On Breaking Bread and Building Relationships
I’m over at The Glorious Table this week, talking about how meal sharing and relationship building go hand in hand. Join me there?
We’ve had some lovely posts on freedom and honoring both our forefathers and our military these past few days here at The Glorious Table, but as we wrap up the holiday weekend, I wanted to share with you what’s been on my heart, in case it speaks to yours too. Yesterday we had friends over for a barbecue–the first we’ve hosted since we moved to Memphis nineteen months ago. They’d invited us over several weeks ago, and we wanted to reciprocate.
I spent the morning grocery shopping and preparing food, and I was still in the kitchen when they arrived, finishing my preparations. It was so hot and sticky that we decided to forego my freshly painted turquoise picnic table and eat in the air-conditioned kitchen instead. We loaded up paper plates with our shared meal–gruyere and herb turkey burgers, bratwurst, and hot dogs from the grill; old-fashioned potato, spaghetti, and tuna macaroni salads; baked beans; chips and dip; fresh watermelon–and sat down to enjoy our feast.
As I looked around at the smiling faces of this family I haven’t known very long, I recalled the words of Sally Clarkson I’d read earlier in the week, in her book The Lifegiving Home: “There is something about preparing food and sharing it that enhances relationship, builds community, even fosters spiritual connection. No wonder Jesus’ followers recognized their risen Lord when he broke bread with them.”
I remembered how I felt when my husband came home and said we’d been invited to a crawfish boil on Memorial Day weekend. Something inside me bubbled a little. I remember, too, when we got there, how we were warmly welcomed and made to feel at home. As a busy work-from-home mama of two small girls who doesn’t get out a whole lot, I needed what we received that day: hospitality, warmth, the offer of friendship.
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