Bread & Wine Video 2: Into the Mess

 

Because that’s what we’re really talking about, right? When we talk about why we don’t invite people over for dinner, or why we’re afraid to open our doors and gather people around our tables? We’re afraid that when they see our mess, they won’t love us anymore. Everyone’s mess is different, but everyone has a mess.

Maybe people will see that your marriage is in a rough and prickly season. Or that all is not well with your kids. Maybe people will see that your financial life is strained to the point of breaking, or that you really have no idea how to cook because your family growing up didn’t gather for meals, and maybe that makes you feel self-conscious. Maybe when you look around the house all you see are the things that are undone, mismatched, chipped and worse for wear. I get it. There have been seasons when I’ve felt like our mess is more than I can manage inviting people into.

But this is the deal: the only way through is courage, vulnerability, connection. If you decide to keep your front door closed to keep people from seeing your mess, you’ll end up isolated behind those doors, and that privacy you think you so desperately need will become a prison of its own. People will never see the mess, but they’ll never see the beauty, either—the beauty of being known, seen, accepted, loved. 

So Bread & Wine is about food, but more than that it’s about connection—the connections that are made when we screw up our courage and walk away from our fears, when we open the doors to our homes and our hearts and gather people around our tables.