Dinner With the Millers

       I tear up when we watch The Waltons.  Why?  I think it is because they remind me of my own family.  A simple way of life centering around God and family in a rural setting.  Older caring for younger, and hard life lessons that are not as harsh as they could be because of the love that binds them together.  And there is sin.  But as Scripture tells us, we are to let love cover over a multitude of sin.  And this we have experienced, just as the Walton family does.

            This summer we had dinner with the Millers.  While we were sitting at their simple dining room table, I commented to my oldest that I felt like we were having dinner with the Waltons.  He smiled and agreed with me.

            The Millers are a simple Mennonite family that we came to know through mutual friends.  We purchase home grown vegetables from them weekly during the summer.  They invited us to eat with them at the end of the season to share in the bounty that God had blessed them with.  Bounty from the land and from the love that they have for one another.

            I have connotations just like you.  I make assumptions about people based on what I often do NOT know.  I confess that I came into their home with assumptions that I had made about this family.  I smile now to think on those thoughts now.  How many of them were wrong. 

            They dress like the Amish.  Men in jeans and button downs with suspenders, women and girls in cotton dresses with heads covered, and most of them bare foot.  The home is functional not decorative.   Mr. Miller likes to say, “Everything has to earn its keep here.”  I like that! 

            Hospitality is a main event for the Millers.  Who will be at home for dinner?  What stories will be shared?  What will we laugh about?  Like the Waltons, there is no television, books are precious, the table always ready for another chair. 

            So we ate and shared stories.  The Millers are wonderful story tellers as you can imagine.  We were regaled by stories of packing van loads of children and grandchildren to go to Paraguay, where they spent years as missionaries.  Tales of Paraguayan jails and doing laundry out in the open air and walking barefoot to church and school. 

            After dinner, Mr. Miller took down the family Bible, old and black and tattered. He waited for the family to gather around him in their simple living room.  He never said a word, but he soon realized the children wanted to play and he gently put the Bible back on the shelf. He then settled into his chair to continue with his stories.  The older Miller children, there are five still at home, took our five children outside and played.  Our children learned how to play blind man’s bluff, mother may I, tag, and circle story telling – all under a beautiful, starry, late-summer Delaware sky. By the end of the evening, all of our children were barefoot and dirty, but thrilled.  The dirt washed away, but the encounter will be a part of their memory. 

            We had spent time, almost time out of time, with fellow brothers and sisters who like us, love the simple ways of life.  No frills, just life for the sake of Another, toward others. 

            I left meditating on one thing in particular.  They did not have much.  They gave much.  They lived plainly.  But every one of them smiled.  They smiled continually.  It was their joy that touched me; joy in living a life that makes room for others.

            As you can imagine, my children instantly wanted to see them again.  This summer, you can bet that the Williams children will all look forward to taking the ride to the Miller’s for the vegetable box with their daddy.  I think that I will look forward to it too.  I need that reminder of what life is really all about. 

            ~ Your Fellow Sojourner

            ” Now concerning brotherly love you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another, [10] for that indeed is what you are doing to all the brothers throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more, [11] and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, [12] so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.”

(1 Thessalonians 4:9-12 ESV)

What's For Dinner Mom?

            It had been a long day at home.  We had been busy and evening was upon us.  Chris and I were sitting on the couch and our children were intently playing outside.  We were tired and not feeling very creative.

            “You know we just had a late lunch.  I’m not very hungry.”  “I’m not either.”  “I bet the kids will be fine.  They can just eat whatever.  I’m not making dinner tonight.”

            And somewhere in the distance, a peal of thunder and lightning could be heard.  After I said those fateful words, everything began to change. 

            I felt new found freedom.  Maybe even euphoria!  All this time.  What am I going to do?  I felt like dancing.  I would not be making dinner for 7 tonight.  Mwah ha ha!!

            The first of the children trickled in and asked what we were having for dinner.  “I am not making dinner tonight.  You can have whatever you find.  I think there are some cookies on the counter.”   Cookies?!  Well, why not?  It won’t hurt every now and then. 

            Within a couple of hours, cookies were not cutting it anymore.  I began to suspect that my decision to “take a night off from the kitchen” was not going to be without its bumps in the road. 

            Now, we often don’t have fabulous, five course, home cooked meals.  But, Chris and I always have some kind of dinner for the kids, even if its just eggs and toast.  But I decided that I wouldn't help with anything.  Not even look for the hidden box of cereal. 

            Then, my husband began to feel the effects of my freedom declaration.  He came to me with a questioning look and asked what he was to do?  I just told him, “I don’t know.  Do whatever you want.”  It was not one of my shining helpmeet moments.  He was lost.  I was stalwart.  His support system was leaving him out in the open without any back-up.  The rabble were becoming more and more dissatisfied. 

            Within the hour, the pizza delivery menu came out. 

            So, when the children would have been going to bed, they were devouring pizza that had cost us more than dollars.  It had cost us peace and joy. 

             We laugh about it now.  But, I want you to know that I purposed to do things differently after the night that I freed myself from the kitchen’s chains.

            How many things do we do in our home, in our church, in our family, that we think don't matter much to other people?  That hug and kiss every morning and night.  Those fresh laundered sheets, still warm from the dryer on a child’s bed at night.  Finding the lost keys again for the thousandth time.   Telling a story from your childhood.   Taking the trash out. 

            Scripture tells us to not grow weary in well doing, and that we are to be faithful in little before we can be faithful in much.  As my husband likes to say, the home is the training ground for leadership in every other area of life.  All good leaders are servants first and foremost.

            I saw my role as helpmeet and mother through the eyes of six other people that day.  They looked to me for a reminder that they are loved and cared for. Love and care wrapped up in a meal.  It broke my heart.  I did not know that a simple thing like a meal could impact so much. 

            So, do not loose heart.  Press on.  Iron that shirt, scrub that toilet, spend hours on the cake that will be eaten in minutes.  Doing for others often rewards us far more than doing something that only benefits ourselves.  Show the love of Christ to someone else.  Let us die a little, and find life and joy in the serving of another.          

                  ~Your Fellow Sojourner

“We love because He first loved us.” 1 John 4:19