A RECIPE FOR GRATITUDE

Who likes cooking with their kids? It might be a matter of timing or selection of meal – are the wee ones hangry and chomping at the bit to eat dinner? If so, it’s likely not the best time to teach the family pot roast recipe that’s been passed down three generations. However, if there's a bit of margin in your schedule, your child has a snack, and all are open to learning, it’s totally worth the time to prepare treasured family recipes with your children. The long-term benefits far outweigh the inconveniences of slower meal prep!

Preparing food and gathering at the table continue to be some of our favorite moments of our days.  Life with teens and young adults can mean that the best time to see these people is when they can sidle up alongside you in the kitchen, snatching a morsel while you chop veggies. It’s often here where stories flow, and a well-timed query can open up a window of insight into their thoughts on the day’s happenings. All the better when you set out tasty appetizers and ask them to pick out the music to play on Alexa. Even if this isn’t your milieu, for sure the kitchen is the place teens will circle ‘round at close of day, giving you opportunities for encounters. Parents of teens, can I get an amen?

Likewise, if you invite in your littles and grade school children to support at least a small portion of the meal prep process, you will create habits of connection as the family pitches in together to place food on the table. Maybe it doesn’t happen every night, but it’s possible to create a rhythm for cooking with your kids.

Tip: create a list of meal prep tasks that can be done by your kids (i.e. tasks you’ve taught them before or what you’re willing to teach them in the moment) and place the list on the fridge. Designate a fridge magnet for each person, and place the magnet on the task you’re asking your child to do that evening. Or gamify the process and make a spinning arrow on a disc naming meal roles–everyone spins to see what he or she will do.

OK, so perhaps this cooking stuff isn’t your thing, and you’d rather call up Doordash. I get it! But don’t miss out on at least the one annual meal you can ask the kiddos to help with: Thanksgiving. This holiday is fantastic for following recipes, and the kids learn so much when they are given the opportunity to help.

So beyond the food at Thanksgiving, does your family have a gratitude recipe to follow? John Piper wrote in his book, A Godward Life: “Remembering our dependence on past mercies kindles gratitude. Gratitude is past-oriented dependence; faith is future-oriented dependence. Both forms of dependence are humble, self-forgetting and God-exulting. If we do not believe that we are deeply dependent on God for all we have or hope to have, then the very spring of gratitude and faith runs dry.”

Giving thanks to God is a worthy sacrifice – after all it’s not easy to take your eyes off yourself and look to God. But if we do, we find that the Bible is an excellent place to shape your family recipe to cook up gratitude in parents and kids alike.

Whoever offers a thanksgiving sacrifice honors me, and whoever orders his conduct, I will show him the salvation of God. Psalm 20:23 CSB

So then, just as you have received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to walk in him, being rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, and overflowing with gratitude. Colossians 2:6-7 CSB

Above all, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. And let the peace of Christ, to which you were also called in one body, rule your hearts. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell richly among you, in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another through psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. Colossians 3:14-17 CSB

What does this recipe of gratitude look like in your family? Saying a prayer before the meal? Reading a Bible passage or a book about the first Thanksgiving? Offering opportunities for everyone around the table to share what he or she is thankful for this year? Journaling about God’s provision? Playing games together with the time He has given?

While moments of gratitude often are unplanned and organic, like a dish prepared without measured ingredients, a good recipe is worth writing down, teaching to your kids, and repeatedly preparing together. You’ll be thankful you took the time to cook up gratitude and faith in God with your kids, experiencing true joy in the Lord’s provision.

Epic families, we pray for a blessed Thanksgiving, and hope that this meal is only one of countless others you will enjoy with your kids and teens! May you experience God’s favor and deep gratitude as you cook with your kids. May these feasts be moments when you follow the recipe of our good, good Father and treasure the time: pray, listen to music together, dance, tell stories, ask open-ended questions, laugh at the messes, and you will reap memories of mealtimes which will bless you for years to come.

Grace and peace,

Annikki

P.S. Here’s some resources of good Thanksgiving stories to read to kids & articles on praying for gratitude:

Books for Giving Thanks

Thanksgiving Books for Kids

Praying the Word

A Recipe for Gratefulness

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November Epic Kids Elementary Unit Verse