house pests
Last week, a reader confided that her living situation had been strained by a month-long visit from an oblivious, benighted house guest. She’s not alone. Many of us who work toward greater wholeness and self-awareness know there is no subtler blow to the ego than having a house pest underfoot.
And that’s what they are: house pests.
We explain to friends, “I have a house guest for a month,” but shared eye rolls, weary tones, and helpless shrugs reveal the awful and universal burden of house pests.
They drive us mad.
Yet in the spirit realm, they are God-given gifts—sent to cause just enough suffering to loosen us from the tyranny of our small selves. Before we can be freed from externals, we must be mastered by them.
I’m writing about myself, of course.
the cost of kindness
Over the course of our 30-year marriage, my husband and I have opened our home to scores of people—some relatives, some strangers. They’ve included foster babies, angry teenagers on the run, and embittered midlife wanderers.
We’ve housed addicts, alcoholics, righteous priests of God, teachers, missionaries, the physically and mentally ill, refugees, the wounded, and the orphaned. We’ve also welcomed ordinary people in need of a temporary landing place—a pause between one chapter of life and the next,
They’ve stayed for days, weeks, months—sometimes more than a year.
We have loved them.
We have hated them.
They’ve driven us mad.
the furnace of hospitality
We’ve given up our space, stored their belongings, and welcomed their relatives and pets. We’ve adapted to their rhythms, trying to meet them where they are and offer what we can.
Some have driven our cars, worn our clothes, eaten our food, used our electricity and water. One finished college while living under our roof; another completed law school. Rarely did anyone return in kind what we gave—but over time, I’ve come to understand they weren’t supposed to.
Guests like these arrive to receive. To draw from us. Sometimes to demand. And it’s in that discomfort—when our attachments are pressed, our pride challenged, our boundaries exposed—that we come to see what’s still unhealed in ourselves.
Not everyone recovers. Not everyone changes. Some deceive. Some drain. But helping others has turned out to be less about what they gain than what I learn.
Hospitality is a crucible of character.
It strips away illusions—about others, about ourselves. Yet even when it brings conflict, exhaustion, or disappointment, it also offers us a rare education in grace. We learn, often painfully, that generosity isn’t transactional, and that true welcome doesn’t hinge on outcome or gratitude.
In sharing our lives with others—whether for a night or a year—we’re shaped into people with more patience, more discernment, more capacity to love wisely. We come to understand that hospitality isn’t just something we offer; it’s a way of being in the world. As Henri Nouwen writes,
Hospitality means primarily the creation of free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy… not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place.
If we are lucky—or just willing—we discover that in making space for others, we become larger, kinder people ourselves.
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