Introduction

MY HEART

I FEED PEOPLE.

My husband, my children, and anyone who walks in my door.

New faces on my street, and old friends.

People who have babies, job changes, and water damage.

People who are celebrating.

People who are grieving.

My town’s high school football coaches.

The UPS man who knocks on the door.

Churchfolk, kinfolk, menfolk, womenfolk.

And just about any other folks who come across my path.

Why do I feed people? Because I believe with my whole heart that people who are cooked for feel cared for. I’ve believed that for as long as I can remember. This way of love was modeled by my grandmother Euna Mae Nelson, who fed her Circle group, her Sunday school class, and her grandchildren every Wednesday when we’d come over to play. She made compassion meals for people who were hurting. She donated treats to area bake sales. She hosted and fed her family’s families on sled-worthy snow days, any given pretty afternoon, and every Easter and Christmas for as long I can remember.

Euna Mae had a round wooden stool with a cushioned top that she’d let me pull right up between her sink and her stove—which was exactly in the middle of “in the way.” I’d ask questions, and she’d answer. I’d sit on my knees and watch her tend to her gooey, slow-stirred, homemade mac ’n’ cheese with noodles that, at the time, seemed as big as my face. I learned over time how to recognize when the macaroni and cheese was ready to be taken out of the oven because the cheese and butter were all melted in and the edges had juuust started to dry out. Sometimes I’d stand right next to her while she made her famous peach fried pies that my daddy and his brothers would practically wrestle over. I’d watch her test the heat of her pan with the first pie, sometimes too hot and sometimes just right. (Too hot meant burning a pie, which made her madder than a wet hen!) I would stand nose-up to the kitchen counter, watching and waiting, while the still-sizzling pies drained right in front of me on brown paper bags from our small-town grocery store. At the time I didn’t think a thing about parking myself right in the action zone of her small kitchen. But as I got older, with a kitchen of my own, and reflected back on those days in the kitchen with Euna Mae, I realized why she never shooed me away. She was intentional kitchening. She knew that making and serving food was a means to an end, and that the “end” was impacting the lives of people for the better. And in this case, that life was mine.

Because feeding people is the way love was shown to me and the way I show love, I’ve become aware in the last several years of how folks have gotten away from feeding their families, from opening their doors to friends and neighbors, and from using the ministry of food to love on people. Everyone’s gotten busy, noses down in their phones and hustling all about. Everyone’s gotten wrapped up in making things just so, like a Pinterest board or a staged social media photo. (Emphasis on the word staged.) The result is excuses, comparisons, closed doors, and missed opportunities to show people they’re cared for. Isn’t that a shame? Let me tell you, I became stirred on the inside about encouraging and equipping folks to embrace hospitality—intentional kitchening—so people wouldn’t miss one more minute of the love that happens when they make and serve food to their people.

One day when my husband, Sam, was working from home, I went into his office and, with a lump in my throat, told him that I felt as if God was urging me to do something bigger. I didn’t know what that “bigger something” was, and it scared the daylights out of me. I liked my life at home, doing for-hire projects here and there, keeping my house, nurturing my relationships, and ya know, hanging out. But I’m telling you, this urge was undeniably strong. I knew only two things: (1) I had a growing desire to inspire folks to use their homes and kitchens to get into the lives of people, and (2) my heart raced so hard I couldn’t sleep because I sensed God had something in mind that He wanted me to do about it. So I prayed and waited. And I wish you could’ve been a mouse in my pocket for the next six months and witnessed all the things that came together to steer me toward my first “big” move.

With purpose and some divine prompting, I opened a kitchen boutique down the street from my house named after my grandmother Euna Mae, with hopes of encouraging and equipping folks to live out authentic hospitality, to inspire intentional kitchening. Y’all, I was forty-one years old and had never worked in retail. Gosh, for that matter, I had never even had five consecutive days with a shower and makeup. But it was clear as a bell that it was the step I was supposed to take, the purpose that had been stirred up in my heart that one teary-eyed day with Sam. I had peace and passion, and the people responded. And they’re still responding.

They’re responding to a lifestyle of hospitality found in 1 Peter 4:8–11. So what exactly do those verses say? “Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms… so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ.…”

Love deeply. Welcome gladly. Serve faithfully. So that in all things God may be praised. These three words captured my heart: Love. Welcome. Serve.

The “Love Welcome Serve” lifestyle means living with an awareness that people have emotional, spiritual, and physical needs, and using the comfort and ministry of food to respond to those needs, demonstrating the goodness of God in their lives. It’s opening your heart to impact theirs. It’s opening your home to give people a place to belong. Love Welcome Serve is deliberate and considerate. Simply said, it’s intentional kitchening. Purposeful plating. Lovin’ on people with lasagna. Can the people be strangers? Yes. Company? Yes. Your spouse and kids? Yes. Your mail carrier? Yes. Crown roast or boxed macaroni and cheese? Yes. Food is the means to an end, and the “end” is to impact the lives of people for the better. Love Welcome Serve.

I love the way Sally Clarkson says it in her book The Lifegiving Home: “There is something about preparing food and sharing it that enhances relationships, builds community, and even fosters spiritual connection.” My goodness, she is so right! And you want to know what else? When you purposefully pour yourself into others, the treat will be yours, too! There’s something unique and magical about serving. It’ll come right back around and squeeze your heart.

MY HOPE

As with my retail store, my social media presence, my loud mouth, and about every other platform the good Lord’s given to me, my hope for this book is that you will be encouraged and equipped to live out authentic, intentional, life-giving hospitality right there in your own kitchens and homes.

I hope to encourage you to…

see that cooking for your family is an enormous privilege and can create treasured memories and lifelong warm fuzzies.

look for folks who need to feel that they matter and invite them into your home to be seen and cared for.

be the one who finally takes the step of inviting rather than waiting to be invited.

tune your heart to hear others’ needs and respond with a pot pie at their door.

view your home as one of the warmest and most effective tools to love on your kids, their friends, your neighbors, the new family in town, and more.

realize that hospitality is about others, not you, and enjoy the freedom and peace that it brings.

pray that God will blow the doors of your home wide open so that out of your kitchen and around your table, lives will be changed for the better.