I Hit Every Single Red Light in Town.

Our family was bringing bagels in to church for our "hospitality" area. My husband goes to church early because he is the music guy, so he and my 8 year old took the bagels with them. But I didn't send the cream cheese with them.

I planned on arriving early to the church, so I could make sure everything was all set up and deliver the cream cheese. Wouldn't you know the morning didn't go according to plan? As I pulled out of my driveway, I knew I was cutting it close on arriving early. I got about 4 minutes down the road and realized I'd left a necessity at home, so I had to turn around. At this point I am starting to seriously freak out. I get back in the car realizing that I am going to now get there when everyone else does. I am pretty upset at this point, but at least I am not going to be LATE.

Wrong.

Then I proceed to hit every red light between my house and church. As I get further down the road, I see traffic backed up. Utility crews had a 5 lane road down to 2 lanes. Yeah, it wasn't pretty. I was really getting worked up at this point. I now knew, hope was lost, I was going to get to church late. People were going to arrive, be delighted to see the bagels and then realize there wasn't any cream cheese.

Most of the drive, I tried to blame everyone I could (except for myself) for the cream cheese not being there on time. I had suggested my husband take it earlier and he insisted I should bring it, leaving it in the fridge as long as possible. I blamed my 3 year old for being cranky and uncooperative. I couldn't figure out why on earth utility work had to be done on Sunday morning and I was mad at God that He didn't make every light between home and church GREEN.

I hit the world's longest traffic light, the one in front of our church's meeting area right as it turned red. I sat there for what had to be several minutes. That's when I began to realize my husband was right, he gets there a whole hour earlier than everyone else and I needed to keep the cream cheese cool. My 3 year old was just being a 3 year old-she is time challenged and it isn't anything I don't deal with on a daily basis, so I should have expected her resistance. The utility work probably had to be done. And as for the red lights, I am sure that was just part of the lesson.

Right there in sight of my destination, I realized that I was being an approval freak. A perfectionist. A blame shifter. Not a person looking forward to church but a person worried about what everyone was going to think when they saw these nicely arranged bagel platters and no cream cheese! And somehow, they were going to know that I was responsible for things not going perfectly. It was at that moment, I had to apologize to God and say I was sorry. I was being ridiculous. The bagels and cream cheese were about offering hospitality to others..some how I made it about me.

I got there and nobody cared that the cream cheese was 15 minutes late. Seriously, the only mention of the cream cheese was when someone thanked me for setting up the bagels and cream cheese.

After church I was visiting with a friend. I told her that I was thinking a lot about hospitality, and she said she'd always struggled with it. But she heard a quote once that went something like this, "It doesn't matter so much what was is on the table, but what matters is who is sitting in the chairs."

I think that captures hospitality. The pretty table is nice, the cream cheese being out with the bagels is a good thing, but in the end what matters the most is the people you are spending time with.

I learned my lesson, God loves me despite my failures, insecurities, blame shifting, etc. And of course, it's not about the cream cheese.