On Wednesday a friend of mine tweeted, “What a week this day has been.” Little did I know when I chuckled at her remark that I would be tempted to tweet the same thing on Thursday.
I’ll spare you the gory details because I’m sure you’ve had toddlers throw up on you this week, too, and I know I’m not the only one who has accidentally put a Pull-up in a load of laundry. So all you really need to know is this: I was in a frustrated state of self-loathing most of the morning; I drank more coffee than was responsible; and I wanted to scream every time those last remaining, half-unpacked boxes sneered, “It’s been three weeks and you are still this unorganized? Heathen.”
By 11 AM I knew this much: I was going to be crabby at the dinner table. Most days I work hard to make dinner a celebration for our family, a time for us all to enjoy each other and the fruit of the day’s work—but not yesterday. No, yesterday I knew that I was bound to prepare our meal with a heart of bitterness and then serve it with a piping hot side of resentment.
Recognizing this, I tripped over a pile of papers on my way to our bookshelf and pulled down Praise Her In The Gates by Nancy Wilson because I remembered Nancy referencing a verse from Proverbs about my very circumstance. Something about feasting with strife, I muttered as I scanned the pages…
“Better is a dry morsel with quietness, than a house full of feasting with strife.” (Prov. 17:1).
Yes. That’s what it was. I read on as Nancy explained…
“The Lord knows that we women can get distracted over preparing a nice meal, and we can sit down to a beautiful table with a bad attitude. This is not how it should be…Rather macaroni and cheese with joy than turkey dinner with tension and resentment.”
I knew then that I had two options: I could try (and likely fail) to adjust my attitude in time for dinner, or I could text Ryan and ask him to send me his Pei Wei order. Ordering take out is typically a plan reserved for Fridays in our home, but in an act of grace to myself (and to my family), I made a modification.
Dinner went well (except for that part about our dishwasher forgetting what “rinse” means), the kids had fun trying new food, and I grinned when I opened my fortune cookie.
So whether it’s Thanksgiving or Tuesday; whether you’re cooking for two or for ten, heed Proverbs 17:1 and then remember this from Douglas Wilson:
“If a family cannot celebrate with joy and gladness across the board, then somebody should order a pizza.”
Happy feasting.