Bread and Wine: A Love Letter to Life Around the Table with Recipes

by Shauna Niequist

I’m going to live in the body God made me, not because it’s perfect but because it’s mine. And I’m going to be thankful for health and for the ability to run and move and dance and swim. And this is what I’m not going to do: I’m not going to hide.

I’m going to take up every inch of space I need. I’m going to practice believing that I am more than my body, that I am more than my hips, that I am more than my stretch-marked stomach. I’m going to allow my shoulders to feel the sun, and even (gasp!) my thighs, instead of making sure I’m always, always safely covered and out of your view.

The table becomes the hospital bed, the place of healing. It becomes the place of relearning and reeducating, the place where value and love are communicated.

Eugene Peterson says that “to eyes that see, every bush is a burning bush.”

The building blocks of the most common meal—the bread and the wine—are reminders to us: “He’s here! God is here, and he’s good.” Every time we eat, every time we gather, every time the table is filled: He’s here. He’s here, and he is good.

We live in a world that values us for how fast we go, for how much we accomplish, for how much life we can pack into one day. But I’m coming to believe it’s in the in-between spaces that our lives change, and that the real beauty lies there.

I’m coming to see that the table is about food, and it’s also about time. It’s about showing up in person, a whole and present person, instead of a fragmented, frantic person, phone in one hand and to-do list in the other.

We come to the table because our hunger brings us there. We come with a need, with fragility, with an admission of our humanity. The table is the great equalizer, the level playing field many of us have been looking everywhere for.