I think some people just have hospitable personalities that, no matter where you are, make you want to camp out in the living room of their soul.

I don’t know that I have that sort of personality.

I tend to size up the situation before me and make a judgment of who a person is before engaging someone for the first time. My default exterior is closed and uninviting, but if you look and act like me, or seem safe in some other way, maybe I will approach you.

I am almost always wrong about my assumptions.

I once watched with curiosity as my friend stopped to talk to a homeless woman in my neighborhood and extended ways in which she could personally help her. I had no idea what made her capable of doing this, and chalked it up to just not being my thing. I know lots of extroverts, those people who make conversation with everybody. They chat with the cashier while grocery shopping, they talk to the other moms at the park, they say, ‘Hey, that looks cute on you,’ to the fellow shopper at the mall. I once knew a gal whose husband teased her that she’d talk to a light pole if no one else was around.

This is not naturally me. In fact, this is the opposite of me. It is the anti-me. And for the longest time it was the so-not-going-to-EVER-be-me me. But lately I’ve been trying to not use this as an excuse to avoid the people Jesus puts in front of me.

Jesus says to Paul in 2 Corinthians 12:9, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” I see no other way around this statement except to GET OVER MYSELF.

So now, instead of hiding out in my seat before church starts, I hang out in the fellowship hall with all those conveniently placed cafe tables. I still have to really psych myself up for this. You might call it prayer. Or, you might call it a pleading, of sorts, that there not be spinach in my teeth or toilet paper stuck to my shoe, or that upon striking up a conversation I don’t talk endlessly about myself without using any punctuation.

Here’s an example of how I am working on overcoming my fear of talking to people:

On any given Sunday, I usually arrive with my family around 10am (for the 10:30 service). My husband, Bryan, drops us off at the family entrance, and I check in the kids to children’s church while he parks the car and takes the shuttle in. Once the kids are settled, I save our seats in the sanctuary, then grab a cup of coffee in the fellowship hall and sit at one of the cafe tables.

Many Sundays I sit alone, smiling at others as they walk by. Sometimes a friend I know will stop to chat briefly on her way to the coffee station. I know this method of greeting others is extremely passive of me, but sometimes my smile and my empty table looks inviting to another.

A few weeks ago I met a couple well into their retirement years who recently started attending Mars Hill when they moved to West Seattle. The gentleman caught my eye and asked if he and his wife could join me. I was elated. I asked if they’d been coming long, how they’d heard about Mars Hill, and when I discovered they were fairly new, I asked what kept them coming back. We chatted, and they asked questions about our multi-campus structure and our overseas missions.

They were nothing like my grandparents, who attended a church with no instrumental music and required women to wear head coverings. For this reason I’m always surprised to see grandparents at Mars Hill I just assume the loud music is too much for them. But this couple not only loved the preaching, but they also loved the music, and kept coming back.

I was elated and thankful for the opportunity to meet people who were nothing like me, and whom I would have never otherwise approached. As he pushes me out of my comfort zone, I experience the grace of Jesus as he uses my weakness for his purpose.