Day Eighty-Five

BE GENEROUS WITH YOUR HOME

Make sure you don’t take things for granted and go slack in working for the common good; share what you have with others. God takes particular pleasure in acts of worship—a different kind of “sacrifice”—that take place in kitchen and workplace and on the streets.

—HEBREWS 13:16 MSG

Bill was the first man I ever loved. He was a tall, blond sixteen-year-old. I was three. He was shy and quiet, but he always talked to me. And he listened because I was then, as I am now, a talker. He loved sitting beside me at dinner. He never missed a family party. For my third birthday he gave me a plastic camera—the flash was a small, multicolored cube on the corner of the camera that turned when you pushed the button.

I was sure he was the coolest person who had ever existed on earth. Bill was my dad’s little brother in the Big Brothers Big Sisters program through the Boys and Girls Club in our town.

I have so many clear memories of Bill. Dad would pick him up and bring him to our house a few times a month, and he would hang out for the day or stay for the weekend.

I remember where he was sitting on the couch when I opened that birthday gift, and I can still see his face as he smiled and laughed when I took his picture with my plastic camera with the click-and-turn flash. There was no film in the toy, but he never let on that he knew that.

Dad knew Bill for a long time, since Dad had been partnered with Bill since he was eight years old. But for being the first man I ever loved, I did not get enough time with Bill. Around Christmas in 1983, Bill was killed in a car accident. We returned home from a family Christmas event with my mother’s family in Macon, Georgia, and my dad’s father was waiting for us in the driveway. I can still see Grandpa Jack through the windshield, standing by his car, waiting to break the news to my dad.

Dad taught me a lesson with Bill, in his life and in his death, that he has continued to teach me over and over for my entire life: be brave enough to love the people around you, even if it could look like sacrifice and could feel like loss.

My parents welcomed Bill into our home. Again and again. They treated him like family. And you know what? We lost him. And hearts broke.

But while Bill was on earth, we shared our home and our family with him.

For many, home is a sanctuary. It’s a place you go to retreat from a world that can be so harsh and so dark. And being generous with your home isn’t easy. You might just want to be by yourself. You might not want to share your time. You might even be afraid that you’ll get attached and then lose the person you’ve welcomed, like we did with Bill.

But brave people recognize that they can use their home to love others with the love of Christ. Brave people are generous with their homes. Brave people share—even their sanctuaries—with others.

Whether that looks like letting people live with you or letting people come over for dinner, you’ve got this!

Being generous with your home isn’t easy.

When I was growing up, especially when I was in college, there was a family who made me feel like I could always come over. You know what? I felt like I had another home. They modeled for me that you don’t have to hold everything so tightly. You don’t have to live like that. Be generous with your home.

BE BRAVE: Invite someone over to eat dinner at your house. Let him or her live in your family for a bit and be seen and cared for.