He was, ofcourse, not sitting in his high chair when he spilled this soup - where the tray would have caught and confined the liquid. No, he was sitting in my chair. The "cleanest" of the remaining chairs.
I use the term clean in the loosest sense of the word. After all, the once white fabric is now a mixture of off-white, grayish-brown and colorful marker designs. The fabric on the seats has literally worn through from so much use.
For a moment I hung my head in shame. Yuck. This is gross. I can not keep up - every time I clean, it gets dirtier. These seats look disgusting. This is so indicative of how I feel right now - I can't keep it together, it's worn and tired and needs more makeup! I just can't seem to make it look pretty. I need to reupholster these seats and I don't have the time... aahh!
Then I lifted my head... and the Lord shifted by perspective. It kind of felt like one of those old 3D pictures where you had to stare at them for a minute and once you were able to adjust your focus, an image would pop out at you.
You know what I saw?
I saw my family at the table.
I saw my children at ages 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and now 8 sitting in those chairs, squirming around and being antsy the way they do.
I saw one daughter sitting on her knees because she couldn't quite reach and the other sitting in the odd, contorted way that she likes to sit until we tell her to put her feet on the floor and sit like a lady.
I saw the hundreds (maybe even thousands) of hours we have spent at that table - eating, laughing, crafting, coloring, play-doh-ing, painting, baking... the list goes on and on.
I saw the stories that have been created around that table, the funny memories, the spaghetti smeared faces (and stripped down children that immediately follow spaghetti night!), the days at school that have been discussed, the "question of the night" tradition that my daughter initiated when she was a toddler (and it stuck!).
It suddenly occurred to me... we did this. WE DID THIS. This is amazing. This is beautiful. In this fast paced life where I am inclined to lean toward fast food on any given night so that I don't have to wait for dinner to be ready or have to deal with the clean up afterwards, we wore through and thoroughly covered these seats with memories. And dirt, but... you know, whatever.
Thank you, Lord, for a table to gather around. Thank you for chairs to sit in, a home to belong in and a family to treasure. Thank you for the opportunity to be home together around the table. No matter how many times per day I have to sweep crumbs up off of the floor, I am GRATEFUL!
