My Celebration Table

My Celebration Table

Years ago, when my family consisted of my husband and me, I dreamed of having a large dining room table.

I could never have imagined just how large that dining room table would need to be. Our first home, without children, had a large dining room. We entertained with our extended family and friends at our first furniture purchased, an oak, lion-clawed dining room table. The table seem more than adequate for our family gatherings.

As the numbers in our family grew, the once adequate table grew smaller, as well as the room.

A move, during the teen years of my children brought a huge, but empty dining room. I decorated the room with wallpaper, painted the ceiling, and added a huge light. I was anticipating my dining table. The original table was swallowed up by the room and all who gathered around, but we still set down to enjoy and celebrate.

A huge sale on dining room tables, without chairs, allowed us to extend our seating capacity to 12! This doubled the size of the older table and our family was extending in numbers as well.

This large table had two extensions, and could be lengthen to over 10 feet, which expanded out into the entry way.

A child's table wasn't necessary with grandparents, parents and all five children gathered at the celebration meals. Each holiday held a new opportunity to dress the table, to set it with fine meals and conversation. Chairs were brought in from the kitchen, a bench from the piano and bar stools to set around the chair-less table.

Another move, another dining room, and once again, in a time where dining rooms had lost their style, our large table found a home. Our immediate family now extended to nine, and guest and extended family filled the other seats.

How could a young bride of 19 ever imagine all the riches God would have for her when she married 30 years earlier? How would she have ever imagined the many birthday, Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, Graduation, Valentine, Father's and Mother's Day meals that would be celebrated around the earlier imagined large dining room table?

She didn't know, but God did and so he placed in her heart a desire for a large dining room table years before the seats would be filled. He created in her a desire to gather different dishes, recipes, and decorations in preparation for the events to follow. Something that would not only satisfy her soul, but her spirit as well.

Today I remove the decorations from the large table, another birthday was celebrated and returned the table to its empty state. I put my photos on my computer and turn and see the hand of God on my life through the many celebrations that have been held around the family dining room table. My heart's desire has been filled, as I plan for the next gathering around the table.

Luke 22: 27 -30

"For who is greater, the one who reclines at the table, or the one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at the table? But I am among you as the one who serves. And you are those who have stood by Me in My trials; and just as My Father has granted Me a kingdom, I grant you that you may eat and drink at My table in My kingdom"