About the Author

Jen encourages women to embrace both the beauty and bedlam of their everyday lives at BeautyandBedlam.com. A popular speaker, worship leader, and author of Just Open the Door: How One Invitation Can Change a Generation, Jen lives in North Carolina with her husband, five children, and a sofa for anyone...

(in)side DaySpring: things we love
& you will too!
Find more at DaySpring.com
(in)side DaySpring:
things we love
& you will too!
Find more at
DaySpring.com
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  1. LOL
    I laugh because I so understand these moments…
    I’ve prayed to God to have that kind of home where friends and family think of my home ‘as a soft place to land’…to feel loved…welcome…and at ease….
    Myself…until people get there…it is NOT a safe place to land for myself…I worry myself until my stomach rolls with the thoughts I have but by the time everyone is here, and i can look at faces and see the peace, hear the laughter and feel the love…I know this is what is important. Not the fact that I really need new carpet or a new bannister or I need to have that huge tree cut down.
    I pray I can remember your words the next time around!

  2. Oh, Jen, I hope someday I get to come hang out at your house. Having been with you in person I know you take that Welcome Home mentality with you wherever you go. My heart always feels welcome with yours–and more full of joy for the time we’ve spent together. Thanks for this reminder about grace and what really matters. (:

  3. As one of the lucky ones who has been in your home, I will say with great confidence how you live and breathe this post. Thank you for thinking it, for feeling it, for writing it and most of all, for living it. I love your beauty and your bedlam!

  4. This is such a wonderful reminder! I have eight children and all their projects and messes have sometimes made me reluctant to have guests over.
    You have given me courage to go for it more often!
    By the way, I hope all guests helped you “raise the roof” on that gazebo!

  5. Thank you for sharing this! Dh expressed just the other day about wanting to have more friends from church over. Definitely need not have the mentality where it has to be perfect.

  6. This is what I call a Mary and Martha moment, with Mary always choosing the better part. Martha’s intentions were good but she, like I, forgot that what is truly important is welcoming our Lord, and our Lord in each other. I have 8 childen too, but over the years have learned, sometimes, painfully, that my true friends don’t care if they have to step over sports equipment and other paraphenalia to get to the hot cup of tea at my table.

  7. You are so right! Don’t let your Martha mentality stop you from blessing other’s in your home! Hospitality isn’t about having the best house or the neatest cleanest! It’s about the warmth and welcome one feels once they enter the threshold!
    I’ve learned this many times!
    My motto is…JUST DO IT!
    Bring someone home with you….ESPECIALLY unplanned! It will rock your world! 🙂

  8. This is a lesson the Lord has been slowly been convicting us of. We have recently experienced a “perfect” home but the lack of love and kindness marred what could have been a wonderful time. It was a reminder to us that our love for God and for each other is more important than perfection in our home. So instead of getting a bad attitude or becoming crabby with one another as we’re running around making the house perfect, we need to focus on our hearts as we work to make our home comfortable (not perfect!) for our guests.

  9. This is where I offer a “bless your heart” and actually mean it Jennifer 🙂 I SOOOOO understand your pain – we are hosting my husbands sis this weekend and I want the house to be perfect… That dratted Martha clinging to my subconscious – grrr.
    Love this – thank you so much Jennifer for hte perfect reminder which is so perfectly timed 🙂