When I was eight, nine, and ten, I loved summer vacation – running through the sprinkler, eating popsicles, and catching lightning bugs. As an adult, summer doesn’t bring the same sense of joy. Instead of rest and restoration, summer means disrupted schedules, extra laundry, cranky children, and work that never seems to end.
It doesn’t have to be that way. I don’t suggest your routine, your house, your children, and your temper won’t be catawampus. I am not one of those Pinterest-worthy moms keeping cool on the hottest days, with home and children humming smoothly along. But I have been the mom who finds rest and restoration in the popsicle fueled chaos of summer.
I do love to tap on those “Five Summer Dinner Party Ideas!” and those images of tablescapes of twine and the sort of wildflower abundance that certainly doesn’t grow along my roadsides. I drool over berry parfait recipes and a lemonade spritzer with blueberries bobbing festively on top.
But most days, I drag myself to the kitchen in the late afternoon heat and try to dream up a nutritious dinner while my dining room table becomes host to papers, missing goggles, and shirts discarded because “it’s sooooo hot.” And my sidewalk grows more crabgrass than brick. Summer can be messy, busy, hot. Stressful.
The pressure is there to create “the perfect summer” with picnics or splash parties – with festive desserts and seasonal décor. But perfection isn’t just elusive. It’s an illusion. You can have that “perfect summer” with dish soap slip and slides, popsicles, and simple hamburgers, too.
Hospitality isn’t about perfection. It’s about welcome. And maybe the best welcome is outside.
We know the stories from Genesis, but take a closer look: God walked in the Garden in the cool of the day. When heat was tempered as the sun drew lower, when the day’s activities wound down, God joined Adam and Eve as they strolled through His creation.
The Creator of the Universe chose to meet his beloved creations in a garden. He didn’t demand a special event. He simply joined them outside and walked with them in the hospitality of creation.
Later, God’s son sought solace in creation. When the crowds grew too large and the knowledge of the future was heavy on his heart, Jesus didn’t retreat into Jerusalem. He retreated into the mountains or walked along the sea. His final, agonizing night of prayer with His Father was spent in a garden, among the ancient, sheltering olive trees.
Scripture teaches us what science now confirms: Time in nature quite literally restores us, body, heart, mind, and soul.
Our breathing is easier in nature, our heart rate slows, our blood pressure lowers, stress hormones dissipate. Calming hormones flood our brains, relaxing us, making us more open to connection. No matter what stresses we are under, we tend to “let our guard down more in nature. We relax and allow ourselves to breathe more deeply, think more creatively.”
What does that mean for women trying to embrace the summer while carrying an increasingly heavy mental load? Too often, we reject the model Jesus gave us. When stressed or anxious, we retreat into our made environment. We go indoors, try to set the perfect table, make the perfect meal. We seek to control our environment, to tame the chaos within by taming it without.
May I suggest something different? Go outside. Take the party to God’s garden.
Don’t have the perfect playroom or the biggest kitchen or the prettiest tablescape? Who cares! You have the perfect playroom and the prettiest dining room right outside. We are not creating a garden party for Pinterest. This is about the sunshine, the smell of cut grass, the blue sky, and late summer flowers. This is about catching lightning bugs at dusk and playing flashlight tag as it gets dark.
This is hotdogs and freezer pops and sticky faces and laughter. These are found in a pocket yard in the city as much as in a manicured lawn.
Leave that dining room table full of mismatched socks and enjoy a glass of ice water on the front steps. Let the feel of the breeze and the warm sun on your shoulders, the soft prickliness of grass under your feet, and the tickle of a bumblebee remind you that God loves you and He created this world for you to love and to be loved by.
Let yourself play outside this summer. Think of all the little ways you can get out into God’s garden. Take your morning coffee and cereal out onto the porch instead of creating a breakfast mess in the kitchen. Take an evening walk that becomes time for listening to your children’s hearts – as God walked with His children. Backyard picnics eliminate the pressure of formal dining and all you need is a blanket.
From the time they could go outside without me, I have sent squabbling siblings outside – not as punishment but trusting nature to do its healing work. Somehow, arguing children become playful children when given time in creation.
Invite friends over for lunch and don’t worry about setting the table. Toss some trays of finger foods on the porch with a tin can “vase” of wildflowers and let appetites and hearts be filled. Let the children spend hours building fairy houses. Move a dreaded meeting outside to a picnic table.
When we immerse ourselves in nature, we begin to speak the language that God wove into creation itself. Relationships "grow" and "flourish." We long to be "rooted" and "grounded." We understand that some seasons are for planting, others for pruning, and still others for harvest.
This language becomes powerful when we gather with others outdoors. Walking a trail with your teenager or sitting under a tree with a struggling friend, words that start as a trickle can become a flood. Watching a sunset with your husband, silence becomes golden rather than awkward.
Use creation as your dining room and your playroom, and let God’s beauty be your décor. Offer quiet rest to your guests under a shady tree with a cool glass of water and your own vulnerable heart. Nature allows us to strip away pretense and remember what matters most – loving God and building authentic relationships with Him and with others.
I’d like to issue a gentle challenge this summer, a challenge to find rest and restoration in the world God created for us.
- Find just one outdoor space for your own retreat and reflection this summer
- Take just 5 minutes every morning to breathe deeply outside before your day begins
- Invite just one person for a gathering in nature where you forget perfection and embrace creation
- Move family conversations outside and note how your family dynamics change
- Spend one evening star-gazing as worship, finding your place in God’s vast creation
- Try a nature journal to process your emotions and remember God’s faithfulness
- Listen to your own thoughts as you respond to your time in creation
As you sit in that garden, on that porch, under that tree, remember this: The God who painted every sunset, who knows every sparrow, who counts the hairs on your head – He sees you, weary mama. He knows you need restoration. And He's provided it, freely and abundantly, in the world He made.
"The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands" (Psalm 19:1). This summer, let them declare His care for you too.
Take a deep breath, step outside, and discover the hospitality that's been waiting for you all along – in the garden where God still walks in the cool of the day.
Kimberly Hart
As one of the first in her extended family to attend college, Kimberly studied Brain and Cognitive Science at MIT before getting her JD from Columbia University School of Law. Passionate about the intersection of justice and mercy, Kimberly worked on lobbying and advocacy on human rights, peace-building, and humanitarian need for multiple international NGOs.
Kimberly appreciates the need for a welcoming space, good food and drink, connecting stories, and thoughtful, challenging dialogue. She makes her home on 62 acres of a historic farm in central Maryland in an old house with wonderfully wavy glass windowpanes. She lives with her gentleman farmer husband, four strong-willed, strong-minded, and creative kids, one co-dependent rescue dog who thinks she’s much smaller than she is, one very cat-like adopted cat, two fainting goats who were supposed to be livestock-not-pets, plus her mother and her outlaw barn cat. Fairlight Farm is also the host to the Fairlight Forum, dedicated to creating space to hear and be heard.
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