Table talk

At right, my mother's Bauer pottery turkey platter for her hungry brother. Read on....
The dining room of my childhood home in South Gate, Calif.,wasn’t large—just big enough for a standard table seating four (six, crammed). I began eating there in a high chair, then a booster seat my parents made by tacking plastic onto a five-inch high wooden box. But oh, the memories and ministry in that little room.

My May 27 blog (“I don’t live there any more”), which featured a photo of that old childhood home, brought a response from a cousin, Janet. Fifty four years ago, she wrote, she was a lonely 19-year-old bride living in Long Beach, Calif. Her soldier husband was on duty and couldn’t be home with her on Christmas Day.

“I was so happy when your Mother called to wish me a Merry Christmas,” Janet recalled. “Soon after, the doorbell rang, and there was your Dad, ready to take me to their home, shown in your blog. She had prepared a nice dinner and it was such a warm, wonderful atmosphere. They truly showed love in action. They were such special people and I will never forget their kindness toward me.”

Those who know the map of Southern California knows it’s a bit of a drive between South Gate and Long Beach and the freeways are no fun. I had never heard this story about my parents before, and was grateful for this vignette of their giving hearts. Both died in 1978, aged 59 and 63.

Janet wasn’t the only relative invited to dinner. One of my mother’s six brothers (she was the oldest of nine) came as a skinny, hungry kid who’d just joined the military. Knowing his appetite, Mom tongue-in-cheek offered him the big turkey platter as his plate, and he gladly used it!

I remember something else at that table: how my dad often opened his big black leather Bible, and read a psalm. From what I could glean of my ancestry, there wasn’t much spiritual emphasis in his family of origin. But Dad had made a commitment to Christ, and besides becoming a faithful church-goer, wanted to be a spiritual leader for his family.

I still have his little King James Bible that he passed on to me when I was a little girl for my “Sunday school Bible.” The front fly-leaf has this inscription, presumably by his pastor or Sunday school teacher. The person marked it December 25, 1935, in Missoula, Montana, when he would have been 19 years old: “This marked copy of God’s sure Word is given you as a prize for your faithful attendance at Church School. Another prize is promised you in His book for faithfulness to God: ‘Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life’ (Rev. 2:10).”

The Bible has numerous verses underlined in red pencil. This suggested to me that this person truly cared about his or her students and also loved God’s word. Three verses are underlined on two adjoining pages of 1 Peter: two about Christ’s death for our sins (2:24 and 8:18) and one about temptation (5:8).
Coincidentally, a verse that spoke to my parents’ ministry of hospitality is also on those two pages: “Use hospitality one to another without grudging” (4:9).

My parents’ willingness to put out an extra plate (or turkey platter!) spoke volumes about their giving hearts—and their faith. And I am grateful for that legacy.