffee with a friend yesterday and oh my goodness. She was actually my kids were with Hannah at the moment but she was actually paying a babysitter to watch her kids so we can get coffee together. And I told her I was like we were both like thank you for the time because we understand that it's a sacrifice, even two best friends taking time, the cost of time, the cost of money- babysitting, whatever, it was a sacrifice to be together, but we prioritize it because it's important because relationships matter and in a world where we're told that like, yeah, it's that's not really it. It is it. It does matter. It matters of the heart of the Lord.
Michelle Hiatt
So a simple thing is just invite somebody over to your house for dinner. But you know what? Don't even put the pressure on yourself for that. If you're not ready. What if you just got together with your own family? What if you just created a culture at your own dinner table with your own family where there was just sacred time where you were together? And for me, it doesn't always even look like a meal time. Although I really prioritize family dinners. Sometimes it's just reading to my kids. It's something that brings us all together to the same time and space while we're present. That is cultivating that unity that is bringing people to the table and that is hospitality. And it's so cool to see even within my own home. That diversity concept because my kids are all so different and unique. And so I'm just thinking of my two little ones how polar opposite they are in personality and in looks and one of them helps the other one be more gentle and affectionate and loving. And even girly. And then the other one helps the other one be more adventurous and brave and bold. And there's just this beautiful, forming, how they mold each other because they're so different. And I see it in my own home. And I see it because we come together and we allow ourselves, the time and the space to actually rub elbows and sometimes there's arguments and disagreements and it's frustrating, but ultimately, it's a beautiful thing.
Michelle Hiatt
So I just want to encourage you more, wherever you're at. Be intentional about bringing your family together and bringing unity into your home and protecting the sacred space of the dinner table or whatever that looks like to bring people together to bring your home together and from that place. Open up your home to others open up your heart to others because I know that you desire greater influence. I know that deep down you want to impact others. You really want to be the change that you wish to see in the world. And from a biblical perspective to remember it all starts in your home. Your most important work you will ever do is within the walls of your home. So start there, it's your home in order get your heart in order and live surrender because I really believe that God wants to use your family in a huge way to be a bright light in a dark world and Kashmir cry. The call on your life is great without a doubt. So thank you, Lord for this time for this conversation. Hannah, would you mind just closing us in prayer? Thank you.
Hannah Taylor
Father, thank you so much for thank you for this time. God thank you for being so faithful to us. Lord, thank you for the beauty of your heart and beauty of your nature. That you are knocking on the doors of our hearts and you're asking for us to come and dine with you before we can even begin to think about dining with others, and I pray for every person listening to this that they would sense the knock on their hearts from you or that they would open up the door of their hearts, even if it's been a long time since they've communed with you. And I pray that they would let you in and that you would come and dine with them and that you would know them and that they would let themselves be known by you, and that as they as they learn to be known by you and to know you, Jesus, I pray that you would teach them how to seek after the hearts of their children and their husband and the ones that you bring to their paths. And I pray that it would start within the their own hearts. Lord, I pray that you would open every heart by your spirit and that you would let growth be given to these seeds that have been deposited by your spirit. I pray that You would give -growth to the more that you protect these seeds from the evil one and that there would be many that are just returning to their first love with you. And that you would have your way in your body Lord, in your church and we love you Lord, thank you for this time. Amen.
Michelle Hiatt
Well, was that not such a special conversation? I hope you are as blessed as I was. I really hope that you will take these words to heart and start being more intentional about cultivating relationships not only with the people in your home, but bringing in those outside the home to no matter how you feel. I promise you have so much to offer that only you can bring to the table. So just come as you are and trust who God is within you.
Michelle Hiatt
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