Pondering Everyday Family Moments
It’s early and I’m sitting at my kitchen table in the dark of early morning as the dusky light of predawn begins to banish the blackness of night and brings clarity to shapes of trees and bushes outside my kitchen windows. Almost every morning I sit here alone and enjoy the solitude. This has been my habit for many years, but now I have far more time alone and the chairs around my kitchen table are usually empty. This morning I am reflecting on the funeral of old friends recently killed in a flash flood. At the funeral there were lots of family pictures of parents, children, and grandchildren all enjoying life together – pictures I know those left behind will treasure.
This has me thinking about those everyday family moments that we rarely treasure when they are common, daily occurrences, like gathering around the dinner table. The normalcy of a family meal is something my heart often longed for when my children were growing up. I was pregnant with my youngest child, Jennifer, when, Justin, my oldest was left severely brain damaged because of complications of surgery. I often longed for a normal family dinner with every member of my family of six gathered at the table enjoying a meal together. Although, I learned to treasure the handicapped child that Justin became, that “normal” family dinner never really happened.
Years later when death had declined our family numbers from six to four, I remember sitting back and just listening to my teenagers talk at the table and although I felt the emptiness of those missing, I treasured those everyday moments of family gathered around the table enjoying a meal and conversation.
The Blessing of Extended Family
Maybe your family eats together at the table every evening. Or perhaps your family enjoys a weekly cookout on the back patio, or pizza and a movie on Friday night.
Family traditions that are a normal part of our lives today may change as families grow and children grow up. When I married and begin having children, the family that I knew as a child changed and my parents’ family expanded to include in-laws and grandchildren. After Justin died, my younger brother married and brought a precious wife and five stepchildren into our extended family, and I learned that family did not all need to be biologically related to be family.
In fact, we have dear friends whose families feel like ‘family’ to me and my children. And those common occurrences when we all gathered to share a meal and our children were scattered across the yard eating and laughing and enjoying life together, have become treasured memories.
how quickly Time Passes
But little did we realize how quickly time would pass. No one could have guessed that in just seven years, my brother’s wife would die of breast cancer. It was not long after her death that my brother’s stepchildren, most of them grown, began to scatter and live their own lives and start their own families. At the same time my own children were leaving home and it wasn’t long before all my parent’s grandchildren were grown.
In the years when our families were young, there were only a handful of times that our extended family all gathered to enjoy a meal together. I treasure those memories and lament that they were few.
The same is true of friends, their children have grown and scattered and although our families still gather on occasion, it has been years since everyone was able to be present. While I continue to treasure those moments together, the absent are always missed.
As my own children have grown and left home, differences have divided them, and it has been almost a decade since my children have all gathered around the table where they grew up and shared a meal together.
Differences Divide and Opportunities are missed
I am very thankful for each of my children and their families, and I pray for them all daily. My heart treasures each moment I spend with them, but how I long to see them united in both body and love together around my table. Whatever season they are in and wherever they are in their own personal journey, they are always welcome at my table.
Sadly, there are parents who have closed their doors and their table to a wayward child; or a child who has beliefs that differ from their own. I understand the broken heart of a parent who feels their adult child has made unhealthy decisions or has turned away from the fundamental beliefs they were taught as a child. But if they’re willing to come, I encourage you to open the door wide and welcome them home just as the father welcomed home his son in the parable in Luke chapter 15. Although some adult children may openly reject their Christian upbringing, others may have simply adopted Christian beliefs that differ in culture or theology from their parents. I am not saying we should change or compromise our beliefs, but I think it is incredibly sad when people who claim to be Christ followers cannot offer grace and understanding to one another and find enough common ground to gather together in love.
Sometimes parents and often young adults think there will be plenty of time for circumstances to change; that there will be ample opportunities and an endless number of holidays to gather… later. We think there will be other days when we’re not as busy or when children are older, and travel isn’t as difficult. We think differences will eventually dissolve and that time will make ‘the heart grow fonder’ or reunions sweeter. But the truth is time and differences divide making reunions awkward and uncomfortable and we never know when the last time will be our last time together or the last missed opportunity the last opportunity.
The Banquet parable
I am reminded of the parable of Jesus recorded in Luke 14:16, “Then He said to him, ‘A certain man gave a great supper and invited many and sent his servant at the supper time to say to those who were invited, ‘Come, for all things are now ready.’ But they all with one accord began to make excuses. ..(21) So that servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house, being angry, said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in here the poor and the maimed and the lame and the blind.’ And the servant said, ‘Master, it is done as you commanded, and still there is room.’ Then the master said to the servant, ‘Go out into the highways and hedges and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled. For I say to you that none of those men who were invited shall taste my supper.”
I think this passage is also tied to the passage in Revelation 19:9, “Then he said to me, “Write: ‘Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb!” and he said to me, “These are the true sayings of God.”
While this beautiful passage in Revelation fills the heart with longing for the family table that will surpass all family gatherings, I am also reminded of the passage in Mark 10:29 that promises we have not left (or lost – my own reminder) anything for Christ’s sake and that of the gospel, that we will not receive more in return both in this time and in the age to come.
praise for the present
Today, if your family is gathered around your table, pause, and treasure the moment and praise God for the time together. If death has reduced the number of those gathered around your table, I know your heart feels the emptiness of those who are missing, but I encourage you to rejoice in those who are present – especially if those gathered represent all who now complete your family. Gather with friends and enjoy time with those you love. If you are young and think there will be plenty of time later to join your family around the table, I remind you that life is fragile and fleeting.
I once read that for every family gathered around a table, there will come a time when only one remains. The hope is that the one remaining will be the patriarch of an extended family, but that isn’t always the case. Regardless of whether your family is all gathered around your table today or if they never all gather together again on this earth, there is the hope for all of us that one day we will all be reunited and gathered as brothers and sisters of Christ.
But until that time comes, as I sit at my empty table, I am pausing and praising God for the solitude as I enjoy the quiet stillness that I once longed for when my children were young, and my home was busy. I am thanking God for each member that remains of the family I once knew as a child, for my mother and my brothers and their families. I am grateful for the brothers and sisters in Christ that feel like family and welcome me to the table. I am also thanking God for each of my adult children and the journeys that are uniquely theirs to travel in this life. And I continue to pray that at some point maybe our paths will unite, and we can again gather around a table. But regardless of whether or not that ever happens, I am thankful for the life that I have lived, the life that is mine today, and this moment to ‘pause and praise.’