What A Meal Can Mean To Marriage

What a Meal Can Mean to Marriage

Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt.

Colossians 4:6, NIV

“Pass the corn.”

“Where’s the salt?”

“Move over.”

“Do you have to chew your ice so loud?”

These are just a few of the common utterances around most family dinner tables. Pleasant, huh? And too bad. Mealtime offers one of the best opportunities for human connection and companionship—especially for couples. Culinary writer M. F. K. Fisher is known for saying, “Sharing food with another human being is an intimate act that should not be indulged in lightly.”

The writer of Proverbs would certainly share Ms. Fisher’s sentiment. You can have a dinner table with every delectable delicacy and the bounty of each season, but if the emotional tone around the table hangs heavy with unpleasantness, you might as well be eating leftover pizza from somebody else’s party: “Better a dry crust with peace and quiet than a house full of feasting, with strife” (Proverbs 17:1, NIV).

Think about it. The usual scenario is that two people reunite at dinnertime and grouse to each other about the events of their day: “Traffic was terrible on the way home tonight.” “Did you pick up my dry cleaning?” “Your mother called again.” “I need the car tonight.” Or, even worse, they flip on the television and eat without saying a word.

If you want to reclaim table time with your spouse, make it pleasant—make it a time both of you look forward to. You don’t have to cook like Julia Child or set a table like Martha Stewart to make mealtimes pleasurable. What matters most is the focus of your conversation. So tonight, whatever is on the menu, remember to let your conversation at the table be well seasoned with grace.^a

A smiling face is half the meal.

—Latvian proverb

^a 69