Joyful Dining

Are your meals rushed? Do you find your teens run out to buy a hamburger just as you are ready to put dinner on the table? Do you need a chance to sit down and talk with your family?

Give yourself a meal you'll really love by inviting them to help you prepare their favorite food. Leave lots of time, with no deadlines. Then slow down, connect and set things right as you cook together.

If we are feeling disconnected from Source, preparing and eating meals together can give us the opportunity to reconnect. Rituals of gratitude are also valuable in re-establishing heart connections. Even if you do not all bow your heads in prayer, you can begin a practice in which each person relates something that went right in the day, something for which he or she is grateful.

Likewise, we don't hear enough loving messages. So consider establishing a practice during breakfast in which each person says something kind and positive - something he or she appreciates about the person he is addressing - and do this for every family member. It will start everyone's day off on a positive note.

It's normal to crave a more connected dining experience. Yet, do you fear such ideas might be met with scorn, or wonder if anyone will go along with them?

Turn it over to God. Then visualize your family connecting in loving ways as you all break bread together. Pray earnestly that things will be made right and your heart connections restored. Then be open and allow yourself to speak as a loving channel.

To help you become that conduit of love, here's a prayer:

My Home Is A Place Of Joyful Dining

Dear God,

My home is a place of joyful dining
In which those I care about return for meals.

If we have had problems relating, Lord,
You mend those problems in the kitchen.

If we have felt too rushed to cook and savor the tastes of this world,
You slow us down and You inspire us to:

Fix meals together
Laugh together
Love together
And set the table together.

by Your Grace, we enjoy the fruits of our togetherness
Delighting in our discoveries and imagination.

In our home, we savor the sights and smells and tastes of life.
Our dinner table is a place of communication, laughter and healing.
Over meals, we get to know and appreciate each other
And we give thanks for all You provide.

My home is a place of joyful dining
In which our bodies, minds and souls are nourished.

And so it is.

Amen.

from Prayerforce: 365 Days To A New Life.

---

Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Matthew 4:4

I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. Isaiah 1:2

Having food and raiment let us be therewith content. 1 Timothy 6:8

Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee. Psalms 55:22

How sweet are thy words unto my taste! Yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth! Psalms 119:103