Can I get an amen?
(May I also get an amen for the fact that I just made "potluck" into a verb. That's more like it. Because potlucking is definitely an action word.)
Tonight, our church hosted its annual Church Family Thanksgiving Feast. I really love this tradition. And not just because it is potluck. However, that IS part of it. But, I love it because our large church feels like family on this night.
Yeah, here's where it really feels like family...when you notice those certain "cousins" jumping to the front of the line, trying to stake out the best desserts and best side dishes first. Yeah, the hash brown potato casserole and perfectly crisp marshmallow topping on the sweet potatoes were already gone by the time us slower folks got there.
Oh, but I don't think my plate was lacking at all (on the right). I felt healthy, what with all my salad and veggie selections...until my dad said, "We should take a picture of our plates side by side." Well, that's just MEAN. Because, seriously, what is it about turning 65-years-old that suddenly makes you start eating like a BIRD at dinnertime? Really--Sometimes I go over to their house, and he and Mom are eating the tiniest little garden salad, with a teaspoonful of cottage cheese, and call it dinner. Well, I am still a growing girl, and I need my nutrition at dinnertime.
Speaking of growing...our church has grown a lot in recent months and years, so we don't do as much potlucking as we used to. Oh, there's a formal banquet or two thrown in, a high school chili lunch and a pie auction. But, Thanksgiving is the time when we all get together as family--just for the purpose of sharing and eating together. Nobody feels a great need to dress up, and there's no pressure to bring a dish if you absolutely run out of time, or forget. (Oh, you know if I'm talking about you right now!! *grin*)
The Dessert Table...a vision to behold. Sorry, Robert. If you weren't so intent on getting a piece of your wife's buttermilk pie, I could have avoided... Ah, who am I kidding? Getting a piece of Camille's pie is totally WORTH it. Also--see those cupcakes? Nothing says Thanksgiving feast like neon blue and yellow cupcakes, right? Of course--guess what dessert BOTH my daughters took? Yep, yellow cupcakes!
I also love that tonight wasn't a drawn-out event. The eating started right on time at 5:30, and we were driving away by 7:10pm. There was a time of thankful sharing, but our pastor is savvy. He knows his church family. None of us wanted a long, drawn-out sermon. Okay, to be honest, some of us didn't want a sermon at all. Many of us with small kids needed to get kids home, to bed. What better way to draw us together as a church family, than to hear how God has been working in some of our lives? Brutha Neil didn't even feel the need to share a scripture verse. He just turned on a microphone, and gave people the opportunity to share how God has been working. There were reports of sobriety, a brother prayed for for decades, who just this summer gave his heart to Christ, a mother's long years of prayer finally being answered for her prodigal son, a brain tumor that is now healed, and the funny 3-year-old who was excited to hold the microphone to tell us, "I am da most tankful for my meal."
Me, too, buddy. Me, too.
Oh, you want to see a picture of my plate--after??? Well, again--that's just MEAN. I don't go around asking to take pictures of YOUR dinner plates, do I? (Man, now THAT would be a fun blog post...why didn't I think of that? Dang.) Well, okay. I'll show you my plate. But, first. Let me make a spiritual comparison, a spiritual metaphor using my plate, if you will. My plate tonight at our church family's Thanksgiving feast is an example of how I felt--physically AND spiritually after it was all over:
I felt filled.
And content.
And fed.
Thankful.
Know what I mean?