Hospitality vs. Pride

I had a lovely brunch with a friend this week, and we got to talking a bit about what we {women} do to ourselves in the name of 'hospitality'.  I often struggle with finding a balance between 'fluffing' things to make people feel welcome, and 'perfecting' things to hide the 'real' in my life.

I think that these issues go deeper than cleaning my house and hiding the dirty laundry, it comes down to not being real to people. About putting up a wall (ie. a clean house) to only let people see the 'neat' parts of my life. Not the messy, 'I suck at this' parts.

I've just been thinking a lot about what exactly it means to be hospitable... And I think it means being open in home and in heart.

This is a messy area for me, but it's on my mind a lot, so hopefully God will start 'working on me'...