Blessed Are the Meal Makers

Post Author: Kendra Joyner Miller

As my husband and I celebrate our daughter Jo (Josephine) coming into the world this week, I’m reminded and grateful for the ways love surrounds us and literally feeds and sustains us.

This blessing was inspired by The Ministry of Meals at the First Congregational Church of Glen Ellyn for the ways they have nurtured by body and soul and the bodies and souls of so many.

Blessed are the meal makers

Who see bodies broken

After accidents and falls

In the midst of therapies and treatments

As hair falls to tub floors

Blessed are the meal makers

Who see broken hearts

The tsunami of grief

As the death of a loved one makes the

Once familiar strange

Blessed are the meal makers

Who see love broken open

As little ones enter the world

love enfleshed

Tiny fingers and toes

Those miraculous -maddening- sleepless nights

Blessed are the meal makers

those who give hopes and prayers

Along with hot dishes

Who know the tending of the body

Is also tending the soul

Blessed are those chefs of haute cuisine

And blessed are the comfort-food makers

As pots stirred- flour kneaded- veggies chopped

Each act a tiny prayer of taste

Prayers of healing- prayers of comfort- prayers of hope mixed- blended and baked

God we give thanks and celebrate these

Instruments of You

In these tender times

Their act of service

The making of a meal

The breaking of bread

The setting of a table

Healing and Holy

Communion

May we be transformed by their blessing

Amen.

Kendra is the Associate Minister at First Congregational Church of Glen Ellyn, where she has been for the last seven years. Kendra's two main loves are being adventurous outdoors and making delicious food to share with loved ones. When not busy doing, Kendra loves to be in her creek-side home with her husband Dan, a Lutheran pastor, their daughters Eliza and Jo, and their dog Connie, making messes and reading bad fiction with a good cup of coffee.

Image by: Kendra Joyner Miller, Holy Tables
Used with permission