I love to travel! We have been in Texas for the past few days, first for a horse show in San Antonio, then visiting family in Austin.
The Gray Moss Inn in San Antonio was superb. The fresh mushroom appetizer was amazing, then Wahoo (fish) flown in from Hawaii... oh my. Maybe the most perfect piece of fish ever, with grilled asparagus. We we're in the company of our dear friend, Mark Farrar. I feel so lucky to get to work with people I love.
We also got to spend time with our good buddy, Casey McBride, photographer. This guy travels across the country shooting beautiful photos of horses with his wife, daughter and black lab for a living. I am always inspired by people who have found a way to live their lives in an unconventional way.
To say that I've been staying with folks who are living outside of the box seems inadequate when it comes to Holly and Jeremy Shore, Amanda's cousins. These people make the unattainable look easy. When the layers come back, and you see the foundations of basic Christian principles behind the lives of this photo perfect, yet very real family, it makes me feel so encouraged. The super hip city of Austin doesn't hurt either.
Here's my point. If you want to live outside of the box, get out of your house. Get a little uncomfortable. Open your home to others. Share what you know, and learn from people who know more than you!
I read in the Bible just now about a woman named Lydia who listened to Paul's teaching and opened her home to him. It only said a few things about her, but all of them made me like her. She sold expensive purple cloth, she believed the good news, and she kept on urging Paul and Silas to stay at her house until they did. She wore them down with her kindness, and showed them hospitality in her beautiful home. I think it is safe to say that someone who sold pretty cloth would at least have some nice drapes.
I want to be like that. She shared her home with some strangers; and see what it got her? Her name is remembered for all time in the holiest book of all.
She was not afraid to associate with people who were a little outside of the box. These guys were going around teaching something that was stirring everything up. They were put in jail for it! But Lydia heard the truth, and apparently didn't care what anybody thought. She believed! And I do too.
That's the yellow rose of Texas in the photo.
2 comments:
I love this blog, thank you for sharing and challenging us to step out - be a risk taker. I've always been envious of Lydia's drapes. :)
This speaks so well to what I am striving for right now -- and have been over the past months. I had been stuck. But much more stuck than I really had to be. So I am making a point of coming out of that. I don't think I really realized how boxed in I had gotten. It was so gradual... Anyway, I'm peeeeling back those layers.
The flip side of that is opening my home. It has become important to me to bring people here. I have given up on the pride of having my home the way I would like it, although I have worked on that too (and realize it won't be an over-night transformation!). Meanwhile, I'm wasting valuable friend time! So, though I am agonizingly antisocial AND a social doofus, I am doing my VERY best to reach out and be open.
Thank you, yet again, Stacy, for a great message!
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