Summer · June
from a small garden south of Salt Lake
Family discipleship, honest motherhood, and the slow work of making a home, written at the kitchen table by Melissa Whitaker.
Lately on the kitchen table
read more →A note from Melissa
LDS Family Life is a publication about LDS family life, motherhood, marriage, homemaking, and practical gospel living for families who want faith at home to feel lived instead of staged. I write first-person essays on family discipleship, spiritual formation in ordinary routines, and the pressures families are trying to carry with steadiness and grace.
The sink full of mixing bowls. The garden row that finally came up. The child calling for one more glass of water. The prayer I whisper while scraping plates after dinner. Those are the things that hold a family, and they feel worth writing down before they slip past.
with love, Melissa
Essays
June 26
I called a family council for a Tuesday night and the teenager asked if she could bring her homework. The middle-schooler asked how long it would take.
June 26
The pancakes burned on a Sunday morning while I was trying to get the toddler into a dress. I let out a breath I had been holding since Saturday night.
June 26
The doorbell rang at 4:47 on a Tuesday. I was holding a toddler and a half-peeled potato. The living room looked like a craft store had exploded.
June 26
The toast was burning. I was trying to pack lunches when the second-grader appeared with a question I was not ready for.
June 25
I sat down at the kitchen table with a notebook and a plan. I had read the articles about family councils and I knew the structure.
June 25
The Sunday morning argument started before the pancakes were on the table. I thought about what rest actually means on the Sabbath.
June 25
I was wiping down the kitchen table for the third time that morning when I realized I was not cleaning for the family.
June 25
I was wiping down the kitchen table for the third time that morning when I realized I was not cleaning for the family. I was cleaning for the possibility that someone might stop by.
June 24
The doorbell rang at 5:47 on a Tuesday and I was holding a toddler who had just discovered that yogurt smears on tile. Here is what I am learning about keeping the door open anyway.
June 24
Family councils don't have to be perfect to be effective. Here's how one LDS mom learned to find unity in the messy middle.
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