Hospitality

A friend of mine recently shared a great truth with me. She said that the mark of true hospitality is not only being able to be hospitable, but also being able to receive it. Hmmmm...

I consider myself a hospitable person. I love opening my home to friends and acquaintances, celebrating others, welcoming people, and genuinely showing care for those around me. As Monica once said on Friends: I am always the hostess. I once took one of those spiritual gifts inventories and lo and behold discovered that I have the "gift" of hospitality. So, all this to say that I've always considered myself as someone who does hospitality well....until Amber shared the above mentioned with me.

I have a hard time accepting help and offers of help from people. It makes me uncomfortable and I don't quite know what to do with it. I'd much rather be overwhelmed and overburdened with all that I have to do rather than asking for help or accepting what has been offered to me. I don't know why this is, but it is what it is all the same.

I remember the first ornament exchange I hosted. I went all out. I did all of the food myself and even made cut-out ornament-shaped cookies, frosted them, put my friends names on them and hung them from some branches in the centerpiece I'd made. It took me 3 years before I let people bring something to share to the party...and every year it was hard for me to be ok with that. This summer has been extremely challenging for me in this respect. I have had to allow others to take care of me and offer me what they could. My friends Taylor and Joanna have been unendingly generous and it embarrasses me to admit that while I greatly appreciate their overwhelming generosity it has been hard for me to accept it. Certainly I am grateful and have tried not to let them see that I struggle with this (or at least I hope I have been!!!!). It's not about that. I want to be able to receive what I am being given, but I have the sense that I am too much and a burden...which my brain then responds with: if you were, then they shouldn't have offered in the first place and that's their problem and not yours. UGH!

What is it within me that struggles against accepting that which others offer me and yet I can offer it to those around me naturally? Anyone else ever feel like this?