The Table is Powerful-Sometimes a Place of Brokenness
Laura Longville
THE TABLE IS POWERFUL. A PLACE OF CONNECTION, BLESSING, AND BROKENNESS.
In our last blog, The Table is a Powerful Place, we recognized the table is one of the most important places we, as humans, connect. Table fellowship nourishes us physically, psychologically, and spiritually.
Physically, the table helps us to pay attention to what we eat, where we eat, and with whom we eat.
Psychologically, joy-filled conversations can bring about feelings of love, peace, acceptance, and laughter.
Spiritually, we notice God’s presence and action within our lives.
Our tables can also have painful memories carved into them. It too is the place where distance is most painfully felt. It is where children feel the tension between their parents, where brothers and sisters express anger and jealousy, where accusations are made, and where plates and cups become instruments of violence.
Tables can be a place of brokenness.
Around the table, we know whether there is friendship and community or hatred and division. The table can be a place of intimacy and a place where the absence of that intimacy is most painfully revealed.
In my own family of origin, our table was a mixture of joy, friendship, AND an angry silence sparked by a lack of respect. What was once a place of intentional connection turned to avoidance of the table and all who sat there.
What was intended to be a place of fellowship was eaten away by isolation, loneliness, and sadness.
For years, my table memories from childhood crashed into my young family’s table. I brought anxiety from childhood into my own table happenings. Healing those hurts from childhood was vital to helping us create new, nurturing table experiences.
Our tables are similar to the Last Supper.
The memories that bring us joy and pain are like the Last Supper. The Lord had prepared the way for his disciples to eat his last meal with them and share everlasting truth with them.
At the Last Supper, Jesus said there would be betrayal and rejection, out of their fear and pride came the discussion of who was the better among them. Their ego’s flared, and they became critical and judgmental and turned on one another.
Isn’t that similar to what happened at my family of origin table? What was meant to be a place of connection, blessing, hope, joy, and celebration turned to cruelty, division, and separation. Maybe this happened at your table too.
The Last Supper or The Lord’s Table is filled with real-life dynamics. In Luke 22, Jesus shines the light on the brokenness of the people at the table. There is isolation, shame, pride, fear, love, encouragement, and joy.
We stumble around like the disciples, make stupid decisions, run away from God, and much more.
Yet the Lord’s table is where broken people find forgiveness, connection, and belonging.
The Last Supper, the betrayal of Jesus by Peter and Judas, his death and resurrection reveal to us how much God loves us, forgives us, and wants to be in a relationship with us….even when we aren’t capable..
My guess is that you have had some things happen to you that are painful and have left deep wounds.
Imagine three different tables:
A table of woundedness
A table of forgiveness
A table of nourishment
Table of Woundedness-If I think about what that table physically looks like, it’s barren. The basics (plate, utensils, salt, and pepper) are on the table. No decorations or laughter.
Table of Forgiveness-When my life got so miserable because of my addiction, God brought me to AA. My first table of forgiveness, connection, and belonging. I recognized that I had messed my life up badly. My way of doing life wasn’t working. In AA, I felt understood for the first time; I was accepted but also held accountable to live differently. This was my first experience of a loving community.
Over the years, I was invited to various tables of forgiveness, acceptance, and love. Therapy, women’s groups, Bible studies, my work as a therapist, and my deepening relationship with God moved me from being hurt in isolation to being healed in community.
Safe relationships were transforming my childhood table pain. Many people over the years poured into me by loving me and sharing the hope that I could live fully alive.
This table (see below) of forgiveness is filled with forgiveness, safety, hope, and gratitude. The people seated at this table are full of life and love.
We all have a story around the table…powerful stories. God has a plan to redeem each one of us out of our selfishness, agony, fears, shame, rejection, and isolation. He desires for us to be in a relationship with Him, and we can give to others out of the relationship.
We need one another on this journey of life. What the enemy, king of this world, does to destroy people, God brings healing. God brought people to my table to teach me forgiveness, connection, healing, and belonging.
Jesus redeems our brokenness. When Jesus appeared to the disciples gathered after some betrayed and doubted Him, he reassured them, healed their shame, and offered forgiveness! Read John 20 and 21 to lean into these truths.
Whose table are you sitting at?
Who are the people who have poured into your life, cared for you, and maybe introduced you to a relationship with Jesus? Who sits at your table and loves up on you when you’re down and out. Who do you share life with and help carry your burdens?
These can be people from your past and/or your current life. God invited these special people to sit with Him at this table of forgiveness. These caring people pour into your life in many ways….friendship, discipleship, teachers, pastors, friends, colleagues, children, strangers, counselors, doctors….the list is endless.
I encourage you to write a letter of gratitude to a few people on your list. Thank them for believing in you, loving you, and encouraging you. Tell them how much of a blessing they have been in your life.
Despite the woundedness that can happen at our tables, the table is a powerful place of connection, healing, and blessing.
A Blessing For You
May the pain of rejection, shame, and isolation be transformed into knowing you are seen and loved. May you feel God’s love through the people he brings to your table. May you notice God’s long and loving gaze upon you as he sits at your table.
(Next blog, I will introduce the Table of Nourishment)