Who is Around Your Table Today?

It’s Springtime as I am writing this, but today I’m thinking of Fall and Thanksgiving. It’s my favorite holiday. It’s a day for family to be together and to enjoy all the festive food. For my American Southern family, that has meant preparing and eating mounds of roasted turkey, cornbread dressing, green bean casserole, broccoli rice casserole, green stuff (lime gelatin, fruit, and whipped cream), cranberry sauce, and of course, pies. One of my favorites served each Thanksgiving that my grandma made and now my mother-in-law makes so deliciously is yummy, gooey, delectable pecan pie. My favorite is chocolate pie. Hopefully, that’s on the Christmas dinner lineup (all great food for a diabetic like myself!)

As wonderful as the meal is, it is not the important part. It isn’t about the food. It’s about the people around the table.

The table in my own home is empty at the moment, but on many Saturday evenings, we host family night dinners. Our children and their families join my husband and me and we crowd around the table. On warm evenings, we take our feast outside on the deck and gather around the long table awaiting us there. We enjoy a meal featuring some type of grilled or smoked meat my husband has crafted for us.

As I think about my table and the people around it, I remember my childhood and who my parents would invite to join us for dinner. My dad, a Baptist pastor, was a sweet and gentle soul. When he sensed someone who needed to be with a family, he invited them to ours. I’m sure I don’t remember them all, but I do recall a little girl, about six years old, who wasn’t allowed to go to her home one night. I have no idea why, but most likely due to abuse or neglect. I was about seven at the time. I remember that she was afraid. She was dirty. And hungry. I don’t even remember her name. But she came home with us and sat at our table and for one night, she was family.

I remember Gino. He was a high school exchange student who came to us from Lima, Peru. When he arrived, he graciously brought a gift — a bottle of wine. For most people, that would be a great gift. For a Baptist pastor in southwestern Tennessee, that gift was poured down the sink. We kept the bottle tucked away in the cabinet as a reminder of our year with Gino. I wonder what happened to that guy when he went back to South America. All I know is he taught us a few words of Spanish. Even though he was Roman Catholic, he went with us to our little Evangelical church every Sunday, and for a year, he sat around our table and Gino was family.

One year, my cousin Yvonne, was dealing with difficult teenage issues and needed another family to live with for a while. My daddy invited her to join us. I don’t know if those problems got better, but for a few months, she laughed with us and shared our home and our table. For that year, Yvonne was family.

I’ve learned that God weaves people in and out of our lives and we always are enriched by their presence. Sometimes we learn big things and sometimes we need only to share turkey, or a hamburger, or pie and coffee, and just be family together.

Who is around your table today? Who have you invited to join you to share life and a meal with you and your family? Who has invited you to join them at their table?

DeAnna Sanders desires to inspire mission-driven Christ-followers to sharpen their focus on undervalued, unseen people, locally and globally, lead them to meet those people at the point of their pain, and offer them a hope-filled future.

She writes a free weekly Substack newsletter, A Good Word Wednesday. She fills it with bite-sized slices of life from her own experiences and from people she has met around the world. Her book, Unseen People: Sharing Light and Life with Your Neighbors and the Nations, will be released by Ambassador International on August 6th, 2024. You can also find her on her website, Facebook, and Twitter.

DeAnna has served a local church as a missions minister and has worked with a global anti-trafficking nonprofit, She Is Safe, as Indonesian Country Director and as Director of Communications. She has communication degrees from Ouachita Baptist University and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

She lives in southwestern Oklahoma with her husband, Johnny, and their two Fox Red Labradors. They love spending time with family, including their five grandchildren, who live nearby. She enjoys long walks and relaxing on her deck, sipping flavorful coffee and savoring one of the several books she enjoys reading at the same time.

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