It's True!

I wish I would have read the below article first over at Girl Talk. Then again having experienced the Lord's blessing just by obeying the Spirit's leading and my husband's asking is pure joy.

Yes, I have been having a grumpy, frumpy, self-pitying week. Trying to sort through, is this my hormones or is it just good old fashioned sin.. It's the latter I can assure you. Life is busy right now, there's always a diaper to be changed, a meal to be prepared, a lesson to be taught, a mess to be cleaned up, or an "owie" needing kissing. Sometimes in the gloom of my self-pity it would seem that life is hopeless. Hello, did I just say life is hopeless? Shame, shame on me. Life is hopeful. The Redeemer, Christ, was sacrificed to quench the wrath of an angry God! Because of Him, I don't have to live a hopeless life. My life is steady in the arms of my Savior and my eternity is fixed in Heaven with my Lord.

With that I declare that being hospitable to our neighbor and his 3 children, a son Colby's age and twin girls Jackie's age, my gloom was lifted. What is it about serving and giving away an afternoon to cooking up chowda, making french bread, and apple crisp? It was God's hospitality ministering to me as I ministered to others.

I was again reminded over at Femina that too much talking to myself about my woes and not enough listening to the Lord is in itself a sick habit and a path to destruction.

Below is the refreshing article from Girl Talk:

“The joy of receiving God’s hospitality decays and dies if it doesn’t flourish in our own hospitality to others,” warns John Piper. But when we practice hospitality:

“…we experience the refreshing joy of becoming conduits of God's hospitality rather than being self-decaying cul-de-sacs….” [W]e experience the thrill of feeling God's power conquer our fears and our stinginess and all the psychological gravity of our self-centeredness. And there are few joys, if any, greater than the joy of experiencing the liberating power of God's hospitality making us a new and radically different kind of people, who love to reflect the glory of his grace as we extend it to others in all kinds of hospitality.”