At This Table, Yet Again

There are some tables that are so comfortable, they are almost like our own. There are some kitchens that are so well-known, you don't even have to ask where the utensils or sippy cups are-- you just know and you are welcome to help yourself to anything. There are some stoves that you have personally cooked on and sinks you've spent lots of time washing dishes in. For me, there are just two kitchens that I am so accustomed to I don't even think about it: my mother-in-law's and Jetta's.

Tonight we shared yet another meal with my dear friend. Jetta and I have busy husbands. It's been a long-standing tradition to get together for dinner when conferences, retreats, harvest or hunting make us "widows." A natural familiarity with Jetta's kitchen has come from this and also from countless tea sessions, birthdays celebrated, jars of plum jam preserved and bags of frozen peaches and apples by the dozens chopped together for our winter cobblers. This familiarity comes from a friend who is so generous and big-hearted that she opens her home up to the new youth pastor and his wife the very night they roll into California.

I am beyond thankful for my loving church family and especially for my good friend, Jetta. In this season of thanks, let us not forget to thank God for the friends whose presence in our lives is so commonplace, whose kitchens are so familiar we are tempted to take them for granted.