The Table
I wish I could say that everything I have done in life was well thought out and planned. Oh to be that smart! Who would have thought that my dining room table would be such an incredible blessing! I wish I would have realized it much sooner and planned out how to use it even more effectively.
Our married life started out with a very used, very small table, only big enough for the 2 of us. When we moved across the country, we ended up using a card table and chairs for a while. My parents commented when they visited that it reminded them of many fun times sitting around a card table. We eventually bought a round table and chairs. It had a big leaf in it that made it oval. It worked great for years until we had a houseful of boys! Being a pedestal table, it tended to be wobbly and began falling apart. One day, as I remember, we had some friends over and were discussing our table predicament. He had a solution. He grew up in a large family and someone had made them a huge table and two benches. The table top was made out of an old door and the legs out of mahogany. His father had recently passed away and his mother told him to just throw it away. Instead, he gave it to us. After refinishing the top, we moved the large, heavy, sturdy table into our dining room. Thus began the many joyous times around that table. Of course, meals were shared but not just our daily family meals. Lots of food was eaten with extended family, friends, neighbors…..even weary travelers passing through. Games were played, devotions read, conversations started, birthdays celebrated, jokes told, frogs dissected, papers written, crafts made….so many memories!! Once, we had a family friend visiting and when they sat at our table, they were flooded with memories from their childhood of times sitting around a farm table very similar to ours. All of these things made memories but more importantly, built relationships. We are not meant to live life alone and the relationships built around that table are all very essential to who I am today. Someone beat me to it but there is a book written recently on how special and essential times around the table are to our relationships. I wish I had realized long ago how much of a blessing it would have been so that I would have been more intentional about our times around it. God used that unplanned, daily event to bring me closer to others and to realize the blessings he brings.
When we moved to another state, we decided the table was too heavy to move. So we gave it to another family who is continuing on the tradition of time around the table and the unplanned blessings that it can bring. Our new table has already begun having lots of great memories…..but I am a little more intentional about it now.