Keep Me at the Table

Sometimes I give my kids candy after dinner to keep them at the table longer.

Last night the conversation around the dinner table was somehow memorable and weighty and at the same time funny and lighthearted. During our Bible reading, my 7-year-old climbed in my lap, and I thought to myself, “Remember this.” Both boys had devoured their food like boys tend to do, always leaving me wondering where it all goes. (How can they still be hungry?) The plates were empty, so I grabbed some cups of applesauce, sprinkled cinnamon sugar on top, and slid the cups to my boys while my husband told them a story about his childhood. In between the burst of laughter and a conversation about whether or not baptism saves you (it doesn’t), I dug out the package of leftover Christmas truffles I’ve been saving and divided them between my sons, smiling when they said, “Candy? Really?” Don’t get me wrong, they get their fair share of sugary sweets; the surprise was that I kept offering them. But the thing they can’t understand at 14 and 7 is that I just wanted to keep them at the table, to stretch out the moment of sweetness because I was just so full of something I couldn’t quite name.

Contentment, it was. It hit me this morning while I iced my back and chased some Tylenol with large cup of coffee. Contentment.

Life is far from perfect. I’m up 2 or 3 times a night with chronic pain, and my teenager is about to have that long-awaited surgery, and church ministry is sometimes very hard, and the house needs a lot of repairs, and there are so many medical & therapy appointments between the four of us, and, and, and—but still yet, contentment is blooming in my heart. I wrote it down in my journal in case I forgot. I am content. “This is weird,” I thought, while sipping my coffee and tracing my fingers along the pages of my Bible this morning. I have longed for change for so much of my life. For things I cannot bring about. For dreams that will always remain buried. So much that I have missed what is right in front of me. I want to savor this.

I spent a good while there on the couch, underlining verses in Proverbs 21 where I’m buried in study this week, answering questions about the text, making notes in my spiral notebook, meditating on the verses that hit me especially hard, praying. I heard my kids get up and knew my sweet hour of prayer and reading was coming to an end. “I want to stay the table, Lord.” I didn’t want to leave. This was Christmas truffles. Applesauce with cinnamon sugar.

Our dinners aren’t always warm, glowy affairs. Sometimes meals are just meals. Sustainable but forgettable. Sometimes I have to do a lot of negotiating, trying to convince young humans that broccoli won’t actually make them sick. Sometimes I have to correct grumpy attitudes or watch everyone inhale their food and then run out the door to basketball practice. Sometimes the grumpy attitude that needs correcting is mine. Not every dinner is a memorable, contemplative affair with rich conversations and the development of core memories. We don’t always linger with laughter and endearing stories. But, sometimes we do.

The funny thing is we need both kinds of dinners. We need the long, drawn out, kid-in-my-lap-tears-in-my-eyes, “I wish this could last forever” meals. We need those sweet, intimate moments of growth as a family for they spur us on through the nights when dinner is hurried and merely a time to nourish our bodies and fuel them for what’s next on the schedule. We treasure the extraordinary. But those ho-hum, ordinary meals of chicken and vegetables and how was your day and let’s read Luke 5 and let’s pray for so-and-so and let’s recite Romans 8 before we clean up the table for homework—we need those nights, too. The ordinary is working to make the extraordinary feel like something to treasure. Together, both kinds of dinner build up strength and endurance, nourishing us in ways we don’t see on the surface. They are chinks in a long chain of growth between who we were and who we will become.

I really loved my time in Bible study and prayer this morning. It was one of those days when I wanted to stay and stay and stay. Jesus seemed so near; I could just about touch Him. But it isn’t always like that. Oh, don’t misunderstand me. He’s always that near, no matter how warm or frozen my heart might feel. But sometimes I’m just really, really aware of it. Those days with rich study and closeness to Him in deep prayer—it’s a feast I want to recreate every single day. But it doesn’t always feel like that. My mornings in the Word aren’t always rich with enlightenment or intimacy. Sometimes reading is just reading. Absorbing. Noting. It’s sustainable but a bit forgettable. Sometimes I close my Bible and wonder if that did any good all. I don’t always want to linger. But, sometimes I do.

The funny thing is I need both mornings. I need the ho-hum ordinary days of reading and prayer for the habit lays the path to real growth. It may not seem like a feast every day, but it is. The ordinary meal of reading and praying and meditating on Scripture is doing more for my internal self than I can see on the surface. Bit by bit, the Lord is using the daily feeding to change and shape me. And persevering through the days when it feels like nothing at all prepares me for the days when truth bursts through the pages with stunning clarity. The ordinary prepares me to savor the extraordinary, helps me to see that they are one and the same. Both kinds of mornings with the Lord are nourishing me and building up my heart with the goodness of the gospel. They are chinks in a long chain of growth between who I was before Jesus and who I am becoming in Him.

“Keep me at the table, Lord,” I’ve prayed a lot today.

And I know He will for that’s the beauty of giving yourself to His Word every day. You’ll always come back for more.

The ordinary prepares me to savor the extraordinary, helps me to see that they are one and the same. Share on X

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