What's on your Menu?

         We are thoroughly enjoying our parents visit.  They have been here for almost two weeks and will stay at least that much longer.  Our girls have loved having their grandparents here to spoil them.  However, the girls have found ways to spoil them too!

            Our oldest and her husband have had my parents over to their home for dinner twice.  This was a first for my parents to be guests in the home of their grandchildren.  The second night Michelle had my parents over, I was able to go.

            Before we ate Michelle asked if she could read from her new favorite book,

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Bread and Wine: A Love Letter to Life Around the Table with Recipes by Shauna Niequist.  Here is the excerpt she read:

                        “I’m not a cook, and this isn’t a cookbook.  I have no illusion of  opening a 

fine-dining fusion restaurant or a charming bed-and-breakfast,

            wearing an apron and making scones every morning.  My husband will tell

            you we eat plenty of takeout and that I have a truly manic commitment to leftovers.  I’ll eat the same thing eight meals in a row, just so it doesn’t go to

            waste.

                        I’m not a stickler about nutrition or a purist about organics, although I care about those things.  I’m learning about them little by little, and living

            them step by step, meal by meal.  I’m not a vegan and I don’t eat low-carb,

            And I don’t want you to change the way you eat, necessarily.  But I do want  you to love what you eat, and to share food with people you love, and to

            gather people together, for frozen pizza or filet mignon, because I think the

            gathering is of great significance.

                        When you eat, I want you to think of God, of the holiness of hands that feed us, of the provision we are given every time we eat. When you eat bread and you drink wine, I want you to think about the body and the blood

            every time, not just when the bread and wine show up in church, but when they show up anywhere – on a picnic table or a hardwood floor or a beach.

                        Some of my most sacred meals have been eaten out of travel mugs on

            camping trips or on benches on the streets in Europe.  Many of them have

            been at our own table or around our coffee table, leaning back against the

            couch.  They’ve been high food and low food, fresh and frozen, extravagant

            and right out of the pizza box.

                        It’s about the table, and about all the other places we find ourselves

            eating.   It’s about a spirit or quality of living that rises up when we offer one

            another life itself, in the form of dinner or soup or breakfast, or bread and

            wine.

            Michelle wanted to read this because she is learning it isn’t so much about the extravagance of the food or the table decorations. 

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Being at the table with those she loves and having meaningful conversations will always trump what has been served!

            Moms, it may take many years before our babies understand the value of relationships.  We must continue to model mealtime with our families.    It thrills this momma’s heart to watch the young lady God placed in our home to be in her own home as a young wife placing more value on being together than fusing over what she serves or how the table looks.