How to Love Your Neighbor When You’re A Perfectionist

Guest Post by Heather Owen

I’ve heard so many women say, “I don’t have the gift of hospitality.” That has never been my problem. Even before I was a truly committed Christ follower, it was always very easy for me to open my home to others and share what I had, whether that was little or much. It was simple for me to play hostess and impress with a meal and my skills in the kitchen—effortless to plan creative gatherings that were memorable and anticipated. When the kids were growing up, our house was like Grand Central Station—open to everyone and the center of neighborhood activity for everyone that had kids our age, school friends, and our work colleagues. If you were in our circles, you were at our house regularly and you knew you could stop by unannounced and find a warm welcome.

It almost sounds as if I was doing a good job of loving my neighbor as myself, doesn’t it? But the dark secret underlying what seemed like my ability to love others well is that it was all driven from a place of need for love, acceptance, and validation that I never got as a child or in my first several marriages. I wanted to feel valued, appreciated, and loved. So hosting and welcoming people was like a high for me. I did truly love them, and I think if you talked to any one of the people that spent time with me in those early years, they would tell you that they knew I truly loved them. But that dark secret was always there underneath, buried so deep that even I didn’t even know it myself.

Can you guess who didn’t have warm fuzzies before holiday dinners, parties, or any occasion? The people living in my house. They got the snappy, stressed out, frustrated version of me when any little thing didn’t go according to plan in the prep phase. They began to dread the days that they knew an event was coming because of the way I acted during those hours before. I treated opportunities to show hospitality as if they were a performance that was being critiqued and graded. My friends and neighbors probably still felt loved, but on those days, my family sure didn’t feel loved. More importantly, my heart motivation was IMPURE. I had made it all about how these events made me feel. How they fueled me. Recharged me. Made me feel validated during and after the fact.

But it’s not about me, and it never was.

I am so thankful that God showed me clearly what was unclean in my own heart. I am grateful for the lessons that softened my perfectionist edges and reminded me that my worth doesn’t come in performing for others but is derived from being created in His image. I am grateful for His long suffering patience, rebuke, and discipline because He disciplines those He loves. There is a reason that the two greatest commands on which all the law and prophets hang (Matthew 22:34-40; Mark 12:30-34) are in a very specific order; to truly love others well, we must first love God with all we are and all we have. Our love for others is an overflow of the love we have for God.

I am still an enthusiastic hostess, making elaborate mermaid cupcakes for a neighbor’s birthday celebration and hosting “all are welcome” friends and neighbor Fridays every other week. But the result of my corrected heart is a stress-free me and relaxed household that focuses on the people instead of how well I have entertained them.

It’s still important for me to make my guests feel welcomed and loved but now it is with the overflow of God’s love for me that I can love and serve others well.