Whatever You Do...

Quite surprisingly, this is my first actual post on food! This is surprising, because well, I love food. I love cooking it, reading recipes, watching shows on how to prepare it, experimenting with it and of course, I love eating it.

Now I am no gourmet, but I figured since cooking and food seem to take up such a large portion of each day, and since I love it so much, I should really seize it as an opportunity to glorify God. As a homemaker, food preparation is primarily my responsibility (well actually, in my home it is exclusively my responsibility… Julian is still struggling with the microwave), so I want to serve my family as best as I can in this area. So over the past while I've been thinking of various ways to use food/cooking as an opportunity to be a faithful saint.

So far, this area of my responsibility is one that I really enjoy so it has not been overly difficult for me to serve in this regard. For many others this may not be such an enjoyable task, some may just not like cooking, others may find it difficult. I definitely understand such things, as sewing or cleaning the bathroom are right up there on my not so favourite duties list!

Well I thought I'd write this post to encourage anyone that is struggling in their kitchen duties, or for those who love it and want to find even greater value and opportunities in it. Most of the ideas that I'll list here are probably not original, as I have either read them or learned them from women who have more experience and wisdom than me. So here we go... how can we best take advantage of the time we spend in the kitchen and the time we spend eating with our families?

1. Pray or meditate while you cook. Sometimes this is not an easy task, especially if you're not entirely apt in the kitchen or if the day is just a little chaotic and you're rushing around trying to get dinner on the table at a reasonable hour. Regardless, I still think that this is a worthy thing to strive for. Keep it simple, pray for the person that gave you the recipe (if you received it from someone), or pray for the people you’ll be eating the meal with.


2. Have people over for food. Inviting people over for dinner is a great way to serve friends and family. You’ll all be eating dinner, so why not share some meals together? If the people you are gathering with are Christians, you can create great opportunities to engage in true biblical fellowship. If they are not, your family meals can be a witness and serve as a means to potentially share the gospel.


3. Give food away. Make extra on some occasions when you’re cooking, and then give it away to people in your church that may find it a blessing, like young single men, elderly people, new moms, sick people etc. If you just add extra to your regular cooking, you don’t necessarily have to set up a separate cooking occasion in order to minister in this way to someone.


4. Use food and mealtimes to create special memories for your family. I’ve heard of so many great and fun ideas to do with your families over mealtimes. I know families that use mealtimes to memorize scripture, other families that discuss what God is teaching each individual, or what they’ve learned in the sermon that week. I’ve heard of neat meal ideas that children definitely enjoy, like personal mini-meatloaves, or animal shaped sandwiches and many more. I’ve read (mainly on the girltalk blog) of fun ways to eat your meals, such as eating dessert first or using the wrong utensils! There’s just so much you can do to make these times a highlight for your family and an occasion to grow closer together and create memories.


5. Preserve relationships. Well, I’m not going to go into a ton of detail here, because I’m going to do another post on this next. Initially this entire blog post was supposed to be on this but I got carried away while typing! So here we are… and you might be asking how food/cooking preserves relationships. It probably does so in various ways, but I’m just going to look at one practical way that you can do this and that is to create an heirloom. Make a cookbook! This might sound nonsensical right now, but hopefully by the next post will be a little more illuminating. For now, let’s leave it at that and conclude here.
   

All of this to say, I just wanted to write this post to possibly encourage someone who may be having struggles in this area, and for myself, because there are definitely days when putting together meals is not my activity of choice, and I know that given 10 more years a lot of my new cooking excitement will have waned. I hope that this post will remind me of the benefits and joys that can come with this part of family life! So there ya go... cooking and mealtimes don’t just have to be about filling your belly, but they could be filling your heart, soul and mind with good things from above!

So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. (1 Cor 10:31)