Welcomed at the table, but not included in the family.
Through the years, I have heard that
sentiment expressed in too many ways by too many people in too many settings:
I feel welcomed here. People
smile. They speak. Everyone is friendly. I am invited to the
table. I’m just not invited to be family.
Those words spoken by others slip
into some hollow part of my being where they echo round and round and I feel
their lonely presence: Being welcomed to the table, but not included in
the family.
I wonder if one of the loneliest
places to be is in a group, yet not of the group.
Dear God, on this Holy Easter
Sunday, bless the non-included. Bless those who sit at our tables, who
are a part of our groups, those with whom we converse and smile, but against
whom we have raised invisible, impermeable, perhaps unintentional walls to keep
them out of family. Guide me this week to the one who needs to hear, "So glad I am your sister. Welcome to my table and to a place of value in
my life."
