Dear Journaling Community,
I love setting a table, it speaks to me of warmth and home. We’ve always had supper at our table when the kids grew up, even with them all leaving and having their own lives, it’s the one constant I’ve kept. I still set the table.
You do not need more to get through winter. You need to see what you already have.
Psalm 23 and the Uninvited Guests
We have been living in Psalm 23 this month. Week by week, line by line. The lying down. The still waters. The restored soul. And now we arrive at perhaps the most startling verse of all.
“You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.” Psalm 23:5
I used to read that and picture a battle. Enemies on one side, a feast on the other. Defiance. Victory. Something dramatic and cinematic.
But this winter, I am reading it differently.
What if the enemies are not people?
What if the enemies at my table are the ones I know by name? The anxiety that sits uninvited at every meal. The guilt that pulls up a chair before I have finished my first bite. The grief that hovers in the empty seat. The exhaustion that has been living in my house and shows no sign of leaving.
They are there. At the table. They are always there.
And God does not remove them. That is the part that undoes me. He does not clear the room. He does not make the enemies disappear. He sets the table anyway. He prepares the food anyway. He anoints your head with oil and fills your cup until it overflows.
In the presence of.
Not in the absence of.
He feeds you while the hard things watch. He nourishes you while the worry sits across from you. He says, “Eat, love. I know they are here. But so am I. And I prepared this for you.”
Your winter table does not need to be free from pain to be sacred. It just needs to be set.
What My Table Looked Like Last Tuesday
I want to tell you about last Tuesday. Because last Tuesday was not a good day.
I woke up with that heavy feeling. The one that sits on your chest and makes even breathing feel like effort. Having a cold did not help either. I had slept but I was not rested. I had things to do but I could not start. Knowing that being needed felt like too much.
That is not a confession I am proud of. But it is an honest one, honest is what we do here.
I made tea. I put a blanket around my shoulders. I sat at the kitchen table with my tea and my journal and I wrote three words.
“I am here.”
Tea and three words. It was enough.
Because the table was set. Not beautifully. Not Instagram-worthy. But set. A woman sat down. She had something warm in her hands. She told the truth on a page. God was there, in the steam and the ink, preparing a table in the presence of every enemy that had followed her through the front door.
The Journal Exercise: Setting Your Winter Table
This is my favourite exercise of the whole month. It is not heavy. It is not hard. It is the opposite. It is warm.
Imagine you are hosting a small dinner. Not a real one. A journal one.
Open to a blank page. At the top, write: “At my winter table, I am placing…“
Then write the guest list. Not people. Things. The things that sustain you. The things that keep you warm when the world is cold. The things you reach for when everything else falls away.
Be specific. “My family” is too broad. What about your family? The way your daughter hums while she draws. The way your husband makes coffee without being asked. The sound of the dog sighing as she settles at your feet.
Here is mine. I will go first.
Be small. The smaller, the more sacred.
At my winter table, I am placing:
The sound of rain on the roof when the house is dark and everyone is asleep.
The first sip of rooibos on a cold morning, before anyone else is awake, when the kitchen is mine.
The verse I have been carrying in my pocket like a stone: “He makes me lie down.”
The friend who sends voice notes instead of texts, because her voice is warmer than her words.
The weight of a heavy blanket on a Sunday afternoon when I have given myself permission to do nothing.
The smell of toast. Not fancy toast. Just toast. Butter melting into the corners. Ordinary and exactly right.
The prayer I whisper when I cannot sleep: “God, I am here. You are here. That is enough for right now.”
The memory of me setting the table, every evening, because the table is where you remember you are human.
Write your own. Take your time. There is no hurry. Winter is long and your table will wait for you.
When you are done, read it back to yourself. Slowly. Let the warmth of it settle.
This is not a gratitude list. Gratitude lists can feel performative. “I’m grateful for my health.” “I’m grateful for my home.” Fine. True but distant.
This is closer than gratitude. This is texture. This is the specific warmth of a specific blanket on a specific Sunday. This is the weight of a mug in both hands. This is the sound of rain, not rain in general but rain on your roof, in your house, in your life.
Come back to this page on the cold nights. Everything you need to get through winter is already at your table.
The Empty Chair
There might be an empty chair at your table.
A person who used to sit there. A version of yourself that used to show up. A hope that has not arrived yet. A prayer that is still unanswered.
If there is an empty chair, do not pretend it is not there. Write about it.
“The empty chair at my table is for…”
Name it. Honour it. Let it sit there. Because an empty chair is not a failure. It is a space held open, sometimes the most sacred thing at the table is the space we keep for what is not yet here.
God sets a table in the presence of our enemies. Maybe He also sets a table in the presence of our absences. Maybe the empty chair is not a wound. Maybe it is a waiting. Maybe waiting is its own kind of faith.
The Welcome Statement
Every month, we close with a welcome. A one-line declaration of who we are becoming. Not who we have arrived at. Who we are welcoming.
This month, write this in your journal:
“I welcome the woman who rests without earning it.”
Or write your own. Make it honest. Make it tender. Make it the kind of thing you would say to your best friend if she was sitting across from you at the table, tea in hand, tears in her eyes, apologising for not being enough.
What would you say to her?
Say it to yourself. Write it down. Mean it.
The Month in Review
We have walked through four weeks together.
Week 1, we mapped the weight. Every invisible load, laid out on one page. We crossed one thing out and wrote “I am returning this.”
Week 2, we kept our journal by the bed. One sentence, written in the dark. We let our 3am self tell us what our daytime self was avoiding.
Week 3, we wrote a to-stop list. We subtracted instead of added. We practised the 6pm experiment and let the guilt show up without letting it win.
And this week, we set the table. We named what sustains us. We honoured the empty chair. We remembered that sacred does not mean perfect. It means present.
That is The Long Exhale. Not a programme. Not a challenge. A breath. A long, slow, winter breath that you have been holding since the first cold morning.
Breathe out now. You have earned it.
Actually, no. You have not earned it. That is the whole point. You never had to.
A Closing Prayer
God, thank You for the table. Not the perfect one. The real one. The one with crumbs and cold tea and a journal open to a half-finished page. The one with an empty chair and a full heart and the quiet knowledge that You are here, even when I forget to notice.
Thank You for the things that sustain me. The small ones. The specific ones. The ones that nobody else would put on a gratitude list but that carry me through every cold night.
And thank You for winter. For the way it forces me to stop, to look, to see what I already have instead of chasing what I think I need.
My table is set, Lord. Not beautifully. But honestly. And You are here. That is enough. It has always been enough.
Amen.
Looking Ahead
Next month, we enter Still Waters. The mid-year listening. We step away from the doing and into the hearing. We will ask what God has been whispering that we have been too busy to hear.
But that is for next month.
Tonight, set your table. Pour something warm. Open your journal. And rest.