Did you grow up in a swinging door household—friends and family in and out, a rotating cast of characters gathered around the dinner table?

Or maybe you came of age in a home where the idea of having someone over didn’t even occur to you. Your parents didn’t host their friends, so why would you?

The hospitality habits in our families of origin shape the ways we practice hospitality as adults. But beyond the mere instinct to invite or entertain, hospitality represents a virtue. Scripture even says it’s a spiritual gift.

In “Reimagining Hospitality, for a Pandemic,” Laura Finch recalls the way her parents approached hospitality and recounts her recent experience of hosting an international student as the world suddenly shut down last March.

“Maybe this pandemic proves a season for our hearts to distinguish between our ideas of hospitality and the reality of hospitality,” Finch writes. May her words encourage you to prepare a place for others as you remember the one who prepares a place in eternity for you.