What’s your story?

I have had an increase in time with my family over the past months.  We are currently isolated to our home from morning until night.  We go to sleep and wake only to know the schedule and repetition of the days before will be similar to the day before and the day before that.  We work together, some at schoolwork, some at home work and some at vocational work.  We all have our special places to work and we do this together. The WiFi works overtime in our house.  We all engage in on line meetings, on line classes and on line everything it has to offer. 

We not only work together but we also eat together.  We wake up to have breakfast at similar times, we meet around noon to have some lunch and then we have the gift of eating supper together every evening.  We mainly gather around the table to eat, I have three sons and a wife who is an amazing cook and baker. So, we look forward to an evening feast! 

This has been a blessing for us because when the family sits to eat together we have time to talk.  We have time to reflect. We have time to share life looking at each other across the table. We talk about our days and our work. We talk about what we miss and the things we are looking forward.  We talk about our disappointments and our joys.  We talk about what we are thankful for and what we feel like we might be missing in our lives.  We share about what God is teaching us and what we read in our devotions that day. 

We are sitting together.  The option for much else but to sit in quiet or to talk don’t really exist, so we talk….often very loudly…..that’s what happens at a table of 3 boys and two parents with loud voices. The blessing comes because we run hard in normal times.  We do sports, school, work, friends, and social a lot!  We do active really well. We do busy.  We do activities. We do church.

The Shema, a passage from Deuteronomy 6 encourages families to talk about the Lord all the time.  When you wake. When you walk. When you eat. When you drive. When you ride bikes. When you sit in the hot tub. When you do life.  I may have taken some interpretive licence but essentially, we are commanded to speak about God in all aspects of life.

I trust God has given us an opportunity to speak about Him in new ways with the people we spend life with.  We are all in some level of isolation. We all have opportunity to speak about our faith, about who God is and what he is doing in our lives, about how he makes a difference and how he brings life.

Friends, we are living a sacred time with the ones we love.  Share your story! Speak about the Lord God Almighty. Speak about your shepherd.  Speak about your light.  Speak about the one who gives you life. Impress the immense love of God and your love for Him on the ones you do life together with.  Remember Him and speak about Him.