We can’t do everything right. We seriously just can’t. Some families try harder than others, but I think we can all agree that we mostly want to get it right. Tonight I got to read a paper my oldest daughter wrote for her final speech of her junior year of high school. It was timely for me to read it now. She was finally purging her backpack which she avoided most of the summer. We have been discussing plans for after high school graduation. These are bittersweet days for me, helping my oldest child find her way out into the world……
And then there was that paper. It was about a driving force in her life and she wrote about her family tree. Reading her thoughts and perceptions and memories was an amazing thing for me. I am a “mostly good enough” mama…..definitely not a great one. Here is the thing. She got it. She got the best of it……so when we pray that God will help our kids to forget the bad stuff and remember the good…..it works people. She wrote about the positive things we did to help influence her, and the image of Christ she saw in us, and in her grandparents…and I was overwhelmed by the miracle it took for God to show her that in our flawed daily life experience.
Here is just one thing we got right. I want to share it to give hope to others, and to remember it as well. Sunday dinners. We do Sunday dinners well in this family and she noticed and she wrote about it. We make sure we are all here for Sunday dinner. As you mamas know, it is not an easy thing to have Sunday dinner success after a busy weekend and rushing to church and such…..but we have been doing it for 20 years now and we will keep doing it. We make comfort food for Sunday dinner. We set the table. We all sit together. We talk. Sometimes we invite other people and occasionally we are not all home but mostly, we are “good enough” at Sunday dinner for it to matter.
Ironically, tomorrow this child will not be at the table for Sunday dinner. She will be headed out to serve at the foster care camp called Royal Family Kids Camp for her second time. She will be gone a week. I will pray for her and believe in God’s best for her as she serves and loves on the kids who come to camp. We plan to grill burgers for Sunday dinner this week……but for breakfast, since it is her last one in our house for a week…..I have cinnamon rolls ready to thaw and bake, and all the ingredients for a nice egg scramble with sausage and cheese…..and orange juice….and coffee. If we can’t do Sunday dinner this week, than Sunday breakfast will have to do.
