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When I was growing up, my family often gathered together at the dinner table – all seven of us.  I so appreciated my mother’s home-cooked meals – fried chicken and scalloped potatoes, tacos and refried beans, BBQ hamburgers.  More than the food though, I appreciated that dinner was a time to be with my family – to laugh together, share about our day, our hopes and dreams.  I just knew that when I grew up, I was going to cook for my family every night so that we could experience what I did when I was young.  I had good intentions, but then life happened.

As a full-time working mom of four children who balances family, work and ministry, I cannot tell you when the last time was that the six of us sat down together as a family for dinner, with the exception of threats, bribery or coercion.  Well, not really, but it seems like it.  We are never all home at the same time together, and when we are, we are all running in different directions.

Enter The Hour That Matters Most: The Surprising Power of the Family Meal, by Les & Leslie Parrott.  This book shares the impact that something as simple as sharing a meal together around the table can have on a family.  It also features the inspiring story of Stephanie Allen and Tina Kuna, the founders of Dream Dinners.

Family togetherness at meals is something that I definitely struggle with, so I was excited to read this book in the hope that it would give me creative ideas on how I can gather my family together more often around the table, as well as invoking laughter and fun into our relationships.  I really enjoyed the chapter on “Discovering the Lost art of Eating Together”.  There the importance of family togetherness at meals was brought to the forefront, and it also helped me to understand that even though I work and my family is always coming and going, I can still be strategic and creative in planning ahead so that we can enjoy meals together.  This chapter also talked about a couple of the biggest pitfalls to family togetherness at mealtime: treating your kitchen like a food court and keeping your TV on during the meal.  We are the “TV watchers”.  Even when the sound is muted, it is a huge distraction and takes the focus off of the conversations and relationship building.  This is something that we as a family definitely need to work on.

All throughout the book there are creative ideas and tips to help you regain control of your family meal times.  Following each chapter there are simple and easy recipes, using fresh and healthy ingredients, which your family is sure to enjoy.  The other thing this book has throughout are great conversation starters, as well as ways to turn a conversation to get your family engaging in healthy and heartfelt table talk at dinner time.

If you’re looking for a way to bring love, fun and togetherness to your family during a time that can often be viewed as stressful, read this book and rediscover the lost art of the “family meal” and the positive impact it can have on the life of your family.

And exciting news!  Our Sister Site, 5 Minutes for Moms, is giving away 12 copies of The Hour That Matters Most to 12 blessed readers.  Click on over to 5 Minutes for Moms and see how you can enter to win this book that will not only change your life, but the life of your family.

*I was given a review copy of the book as part of a larger campaign on 5 Minutes for Mom, but the thoughts and opinions expressed in this post are my own.

Every woman fantasizes about the day her husband will say, “It’s okay, honey, I’ll clean the house for you today.” Well, friends, my dreams just came true.

I clean the house on Fridays. It’s my routine. But last Friday was the first day of my husband’s vacation time. As I grabbed the disinfectant spray and headed for the bathroom, he grabbed me by the waist and uttered the most charming and heart-stopping words a man could utter, “I’m going to clean for you today. Take the day off.”

While I pittered and pattered around the house, I watched the man sanitize with vigor. He dusted things that were long overdue, and polished some areas I tend to gloss over. I stood in the mirror applying my makeup while he scoured the shower. He sprayed and scrubbed and made comments like “Yuck,” and “Look at this,” as he produced a sponge covered in grim.

Soon my delight over his enthusiasm turned to displeasure. I pride myself in being an excellent housekeeper, always straightening and organizing. Was he trying to insult me by showing the filth that obviously I missed in my cleaning only seven days before? Was I not as good as him?

As I posed these questions to myself, I realized how ridiculous I was being. He was more zealous about cleaning because he didn’t do it every week. I, on the other hand, had become a stale housekeeper. I glazed over areas that needed to be unpolluted. I ignored items that deserved attention. I turned a blind eye to needs calling for my help.

I wondered if this described my Christian walk, as well. Do I turn my nose up at the passion of new Christ followers and shrug it off with a pious, “That will wear off”? Do I ignore needs and glaze over areas of my life that need to be unpolluted because I’m in a monotonous routine? Do I miss out on the joy because I am more concerned with how someone else’s actions make me look?

Oh, Lord, please create in me a passion for your Word. Let me be continuously fervent in serving You. Give me joy. Keep me fresh and never let me become stale. Please empty me of me, Lord, and fill me with You. Amen.

I hear other women say the same thing, too… “I think God may want me to (stay at home with my children, change jobs, homeschool, etc.), but I just don’t think I can.”

We often feel like we aren’t up to the task at hand. And the truth is we aren’t able. Often, I can’t do the hard things. At least not by myself. But, God, who is much bigger than I, has called me and equipped me to do them.

Paul struggled with this same thing. And he found that God was always sufficient in his weakness:

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 2 Corinthians 12:9

When I am faced with the hard things I feel I cannot do, I can trust that God’s grace is sufficient.

And I can trust that the God who has called me to do this can give me the strength I need to do the hard things!

The part that is true in that statement is that God never changes.

Malachi 3:6 says
“I the LORD do not change. So you, O descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed.”

All of the circumstances and people around us change . . . our jobs, our kids, our world and even our spiritual walk at times. Just yesterday I found out that my job of four years is not the direction that I need to be heading. God has redirected my path to a new career and honestly I am scared to death.

The Lord is definitely not in the business of leaving us comfortable and independent. He wants us to be totally dependent on Him and why wouldn’t we want to be? His will is perfect. He and His will really are the only things in life that are perfect and unchanging. He is the only one that we can truly count on. But God and His purpose remains the same. God never changes. His mood does not change with the wind (like mine). We never have to wonder what He thinks about things or people. He is always loving and compassionate!

So, since we serve an unchanging God, guess who has to change? Yes, we have to be the ones to change. Jesus speaks in Matthew 18:3

I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

The reason we have to change is so that we can enter the Kingdom of Heaven, as well as, become conformed to His perfect image. He has to use our circumstances to make us more like Him. (Romans 8:29)

So the next time I am frustrated with my husband, I am going to try to remember, there’s hope, the only one who can stay the same is God. May our unchanging God, whom we serve, bless your life today.

God will certainly hear me…Micah 7:7 NLT

Last night I took my Grandma to watch her oldest great-grandchild, my daughter Meghan, sing at her high school’s choir performance. Meg was up on stage with over a hundred other young men and women. Thankfully, Grandma’s poor hearing didn’t stop her from going to Meghan’s special event. At eighty-six years old, Grandma is extremely hard of hearing. She worked in a factory on an assembly line when she was young, long before there were rules about wearing earplugs around loud machinery. Her hearing has suffered greatly because of those working years.

We sat in the audience facing the stage that was filled with a bevy of distinct sounds, these young adults joyfully singing for us. Though all completely different, their voices were one as we listened intently. My Grandma sat there with a perpetual smile on her face as the music stopped and started, never once revealing that she really couldn’t hear the students very well. I hadn’t anticipated being brought to tears before the performance was over. I tried hard to swallow the lump in my throat when Grandma softly smiled and leaned over to rather loudly whisper into my ear, “I can hear Meghan.”

At that moment, I couldn’t help but think that we serve a God who can hear our own voice just as well. He can pick us out amongst the multitudes. Just as a mother knows the voice of her own precious child or a grandmother the song of her granddaughter, our God knows our distinct voice and stops to listen to us when we call on Him. God’s word says in Jeremiah 33:3 “Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.” Psalm 145:18 says, “The LORD is near to all who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him in truth.” Micah 7:7 says, “…God will certainly hear me.” Did you read that? It does not say that “He might hear you or that He will hear you only between the hours of 8am and 5pm. Not at all, it says He will certainly hear you…period.

Isn’t it amazing to stop and think for a moment, the one true and living God, the same God who formed the earth, the very God who hung the stars in the sky and who told the ocean’s waves they could only come so far…He hears his children when we call.

Call out to Him with confidence today, He will most certainly hear you.