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OPEN UP YOUR TABLE
I’ve been pondering a lot lately about the dinner table. Swimming through scriptures about how it’s used, what events took place, or doctrines taught while sitting at the table. Reading and learning about others and how they traditionally use their dinner tables and the fruits that come from an established place of rest. It’s fascinating. What fascinates me the most is the power it has in my own home. When there is disobedience, disrespect, or even unruliness that shows up in my children it can always be traced back to a dinner table that has fallen out of order. Almost every time. The minute we re-establish order, the door opens…
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WRAPPED, PACKED, AND UNPACKED
For 27 years I have housed what we all call “grandma’s china.” These old plates, platters, and teacups have been wrapped, packed, and unpacked now 12 different times through our different moves. For all these years they have just sat collecting dust. It is kind of silly how we save things for the “company”, but then we don’t actually use them when the company comes because it’s just easier to use paper plates. That’s like buying an outfit and not wearing it because it may wear out someday. I was also afraid they would break from one of my children, so high on the shelf, they sat. DISCOVERING OUR ROOTS The…
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FAMILY DINNER CHALLENGE
IT HAS BEEN ASKED “WHAT IS… … more powerful than a V8 engine?… more memorable than a vacation?… more nourishing than a book?… more life-changing than a camping trip?… more meaningful than General Conference?… way more influential than a teacher?… can change generations? And the correct answer is… THE FAMILY DINNER TABLE and THE MIRACLE that takes place when family members frequently assemble around the table. UNSEEN FORCES I would say, gatherings around the table together are SACRED times. Wonderful things begin to happen when families come together at a meal. Perhaps this may be the very reason why so many families find it difficult to gather together. What if…
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IS THE DINNER TABLE LIKE UNTO AN ALTAR?
Raising my family for the first 20 years looks different than it does now. Dinners were always rushed and crammed into a time slot in-between my husband’s two jobs. Often enough there was only one hour of the day we saw him and meals were far from anything that resembled homemade. Somewhere along this journey, we had children who began losing their faith. My home was falling apart and all that I worked so hard to teach was unraveling at the seams. This caused me to look deeply at our everyday traditions– looking earnestly for the breakdown of my family. I began to look to scriptures, for biblical patterns, and to…
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WHY WE RESTORED THE DINNER TABLE IN THE HOPE TO SAVE OUR FUTURE POSTERITY
As a child, my mother taught me manners when it came to the dinner table— as we had many lessons on etiquette for our homeschooling. “No elbows”, “no pots and pans on the table”, and to “use a tablecloth for Sunday meals”. My mother loved to set the table with different tablecloths and to create a nice place for our family to gather. Sometimes she would even set the mood for the day and set the table in the morning for that evening dinner time. She also would say: “You can be poor, yet still create beauty for your family.” I have hung onto those words, especially at times when…
