Our New Table!

Our Family of ten (CJ took the picture)

Between the year 2005 and 2011 (six years) our family grew from six to ten! 

Christo and me, with CJ, Heidi-Mari, Josua and Danika

As a result our 6 seater meal table were really stretched and sad to say, it wasn’t possible to fit our latest addition to the family, baby Michael, onto the table.  He had to sit in his high chair to the side of my chair, almost behind me.  We also couldn’t spontaneously invite friends over for meals any more. When I did want to invite friends, I had to think twice about what kind of meal I could serve that would be suitable to have on one’s lap or arrange for the children to eat first, then lay the table again for the adults.  I love to lay a beautiful table, 

with flowers, serviettes, all the right cutlery, candles and healthy, attractive, delicious food. So, sadly we didn’t practice hospitality often, over the past year or two...

This year with Heidi-Mari’s 14th birthday coming up, we planned a Mother-Daughter-Tea.  It started as a wonderful idea, but as soon as I started to plan the details it became a nightmare. The dinning room was in serious need of painting and the table would be to small for 14 people (the bare minimum we wanted to invite), to name only my major concerns. I literally prayed for nights to my Heavenly Father to make a way!  

How faithful is our Father!  Here you can read how the men in my life painted the dinning room.

We put two steal tables together for a big enough table

and the Lord provided in every tiny piece of detail for a most beautiful and enjoyable Mother-and-Daughter Tea.  

But that is only half the story...

Over the weekend of Heidi-Mari’s tea, we kept the two steal tables in the dinning room, just because we were to relaxed after the tea to completely clean up and the room looked so beautiful. 

We just wanted to enjoy it for another day or two.  After all, it was only Heidi-Mari’s birthday on the Monday!  Came Monday, we as a family had the most special dinner at the big, spacious table.  Everyone could fit around the table, the little ones weren’t irritated with each other due to lack of personal space. We could easily place all the food in the middle of the table, with candles and we could easily pass food without knocking over the gravy pot in the process...!  Just there and then my husband decided he will make a plan to get us a bigger table!  In the mean time we would keep the two steal tables as a dinning table and moved our beautiful, solid Imbuya wood dinning table to the lounge.

My biggest concern was what we would do with my dinning table?  We bought it as newly wed’s twenty years ago, along with a beautiful solid wood sideboard.  I didn’t want to sell it, due to sentiment or store it where it could get damaged.  We considered putting only a wooden top on top of the existing table.  Since it was a round table, it could actually work very well to put the 1.8 x 1.6 m rectangular wooden top on top of it, and have only one leg, and not 4 legs in every corner.  This way there would be more leg space around the table and we would be able to fit in more people around the table. But how do you stabilize the rectangular wooden top, without hurting the original table top? 

But the Lord was in control and He is interested in our daily living, especially in the Meal Table and delights to provide in the smallest detail, if we trust Him! At further investigation of how they could fasten the table top, the men discovered that the original table top can be removed from the huge, solid table leg! 

All they needed to do was to take off the round wooden top, put the rectangular top onto the existing table leg and fasten it. 

Michael W. Smith has a beautiful song, that Christo and I cherish, “You were my eyes when I could not see...”  This is yet again true in our lives.  

The Lord knew we would eventually surrender my womb for His glory, delightfully welcome into our home, all the children He want to bless us with.  

He knew we would eventually need a bigger dinning table. 

He knew we wouldn’t have all the money in the World to spend on a new table.  

He knew I don’t easily settle for second best... 

Because He especially cares about the Meal Table, He let us choose the precise table that would allow us to convert our existing, small round table into a much bigger, rectangular table!

A month ago, the men went to buy the wood and started the job.  

They worked through the weekend, and on the Tuesday, which was a holiday in South Africa. 

By Wednesday evening we had dinner at our brand new beautiful rectangular Table!  And it only costs us R800 (about $110).

The Lord is so good!

The same weekend I made a beautiful table cloth and smaller overlay to fit over my new meal table.

With the off cuts of the fabric (I chose a damask fabric) I could even make cloth napkins.  

Between Heidi-Mari, CJ and Me, we put in much effort with every meal (we eat two of the three meals a day, at the table - breakfast and dinner, Christo don’t come home for lunch) Eating at the table was always a special occasion, but now it is like eating like royalty at our huge table, with all our precious children around the table!

What a blessed experience it is to have a family meal table with healthy, nutrient-filled meals to nurture our physical bodies, the company of my beautiful family to nurture each others souls, and a loving God who loves to come spend evenings with us and nurture our spirits.

I link this posting to my posting The Family Meal Table and Hospitality book review.  The Family Meal Table and Hospitality was written by Nancy Campbell and also has a companion DVD.   


I also like to share this on Raising Homemakers link-up

Much love

Linnie

“Where two or three are gathered together in My name, 

there am I in the midst of them.”

Matthew 18:20