Three kitchens

"May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." — Romans 15:13

Saturday morning and I am thinking about my children's kitchens. I have been in all three. Dan's is tidy in a way that makes me think someone else does most of the tidying. Hannah's is small and bright and has more things taped to the refrigerator than the refrigerator was probably designed to hold. Becca's is the one that looks most like mine, which she would deny if I said it out loud, and which is true whether she denies it or not.

I raised three children in this kitchen. They ate cereal at this table and fought over the last biscuit and did their homework on the counter when the table was full, which it usually was. The kitchen was the center of everything. It still is, except now the everything is smaller. One woman, one dog, one cup of coffee, one Bible. The table has room.

They are scattered now the way grown children scatter. Not far, not out of reach, but in their own kitchens with their own tables and their own mornings. I call them. They call me. We talk about the things families talk about, which is weather and children and what is wrong with someone's car, and underneath all of it is the thing nobody says because nobody needs to, which is that the love is there, holding the whole ordinary conversation together like thread in a quilt.

I do not pray for my children the way I used to. When they were small I prayed for safety. Keep them safe. Do not let them be hurt. Do not let the world do to them what the world does. Now I pray for their kitchens. I pray for the tables where they sit and the mornings they wake up to and the ordinary Tuesdays that make up most of a life. I pray that their coffee is hot and their children are well and that they have someone to sit across from them at the table, or that if the chair is empty, as mine is, they find what I have found, which is that the morning is still good.

The house is quiet this Saturday morning. Biscuit is asleep. The coffee is made. I sat at the table and thought about Dan and Hannah and Becca in their kitchens, doing whatever they do on a Saturday, and I held them there for a while without calling, without checking, just holding.

Lord, fill their kitchens with peace.