Family Dishes

This piece began at my kitchen sink last year near Thanksgiving. I finished it this year on Thanksgiving Day. Please enjoy "Family Dishes."

Scraping leftovers out of my good, burgundy stoneware 9x13, I thought back over Thanksgiving dinner with my siblings. Because this dish was employed with leftovers from Thursday’s baking, to take casserole to our Saturday gathering I had used two separate, smaller baking dishes, one of which was an old-fashioned 6x8 ceramic dish, a Pyrex Woodland Brown: milk glass white on the inside and 70’s brown with a white leaf and floral pattern on the outer sides.

I was the third generation to use this dish. It was one of a set of two that had belonged to our grandmother on my husband’s side. While she was living, she passed the set to my mother-in-law who passed it on to me.

I smiled knowing our grandmother’s dish had held a place on our Thanksgiving table. She was no longer with us in the flesh, but a piece of her life carried on and participated with us. That dish, a vessel, continued to serve across generations.

I rinsed the 9x13 and washed my hands, thinking of how people are like dishes, vessels of service for the Lord. Like family dishes handed down, people continue to bless through generations after them. I think of my parents, both who have passed on, and how their lives still feed my soul through what they instilled in me by their being vessels for the Lord. Love. Faith. Dignity. Respect. Commitment. Truth. How to ride a bike. How to play Scrabble (to win, mind you). They poured their character, knowledge, and skills into their children, into our persons: our vessels. Their testimonies spilled beyond their household into the community as they served God in their everyday lives and ministry. My mother would stand to testify in church, and almost every time at the end of her thanks she would raise her hand and say she wanted to be a vessel the Lord could use.

What those before us imparted through their lives continues to serve us. Their vessels show up on our tables.

Psalm 100:5 says, “For the LORD is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.” We are part of that enduring to all generations when we follow Christ, using our lives, our vessels, for His glory and in His service. As we continue to live, may we serve God with our whole hearts, living so that, like family dishes, we continue to bless the generations after us.