“This is the best part of my day.” I looked up, fork filled with the best meatloaf I’ve ever tasted paused halfway to my mouth, to see Brian, my team’s host for the month beaming at us. Tears stung my eyes as I looked down to my platter of home cooked food.
It’s my favorite part of the day, too.
While the food is beyond amazing (Brian was a chef at Disney World), it is not what makes dinner my favorite part of every day at the Tatum household. It’s the people. Every night, we swap stories, laugh at jokes, and share deep wisdom with one another. And we aren’t even related.
Not many families in the States sit down at the dinner table every night to share a meal and stories about their day. My own family doesn’t. We make excuses about being too busy and end up eating what is convenient when it is convenient. We do not make the effort to set aside intentional time to be a family.
I understand that it is hard to all be together at the same time and place. When I was in the States, I had a chaotic work schedule and ate a lot of Chipotle for meals. Even when I was home I would disengage from my family because engaging took a heck of a lot of effort. I would have to say no to extra hours at the coffee shop when I desperately needed money. I would have to turn off the TV and turn on my brain for conversation even though I was exhausted from my day. I would have to give up spending my time the way I wanted for time I couldn’t guarantee would fill me.
I would have to argue that one of the main reasons there are breakdowns in the family unit is because they don’t have intentionality. I can’t express to you how many things I didn’t know were going on in my family because I didn’t set time aside to be with them. There’s a reason many of Jesus’ conversations were over meals. I imagine Jesus asking each of the disciples about their joys, sorrows, and struggles. He knew each of them deeply because he carved out times to sit, relax, and eat with them. Spending that time together allows everyone at the table to know one another and to be known. I’ve only been with my team less than a month and I have learned so much about and from them. I can’t even imagine what could do with even more time.
I challenge you to be this intentional with your own family. You don’t have to cook a five course meal worthy of the Queen of England. You can just pick up a bucket of chicken and some sides from KFC. No matter what you eat, try to have dinner as a family at least three times a week. Have that commitment. Don’t give the excuses any power to isolate you from your family. Make it a rule that no phones are at the table. That includes you parents out there; you’re almost worse than the millennials. And stay at the table even though everyone is done eating. You’d be surprised how much more can be and is said.
