Our Table

This past Sunday night was, "Family Fun Night" at our house. That is, when we all get together and play games. Our son was very excited, and began giving the count down to family night to all of us. For about two hours, he continued to let everyone in the house know, to wrap up what they were doing, and be ready to enjoy the night. He got to pick the game, since he was the one who asked for our family fun night that day. He chose scrabble. We can play some mean scrabble! I decided to make it a Mexican night. We all love mexican food and it had been a while since I had cooked homemade enchiladas. Before we could play scrabble, we all had to eat supper. Our weekend was long, so it had gotten a little late, before we finally sat down to eat. Suppertime is one of my favorite times of the day. It is the time where we all sit down together, and discuss the day we have had. There are no limitations at our dinner table. Manners wise...yes, but, conversation wise...no. I guess you could say, our dinner table, is sort of like a therapy couch for our family. Everyone feels safe at our table, and free to share whatever is on their mind, being serious or silly. Well this night..it was silly! Everyone was laughing and cutting up. I don't know, if it was the fact that we were all tired, or maybe I accidentally slipped some laughing seasoning in the food, but the giggles were on! All of our kids have such great personalities, and they were all coming out that night. Our oldest even broke out in a dance, in her chair, at one point. And of course, there were voices coming from Hollywood that I had never heard before. At one point, our son laughed until he passed gas. Now, that was a full belly laugh! It was like I was at Comedy Central. I swear if I would have put it on You Tube, we would have definitely got a lot of hits. We even added a new word to our vocabulary. Chubular. It's an adjective. (LOL) It was a night to remember. I laughed until I cried. We finished supper, cleaned up the kitchen, and began playing scrabble. The laughs continued, until we were all so exhausted, that we didn't even finish our scrabble game. The next morning, I woke up and my stomach was sore from laughing so much. I walked into the kitchen, to make my morning pot of coffee. As I was waiting for the coffee to brew, my eyes caught the kitchen table. The place mats were not on from the night before, so I grabbed them to put them in their place on the table. As I placed them back where they belong, I began noticing the table top. We have had our table for about ten years now. It is wooden and rectangle shaped with two benches on the long sides, and two chairs at either ends. It is scarred, beat up in some places, and has markings on it, from the life that it has had in our house. Each of the kids, at some time or another, decided to carve their initials in it. There are a few stains of permanent marker and paint, from doing school projects on it. At one end, there is a dent, where we had an old antique meat grinder attached to it, when we made our own ground meat, from a deer my husband killed. It is full of scratches of all kinds. I love it! Each mark, each ink stain, each scratch...comes with a memory. If that table could talk, I wonder the stories it would tell, the history it would share. Although it's not one of the oldest pieces of furniture in my house, it holds the most memories. We have shared lots of love, tons of laughter, even some tears, and hundreds of stories, around our table. One day, when my kids are all grown up, and have families of their own, I will most likely still have my table. There will probably be more scratches and marks by then. It will continue to look different with each passing year. It will continue to change, as our family does. There will be one thing, I will forever hear, even when they all leave home. The laughter. I will forever hear the laughter, around our table. I will forever remember the talks, around our table. It will be like beautiful music playing in the back ground, bringing a smile to my face when I think of them. We have decided that we will never sand it down, or fix it's scratches. We will never paint over it, to cover any flaws. We will simply reseal over all of it's imperfections. Just like our little, crazy, goofy, wonderful and imperfect family...I wouldn't change a thing. It is perfect just the way it is. Our love for one another is perfect. Find some time this week, to sit around your table, with your family, and see what perfect moments come from it. Laugh until it hurts. I Corinthians 13:10, "..but when the perfection (love) comes, the imperfect disappears."