A Place for Hope
Has ever a dream grown legs and become a table?
Ours did.
May I share with you how?
. . .
The heels of my favorite red pumps made a sticky, muted clicking once I stepped off the worn carpet in the hall to the also badly stained, outdated linoleum in our kitchen. The sound punctuated the air like the pop of a balloon being deflated. Before me sat our rectangle, four-chair kitchen table. It was the classic Ashley Furniture, espresso-colored table constructed of cheap, soft wood. We had scratched and worn the color off the top of the table and chair seats in so many places over the years. If I ran my fingers over the seats, I would feel the gouges from buttons on the back pockets of jeans digging into the wood.
Not only was there no end in sight for getting rid of the rental duplex we owned that kept us hostage to this slapped together, two-bedroom house we were renting, there wasn’t room here for any larger of a table. If the table was any wider, we couldn’t walk past it. If it was much longer, it would spill out onto the carpet, leaving little clearance between our sectional couch and the table. The boldness with which I had asserted our goal to get a bigger kitchen table just an hour prior felt like it was melting and dripping away faster than an ice-cream cone on a hot, sweltering day.
We’d attended the EveryDay Mission conference at our church and the last session ended in time to pick up our two girls and drive the couple miles to the house we rented in starter-home central, albeit nestled into a nicer part of town. Our weekend had been packed with teaching and break-out sessions on how to be disciples who make disciples right here where we live. One of my actions points I shared at the end of our final break-out session was our goal to get a bigger table. The dream tugging persistently at our hearts was to use our house as a gathering spot for intentionally cultivating relationships. We envisioned a regular rhythm of inviting others over to join us for meals. Perhaps a big brunch every Saturday morning?
But now that hope felt idealistic, unrealistic, unattainable. I scanned the space before me, letting discouragement stealthily overtake my thoughts. I focused in on the things that frustrated me: the windows with the torn screens blowing in the wind, the large spots across the carpet, the 90’s light fixture above the table, the outlets that were all installed upside down, the linoleum again, the awful linoleum. Who would want to join us in this mess?
. . .
Fast forward a couple years. We had a buyer interested in the rental house, and then we closed on said rental house. It felt like we were holding our breath so long we didn’t know how to let it out once we penned the last signature to finalize the sale. Now we could start looking in earnest for our own home. We prioritized what was essential to us, and at the top of our list was somewhere we could host gatherings of people. We scrutinized house after house. This one’s living room was too cramped. This one didn’t have much counter space in the kitchen. This one didn’t have an open enough floor plan. This one didn’t have a basement for the kids to play.
And then came the day our realtor told us about a house that wasn’t on the market yet but was for sale. The house and yard had not been kept up with for a while, and there was ample cleaning, TLC, and updating that would need to be done. But the house itself was nearly three times the size where we currently lived, the floor plan would work for hosting, and the basement could become a space for kids to play during the discussion time part of missional community gatherings. We could easily have large birthday parties at home. The yard was already fenced and more expansive than most on this side of town.
We moved into the house, scrubbed it clean, and arranged our stuff. Many of the rooms still looked forlorn, outdated, and empty. But hope was alive in our hearts. Here would eventually lie a farm table large enough to fit eight chairs around it, and the pitifully stained carpet beneath it would become dark hardwood. Here in the adjacent room would be built-in bookshelves perhaps? Sitting chairs and a chaise? A baby grand piano? And here in this dark room I would put some airy, rustic curtains that would let in more light. The dark brown built-in entertainment center could be chalk painted a distressed teal. Eventually we would have an inviting area rug and more sitting space as well in the living room. It would at some point be a welcoming space to gather with friends and neighbor-friends on Friday nights as we leaned into community and faith while learning how to better do life together.
So let’s come back to the table. This is the table we had been dreaming of for years now. But did we even know what we wanted it to look like? Could we afford a table the size and quality we wanted? We looked through Wayfair like scrolling geniuses. Yet forking out that much money for the quality we expected didn’t feel right. We reached out to serval local businesses who built farm tables, but most of them used pine wood, and switching to oak would greatly impact the price.
And then a conversation with our next-door neighbor Steve changed our world. He is a precise tool and die maker, retired engineer, and wood craftsman. My husband asked Steve for some advice on building a farmhouse table as we were debating building it ourselves. Steve, super helpful as usual, sent Brandon home with a wood working magazine he had saved and a generous offer to answer any questions we had about the table. A few days later he caught us outside and asked how our project was coming along. We had to be honest: we were overwhelmed with other financial priorities and admitted we hadn’t begun the project yet. Steve volunteered that he was just wrapping up a project and offered to build it for us next! “If you could have everything you wanted, what would it look like?” he asked. His question lingered in the air as hope rose again and we began to envision what our dream table really embodied.
My husband and I spent numerous evenings after the kids were all tucked into bed sitting on our couch together, looking through google images of farm-style tables. We saved the pictures of tables we both loved so we could show Steve and ask him questions about customizations. Our main priority was to have a table as large as our formal dining room would allow, but we also wanted it to be made with thick boards for a chunky look. We tried to visualize what this table would look like in reclaimed oak, or even better, quarter-sawn oak.
Steve went to work sketching out a detailed design for the table. He drew multiple options for the pedestal legs, shared them with us, and then redesigned the blueprint to fit what we wanted the legs to look like. We almost didn’t want to know the cost of having a table like this custom built for us. Retail prices for similar tables were in the $5,000 range. When Steve let us know the price, we were floored. FREE?! We would buy the materials and he would provide the labor at no cost?! To top it off, Steve drove seven round-trip hours to find the quarter-sawn oak for us. Incredibly, the cost he estimated for the materials was within $15 of the final cost.
Steve poured countless hours into fashioning a stunning, unique, and extremely heavy solid oak table that will far outlast our lifetime. The table is held together solely with wood mortis-and-tenon fittings like furniture made before the Industrial Revolution. The breadboard ends, as Steve explained in detail to us, will allow for individual boards to expand and contract without warping. We are ever grateful for the love, patience, and skill our neighbor invested into this table. In all our lives, we have not received such a wonderful gift.
When the table was finished, we invited Steve and his wife over for dinner to enjoy the first meal at the table together. This was the first of what we anticipate will be many, many meals enjoyed with neighbors, friends, and family at the table. It was also the last “must have” on our list before we could start hosting our current missional community at our house. I am happy to share that we have now been hosting group out of our house and putting the new farm table to use. We also eat at the “fancy table” when neighbor kids are still at our house at dinner time and we won’t all fit around the other table. We have only just begun creating the memories that will be formed as people gather around the table.
Our dream to start a missional community for our neighbors began with the hope for a bigger table—a table that would create a space for people to gather, connect, grow, and share meals. Even a little bit of hope kept alive can carry us towards tomorrow, yes? Hope makes the journey and the wait worth it. Hope opens our hearts to anticipate greater things yet to come. And sharing stories of hope can spark hope in someone whose hope reservoir is on empty. Perhaps our table will be eavesdropping in on all the conversations around it where stories of hope are spoken.
Who in your neighborhood could you provide a glimmer of hope for? You don’t need to build a giant table to offer hope to someone else. Your smile alone on someone’s rainy day may be enough to let a little light in. Offer what you have to give and let God grow it into hope for a neighbor.
Dear Jesus, you birth hope inside our hearts. You know exactly what each dear reader is hoping for. May you give them grace and strength in the waiting. Please keep that hope alive and remind them that they are not alone on the journey. Thank you for your presence that surrounds us, and your glory that fills us with vision. And please let us listen in on how You might want to use us to share hope with those near us. Amen.
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