For much of 12
years, I cooked for 5 people multiple times each day and every week of the
year. No questions asked. This began at a very young age. Part of my story
equals a "trapped" existence and much of my bitterness to overcome,
revolved around the kitchen, where I had spent the majority of my teen years.
While others were
enjoying concerts and Friday nights with their friends, my evenings… mornings,
afternoons… etc were spent prepping the carrots, beans, rice, and potatoes for
the next meal. And often kale, wheat berries, and flax oil as well for only some
apparent reasons.
For so long I have
tried not to even glance back on my years of natural and somewhat forced
training in the kitchen because of the sore spot it has been in my heart for
all this time. Sheldon and I attempted to cook in the kitchen together on one
of our first dates and I quickly realized that we would have to revisit this at
a later date because I was testy on being questioned in my methods and he was
just confused of why pancakes made me so irritable. We have ventured down the
story-telling path now, of course, and even back into the kitchen.
Successfully, I might add. But the
kitchen reminded me of my wounded heart and I wasn't ready yet to accept the
emotional scars as a gift.
BUT GOD in His
infinite wisdom and mercy, brought me recently to a new found joy in a place
that once embodied home in a way that felt neither comfortable or loving. He
has begun to redeem the kitchen as a latter way of bringing more healing to an
already overjoyed heart that has known sorrow and now enormous victory!
What I mean to say
is… it's time that this feminist (in the true and most blessed meaning of the
word) returns to her kitchen.
I remember so long
ago, before the hardest days had come, our table was KNOWN for the kindred
spirit moments that make up the most memorable of gatherings of loved ones. I
remember feasts of stir fried veggies and chicken breasts and bowls and bowls
of yummy spaghetti, passed and passed again around a hearth of inner wealth. A
mantel of love and acceptance. It was called "Home Group" and it was
held in our dining and living room but to me it should have been called
"heaven" because hosting it felt like we were there visiting, even if
for just a few hours every Tuesday evening.
The house always
smelled good on Tuesday evenings and the sound of my mama cheerfully talking as
she pulled the corded phone around the corner to chat while she cooked, used to
make me smile and feel warmed inside, even as I played in the adjacent room. Another
benefit to Home Group being at our house was that it was always sparkling clean
one night a week. That just seemed fun to me. And still does.
People would laugh,
share stories of their week apart, and sometimes become more serious than ever
as one person declared change in their life that we all knew would alter life
as they knew it in one way or another. Everyone was welcome at our table and many
people, young and old, would drop in and were hemmed in, as if they were meant
to be there in that minute… and for a perfect reason.
Sweet tea. There was
always my mama's incredible and overly sweetened, Southern Sweet Tea.
… and everyone
enjoyed a glass. Or 12.
I was so young then.
I may sound from that recollection as if I were an adult among the fold but no,
I was only 7 and it still felt like I belonged.
I want to bring back
the table. The community. The heart felt taste of something good no matter what
this world confronts us with. And now, because of the dark years faced only a
twilight or two after the good ones, I know what I'm doing in the kitchen. And
there's the blessing in disguise.
Because let's be
real… Anyone who has known me well, or maybe even just a little, can guess that I'd
prefer to stand in the kitchen and talk, over my hands actually getting dirtied
in the bowl of flour or by pulling chicken from those wretched bones. Some of
this, I'm figuring out as I explore my past feelings of distaste for the
kitchen, has simply been the emotional tie to the years it so readily connects
itself with, the abuse of days gone by.
BUT GOD is doing a
new thing, as I've already mentioned, and this time He's combining my love for
the work He does with hearts around a table and the ever present help He was to
have me garner such knowledge around organic oats and natural cane sugar syrup
while fighting back tears of desperate longing to just "get out."
He's combining them in a healing wholeness that can only be described as messy…
slightly confusing… and altogether lovely.
It's romantic,
really. To bring us back, He and I, to places that we've been together and
where I've so clearly felt and needed His presence. I believe that it's all in
effort to bring others in again to this same space of divine love and creation.
I want to create
new. From the old. With skills from within and in spite of.
Nothing is for
naught and my time spent over the stove and clearing dishes again and again
were all for a reason… because just as my heavenly groom wooed me as a child
around cutlery and caringly placed dinnerware… and held me through meal after
meal of lack and want as a teenager… now as a young adult, He says once more to
my yearning spirit...
"Come away with me, dine with me, and bring others
into this same heavenly existence that so beautifully depicts my heart for them
in their daily life, around the table, tasting the good things and seizing the
moment and their taste buds for all I can offer both of them."
(Photos were all taken in Moldova - Month 3 of my World Race - Photographer: Ali Kendrick)
So I say yes. Yes to
the table of my childhood, so dear to my heart. Yes to the table of my youth,
so seemingly hopeless. And now yes to the table of THIS SEASON. So bright. So
connected to both eras of my past. And yes to the way it will bring my loved ones
and I closer together and closer to the presence of a God that never left my
side. He is faithful and He has a promise to fulfill in me.
… and besides, I
know how to cook so I might as well explore that a little. I'm sure a few
people won't mind eating the rewards of a healing heart at "home" in
the kitchen.
How has cooking brought healing into your life? Any thoughts into God redeeming your past for future growth? Please comment below and share your heart! I'd love to hear.
beLOVED.,
Lauren!<><+
PS A big thank you
to Shauna Niequist for writing the book "Bread & Wine" and for (in)courage.me and their book club called "Bloom" for the intrinsic
need they helped to bless in me when I dug deep into the pages of this summer's
read and found a ripe blossom in my life ready and willing to be pruned. Soon I
will pick it and throw it in a vase but one step at a time :)
Lauren I love this post! It is beautiful and from your heart as always!
ReplyDeleteI have always loved to cook, but not always with other people in the kitchen, the Race helped change that and even show me the love that can come from making a meal with someone! Now that I am home, I treasure each meal I can make and eat with my friends and family!
Mikala! You've got it! There is something about the connection between cooking and love! I think it's partially the innate desire to provide one for another! The Race was definitely a contributing factor in the redemptive process of getting me back to the cutting board, so to speak! Thanks for sharing your story!
DeleteCooking has always been rather therapeutic for me - especially if I have the time (and energy). :)
ReplyDeleteCarme, you're right about it being time consuming! I was thinking of it this way the other day though, I watch a show on hulu that takes me an hour or more with comercials and all I have to show for it is to be one episode further into a season of tv. With cooking, it's therapeutic, as you mentioned, AND I have something to enjoy and share with others when I finish! Love that about creating in the kitchen! Glad you read and shared your thoughts!
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