Dinner tables, Family and God

Feeding our families as we sit together around a meal table glorifies God as a real presence in our lives. Through 2010 our family completed two food challenges: one to stay out of the grocery store for three months and one to live off only the food I could buy for less than $50.00 per person per month. This last month was a challenge of it's own to move - albeit only a few miles- and still put a meal on the table. All of these challenges have given me pause to ask why? Why go to the effort to cook, to sit down together, and to eat home prepared food? The answers are many but surprising to me is that the main reasons we put food on our shelves to use in our homes on a daily basis are to nurture relationships with people we love. Those relationships are strengthened by the sacrifice necessary to cook, the work required to prepare and provide food and the ensuing feelings of love that flow when our hearts are in the right place. These fundamental benefits reaffirm that there is a God and that He loves us. In an atheistic paradigm, humans only sacrifice to preserve themselves not out of a desire to nurture a relationship with a child, husband or wife, or friend that we want to share forever.

These next few months posts on this blog will continue to be more of the why along with the how. I will attempt to start at the beginning to teach the very basics of cooking.  I will teach and post what my six, eight, and ten year old daughters are learning as they cook with me.  For many of you who never had a mother who cooked - here is an example of what goes on at our house.  Each house is different and each mother or father is different.  Food preferences are different so the biggest lesson to learn is there is no right or wrong way to prepare food in your home.  Gourmet chefs follow specific methods and I am not a gourmet cook.   We are going to try and enjoy one another as we feed our bodies through creative adventures in the kitchen.   On discouraging days I will remember that God loves to Create and the relationships we create as we prepare dinner only further His greatest objectives on this earth.

Thanks for patience and support - until tomorrow.