My Kitchen

It's only fitting to be where I am today while typing this post. At my kitchen counter sitting on the log bar stool. I cleaned these stools last week in preparation for the sale of our house and I thought about all the people who have sat here and rested their feet on this very warn, weathered stool. So many memories just in this kitchen alone, so many conversations at this counter. Usually with me on the other side, at my cutting board with one foot resting on the bottom drawer and a friend sitting here where I am today. 

There is something beautiful about this counter, these stools, this kitchen. It's not granite, it's not fancy, or really anything spectacular. It's about so much more. It's more about the relationships and life and the tears that have happened right here. The clarity in a confusing situation or the major epiphanies. 

I think about the meals I have prepared over the years with friends in this very kitchen. Experimented and taste tested together, rejoicing together when they were a success and making notes when they were a utter and complete fail. 

It was in this kitchen that I discovered how it warms my heart when I see a friend come over and open the fridge or cupboard and help themselves. I know they feel at home and comfortable which is the very thing I want my kitchen to communicate...what I want to communicate.

As Rogan has gotten older and less easy to pack around for coffee dates with college aged girls or friends, I have accepted that this is where I can meet with people. A quiet, safe place to connect and talk while he naps. At first it didn't seem like enough to offer but as I've watched it naturally happen it proves to be the perfect place. 

A place to be real, to cry, to say really hard stuff, not pretty it up or articulate the right words. Just cry, cuss, laugh, whatever it takes to share your heart. I rarely ever feel like I know what to say or have much to offer. Often times it's just a listening ear. 

With so much of our relationships built over technology these days, this is a place where it can be Live. When my friends are just across the counter from me, I feel like I can do so much more. I can reach out and take their hand, give them a hug or simply make them a cup of tea. I can pray right here and now, out loud together and share tears rather than say or text, "I'll be praying". I feel less helpless in walking the painful roads with people when they are here close enough to fix them a plate of food. 

We are just beginning this journey of selling our home, which now is feeling more and more like a house. And I am getting really nostalgic (if it's even possible for me to become more sentimental). While cleaning and scrubbing I've been doing much reflection on our lives here under this roof. I am not the same person I was 14 years ago when we built this house, and moved in. We hadn't even been married 1 year, with so many hopes and plans. And never did I think I would grow so attached to this place. Somewhere back there behind us, it turned into something more than just a little house, our first house. It has held so much of us, of our life, our experiences... it has become a home. 

Both Mike and I have always desired and dreamed about property, space, a place to have animals and peace and quiet. And so we have to let go of what we know and the place we have grown so comfortable in to experience something else. So together we step out, off the ledge and take a leap of faith. 

I am confident that what has been experienced here in this kitchen, will undoubtedly be experienced anywhere. Even if I am blessed with a teeny tiny kitchen. Because what really matters are those moments and hours spent together, face to face. 




These stools will move with us, and so will my love for making friends a plate of food. So with that, I rest assured that wherever God leads us it will be okay and there will be more conversations on these stools.