Living in the Now: Worthy Meal Shortcuts

"If anything is worth doing, it is worth doing badly."  

G. K. Chesterton

 

Eating together as a family, even a single meal a day, has fallen to a rare normal.  A mere 27% of families eating together, only eat, drink, and converse at meal time (listen to Les and Leslie Parrot talk about this sobering pattern).  Eating purposefully, together, and regularly is indeed worth doing, but admittedly, sometimes needs a few shortcuts.  Create space to mealtimes.  Give these a try.  Be realistic.  Suggest a few of your own shortcuts in the comments below:

• Use paper plates.  Try fun colors or paper party plates.  Special touch for sabbath family meals.  Easier for you, you'll also win eager eaters.
• Try frozen entrees.  A reheated lasagna and fresh salad is a cinch to prepare, and is a step above frozen pizza.
• Prepare two, freeze one.  If you go to all the trouble of preparing a meal, save yourself some work by preparing double, and freezing half for a future meal.
• Rotate helpers.  Even middle schoolers can make a pot of mac and cheese and throw in some tuna and veggies for a one pot wonder.  To simplify, assign a specialty meal for each helper to prepare on their meal night.
• KISS.  Keep it Simple, Silly!  Have a regular finger food night that is simple to prepare and fun to eat.  Find a hummus recipe you like.  Dip veggies and bread.  Easy to make ahead and serve in a moment!
• Commit to 15 mealtime minutes.  Be realistic.  An average week night meal need not carry the pressure of a long drawn out ritual.  Focus on sweet and prompt times together.  You will be more likely to connect regularly if you set a reasonable goal.
• Think outside the norm.  Instead of family dinner time, try Saturday morning pancakes or Sunday pizza parties.  Spending a family meal together is most important.

Living in the Now: Mom's Heart, Part 2

Celebrating motherhood, I'm excited to share some perspective from my own mom.  She is a super hero rock star in her own right, and gave me the best mother's day gift this year by compiling a few stories and advice. Read more about her background here. Part 2 gives you a glimpse of our average--but most meaningful--practical, daily moments. Her real life experience blesses me, and I hope encourages you.  I'll let her tell you the story herself:


Some super practical, totally true favorite moments we spent with Mom.

We are on a journey together, whether young or grown, dealing with the truth of our hearts. Our hearts are the wellspring of life. God desires our hearts to be devoted to Him. Loving isn’t all about us, but is all about others and the Lord. He gives us the greatest joy in this process.
 
I believe that caring for children, nurturing them to adulthood, is a precious journey. Some seasons are full of trials, others are more smooth sailing. I’ve learned to grasp the joy in a moment. I can be impulsive, spontaneous. If the day was pretty and I could we’d grab an opportunity. If it was cold and cloudy, we’d grab another. Many times, it depended on my mood (sorry kids). 

Each year in the fall, after a hard freeze, the trees really let go of their leaves. On the first windy, sunny, cool day after, we’d grab the cast iron skillet, some bacon and potatoes, and head to make a fire in the back yard. I’d send some kids to search for wild onions while getting a fire going with others. Then we’d lay in the yard on our backs, watching the leaves fall, while smelling our feast cooking. Sometimes we’d talk, other times, just peaceful quiet. (as the boys got older…we had more ‘interesting’ times around the fire, but that is another story)

We’d go to the library often. Then come home with our stacks of treasures, I mean books. We’d sit in the living room around the woodstove, with everybody content to be in their own world.  

Other times, we’d read chapter books together around that woodstove, drinking hot tea from the kettle on top. It gave me time to rest and feed an infant while snuggling with my older kids. If we didn’t have a fire, we’d light a candle. Fidgety children would draw pictures or fall asleep. It was peaceful, and we enjoyed a lot of stories together (I do like a good story).

A blessing in disguise, we didn’t have very good reception on our TV, so we watched other things a lot…sitting on the front porch watching a storm roll in, huddling around a closet watching a litter of kittens being born, watching baby chicks scurry to see who can get the grasshopper first (one of our favorite things to watch!), fireflies, the flame of a fire, all very peaceful and better than any TV show, in my opinion.

We’d head out for walks together on foot, or taking turns on our patient pony. That led to some good conversation, or comfortable quiet together. We’d camp on our property (lots easier than going away!), play board games, look through old photos and home videos, and play lots and lots of games.

We’d head to the lake to swim. Swimming is one of my favorite things, so I’d drag the kids along whether they liked it or not. We’d catch all kinds of living critters, ride in the canoe, and bring junk food for picnics.

Sometimes we’d just get the urge to make a big batch of pudding for supper…skip the main dish and go straight for the desert. And every Sunday evening we were home, we’d make lots of popcorn for supper.  

Things I wish I had done: Listen to their hearts more, draw them out, ask questions about what they were thinking, what they loved, etc. Spend purposeful time with one child on a regular basis. Cherished one child.

Somewhere in there, some of the kids grew up, finished their education, and are on their own now. They know my failures well. Thankfully, they don’t expect me to be perfect. 

We need to share our failures with them, to be vulnerable and human. Help model before them what is real, not what is in the magazines or TV shows. Real humanity, real sin, a real need for forgiveness. When we mess up, admit it and apologize, learn from each other’s mistakes, humility and forgiveness. They learn from our example, not our perceived perfection. Laugh, play, work, cherish.

In the picture of reality of our home, there was bickering, dirt, messes, chaos, endless dirty laundry, a never ending to do list, strife. But more than that, the laughter, family, friends, working and playing together, a bottomless amount of love, loyalty, forgiveness, balances it very well. It is on this journey of life that God does His work in our hearts. I’ve learned to be real, to give myself permission to be human (with my gifts and shortcomings), to stand with someone who is struggling, have people stand by me, to choose to see God’s many blessings, and enjoy them. To teach my children about deeper things of the heart. It is because of our humanity that Christ died for us.

The most important thing to me is to show my children that God loves us as we are, He redeems us. The striving can cease. We don’t have to get cleaned up before coming to him. We don’t have to ‘be’ anything else but who He has made us to be. I want to teach my children that to love the Lord isn’t to be perfect, but to follow Him.

 I believe that we need to know that we can fail and be loved. I think our children need to know this too. That their value isn’t what they ‘do,’ it is in who they are, who God has created them to be. Part of our jobs as mothers is to help them discover who that is, asking questions, and cultivating their gifts. Choosing to love when it is tough. My children have loved me and continue to love me when I am unlovable. 

Living in the Now: Mom's Heart, Part 1

Celebrating motherhood, I'm excited to share some perspective from my own mom.  She is a super hero rock star in her own right, and gave me the best mother's day gift this year by compiling a few stories and advice. Read more about her background here. Part 1 tells the story of nurturing and journeying with your children.  Her real life experience blesses me, and I hope encourages you.  I'll let her tell you the story herself:

When I was young, a wise mentor taught me some things that affected my thinking. She taught me that children are a blessing, not an inconvenience, not a burden. Believing this has resulted in an attitude of thankfulness in my heart, through days and nights when I didn’t know if I could really do the job I was called to do.  This simple truth has filled my heart with joy throughout the seasons (I think joy and happy are different). The overall job of nurturing their little minds, souls & bodies gave me a sense of joy that the trials couldn’t defeat (although attempted).

Kiddos are a lot of work. They come to us 24/7 and are very needy. Through many years of being stretched, sleepless nights, challenging behavior (mine & theirs!), I felt very overwhelmed at times. Sometimes it seemed as though we did the same thing every day, like we weren’t getting anywhere. The responsibilities and trials of life can be daunting at times. Sometimes it was so hard to see any light at the end of the tunnel. I learned to walk through those hard times, pressing on in the direction my heart was called to. The Lord gave me strength to continue, sometimes just for the next hour. He also gave me a deep conviction of my calling and the gift these precious people were. In this was an underlying joy in my journey. I am so thankful I realized that at a young age.

So, real life is full of messes everywhere, work calling us, projects needing to be tackled, diapers, meals, meals, and more meals, laundry, cleaning, playing (yes, playing is part of our job, yeah!), shoes everywhere (but not where they are supposed to be, and rarely a pair together), teaching, training moments, deep heart discussions late at night (forget that you have to get up early, grasp this, they are the best!) Some homes are orderly, mine is orderly some time, at others, I have no clue what happened!  

We can make a purposeful choice to look for joy in the journey. A choice to pause and to see. To gaze upon sweet little face, and smile.  To thank the Lord for piles of dirty dishes. We ate, we were full.  When the laundry room is full of dirty clothes, I can choose to see God’s provision, or the endless piles. I can make a choice to see the blessings, or the drudgery. (isn’t any career this way?) My work is much easier when I choose to let my heart choose thankfulness. I try to take time to stop and to not only allow, but to treasure reality in my home. It is a fleeting season, full of life and what comes with life.

I think that the most valuable things in life cannot be bought. Some of the sweet, simple things I shared with my children brought joy to my heart, and I hope theirs. Sometimes I had to snatch time from our responsibilities to get them. If I had waited to plan them, few would have come about.  I chose to walk away from a messy house, close a door to a messy bedroom, made a simpler supper, let the laundry wait (yes, it does reproduce), etc. It wasn’t always easy for me to take time out in the midst of responsibilities, a big part of me wanted to get them done. But now that I have 4 grown children, I am so glad we did. Choosing to nurture this way is sometimes hard because you can’t check it off your list, the visual accomplishment isn’t there. Our culture tells us we have to accomplish this or that (I do a good job of telling myself this too). Nurturing children is seldom obvious, but one of the most valuable things we can invest in our children, and probably one of their greatest needs.