Sunday Morning — The Blessing on Her Back

Sunday Morning, Our Kitchen

This morning — Sunday — I came into the kitchen and she was already there. My wife had gotten up before all of us and was making breakfast for the family, the way she does, without ceremony and without being asked. I stood behind her for a moment, and I could not help myself: I took out my phone and filmed her from behind, just for a few seconds. What stopped me was her T-shirt.

It is the T-shirt from her church women's retreat — and she still wears it at home, all the time. Across the back, in pink, is Jesus with His arms open wide, and a worshipper with one hand raised toward Him. Underneath, the words: THE BLESSING. And below that, a line in Korean — 태신자를 가슴에, 사랑을 두 손에 — which means, roughly: hold the people you pray for in your heart, and hold love in both your hands. Those words were printed for a retreat.

"...but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD." — Joshua 24:15 (KJV)

That is when it settled in me: faith grows at home. Not only in a sanctuary, not only on a retreat — it grows on an ordinary Sunday morning, in a kitchen, in a breakfast made early and quietly for the people you love. The retreat is over, but what it planted is still being worn, still being lived, right here at our stove. I filmed only her back, and only for a few seconds. It was enough. Some sermons are not preached. They are cooked.