This Table

I remember sitting at this table back in June 2019. It had been just three weeks since my mum had passed away and I was visiting some special people. 

Their home has always felt as a home to me - a safe place. A launching pad for ideas. A place where my wildest ideas, my most unhinged dreams and my most curious fascinations were welcomed, nurtured and guided. 

As I sat at this table that night, headphones in and listening to Alexandra Streliski while writing in a journal the things I had wished to say to my mum in the last couple of weeks since her passing, I finally felt a tear well in my eye. And another. And another. 

And the most beautiful part was that these people that I was abiding with just let me cry. They didn’t interrupt what I needed at that time - they just sat with me in that space. Someone who had visited with me had questioned why I would cry in someone else’s home. I answered: because it’s my home too, and this is my family. 

This year, this home will me also where I spend part of my “Sabbaths”: in my faith community, we come together on a Saturday and learn about the heights and depths and widths and breadths of love and we experience it, too. This table will be where we exchange meals and ideas and words of wisdom and encouragement. 

Tonight I sit at this table. My headphones are in, my journal is out once again and this time a tear once more wells in my eye. 

“Look at you go!” I hear God speak to me. “Thank you for trusting me and holding on.” As though pressing a release button on my shoulder, I feel this sudden surge of tears realising how much protection and providence has been poured out over me by Him this last year. This past decade. This whole life. As I step into a new year, a new decade and a new season, may all of these be beautiful. May they be teeming with simplicity. May they be be orchestrated, ordained and overseen by my Creator. The one who created me to create.