Transforming Your Family Around the Dinner Table – Ryan Rush

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Transforming Your Family Around the Dinner Table

Guest:Dr. Ryan Rush

From the series:Restore the Table (Day 3 of 3)

Air date:May 2, 2025

Ryan:I am more convinced than ever that there’s this one habit that can change everything. I mean, it can be transformational in a home.

Ann:And it’s mealtime—together.

Ryan:Together.

Ann:Together.

Ryan:Man, if you will do that. You can’t get your teenager to open up, watch what happens if you really invest over time with these meals. It’s incredible.

Ann:Welcome to FamilyLife Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I’m Ann Wilson.

Dave:And I’m Dave Wilson. And you can find us at FamilyLifeToday.com. This is FamilyLife Today.

Okay, so we’ve been talking a lot about food the last couple days.

Ann:Are you hungry?

Dave:I am getting hungry. So let’s do one more and then let’s go eat.

Ann:Okay.

Dave:We got to practice what we preach, and I hope it’s good meal. So we got Dr. Ryan Rush back with us. You are Mealtime Ryan. I don’t know what to call you. Dinner table Ryan.

Ryan:I’ll take it.

Dave:It’s got to be an R. You’re a preacher.

Ryan:Dinner table Ryan sounds better than Mealtime Ryan because here’s the great irony of this book: I don’t cook.

Dave:You don’t cook.

Ryan:I cook omelets at our house.

Ann:Dave doesn’t either.

Ryan:I’m a world-class omelet maker. That’s about it.

Dave:Really?

Ryan:I’ve made spaghetti a couple of times.

Dave:So your wife cooks.

Ryan:She’s great at cooking so I’m the dishwasher.

Dave:So is mine.

Ann:But you don’t have to be a cook to make mealtime special or important.

Ryan:There you go. Exactly. That’s right.

Dave:You just need a meal in front of you.

Ryan:And I’m living proof, right?

Dave:It could be Uber Eats or DoorDash. Just get the meal in front of you.

Ryan:Right, right.

Dave:And so if you miss the last couple days, go back because I mean your book and your life is about restoring the table; how God uses the table to really do some incredible transformation in people’s lives.

Ann:In every area of their lives.

Dave:Yeah, even physically and emotionally and spiritually, it’s around a table.

Ryan:Yes.

Dave:Yeah, so today we’re going to talk about five mealtime don’ts. Don’t do these things, and on the flip side we’ll talk about what to do as the opposite, but there’s probably 50 don’ts.

Ryan:Right.

Dave:But you’re the pastor, you put them all in nice little almost alliteration. If you probably had five more minutes, you’d have them all starting with s’s.

Ryan:I probably would. That’s right. Sometimes I finish my sermons, and they all alliterate, and I’ll actually change it just because it sounds so cheesy. So I know a lot of people—

Ann:This is totally Dave as well.

Ryan:It’s so funny.

Dave:I think people remember it better.

Ryan:The things that go through the mind of a pastor that people don’t realize.

Ann:I wish we could sit around the table with our listeners to hear their stories of things not to do. Wouldn’t they have some good stories?

Ryan:Right, and I guess the most important thing we want to say is no matter what you do, don’t worry about the don’ts as much as get started. But the reason we want to talk about the don’ts is because this can curtail a great mealtime experience with your family and stop what you’ve already started. So just simple things that can happen that I think the enemy can take and kind of hijack what can be really special.

Ann:Are we saying that we have some mealtime failures too? Is that what we’re saying?

Dave:We have a few.

Ryan:Oh, I promise you I do.

Dave:And hopefully this will help you not to have as many in the future. Alright, give us the first one.

Ryan:Alright. Yeah, my girls would call in if they could and let you know some things I did wrong. So the first I think is probably the most significant way that people mess up the meals and I call it the overachieving meal. So you decide, okay, we’re going to get started in this new thing and so we’re going all out. Man, we’re going to have this homemade dish and followed by this great dessert.

Then we’re going to have, if we’re going to have breakfast together, it’s going to be the greatest breakfast you’ve ever seen. And before long, this becomes exhausting and a burden, at least to somebody in the family who’s preparing these dishes. And so all of a sudden you say, “Well, I can’t keep it up.” So don’t even start that idea. The best meals with your kids are probably not going to involve the fancy stuff anyway.

My mom makes this incredible sloppy joe recipe. I talk about it in the book. I actually give the recipe.

Dave:Yeah, I saw the recipe.

Ryan:Right.

Ann:I’m going to do it.

Ryan:One of the great mistakes I made in my life, it’s not even one of these, but when we were first married, Lana made some sloppy joe’s one night, and she used a can for I think like Manwich or something for it. And I said, “Did you take that out of a can?” She said, “That’s the only way to make sloppy joes.” And I said, “No, no, no. My mom makes a great sloppy joe. Maybe you should call her and get a recipe.”

Dave:You said that?

Ryan: Yes.

Dave:No, you didn’t.

Ann:How’d that go?

Ryan:This is like Marriage 101, right?

Dave:No. Are you kidding me?

Ryan:This is probably before I went to the FamilyLife—

Dave:Yeah, right, Weekend to Remember.

Ryan:—Weekend to Remember. I mentioned that; it was life-changing for us. So it was earlier than that and it did not go well. “Why don’t you get your mom to make you some sloppy joe?” Something like that, but down the road, she actually did one time say, “Hey, by the way, Ryan says you have a sloppy joe recipe. I tried to tell him there’s no such thing.” And my mom said, “Actually there is. It’s simple.”

And so Lana made them, and lo and behold, they’re tremendous. But don’t do it that way guys. The reason I say that is our kids and me growing up and then later on our kids, we probably remember a lot of sloppy joe nights that were pretty simple. So don’t overachieve.

Dave:By the way, I’m thinking of your dad who, I mean food for her dad—and again, he was my high school coach, so I’ve known him a long time. He’s great guy. He’s with the Lord now—food for him was a core value. It was a core value of his life. I mean, his life revolved around meals.

Ann:Oh yeah. He’d think about everything.

Dave:He would sit down—and again, we talked about it before. I grew up with my mom. It’s just the two of us.

Ann:You had little TV dinners growing up.

Dave:And food wasn’t that big a deal. Usually it was rice. I love rice because I grew up, that’s what we ate. But I get in the Baron family and meals are a big deal. And Dick would sit down, her dad, and he would rate every meal.

Ryan:Are you serious?

Dave:Yeah.

Ryan:Out loud?

Dave:I thought he was kidding but he’s serious. “Yeah, Toot, this wasn’t very good.” His wife’s named Toot.

Ryan:Are you kidding me?

Dave:“This is about three out of ten.” I’m like, “What are you doing?” And she’d be like, “Okay, I’ll do better next time.”

Ryan:Incredible; no, that wouldn’t have gone well.

Dave:That would be a don’t.

Ryan:At least I learned early on.

Ann:Oh, it would be so mad. “She just made this fantastic food and now you’re critiquing it.”

Ryan:Right.

Ann:Things not to do.

Ryan:What not do, and so back to this mistake. So grade your mealtimes based on the fellowship and the community. Don’t—the community, not the cuisine. There you go.

Dave:There you go.

Ann:There it is.

Ryan:There you go.

Ann:Alright, so that’s number one.

Ryan:Yes.

Ann:Okay, I’ve got number two.

Ryan:Okay.

Ann:Don’t do the deep dive in conversations at the dinner table if you have somebody that you don’t know very well.

Dave:So if you have a neighbor or even a stranger—

Ryan:Right.

Dave:Or somebody from church.

Ann:You just don’t know them that well. This is me, you guys. I tend to ask very deep personal questions because I love people, and I want to know their story. I want to know how they’re doing and so—

Dave:But she does that to her husband too.

Ann:Dave will say, “Don’t be so intense, Ann.” Like, “Oh yeah.” I hate small talk.

Dave:She hates small talk.

Ryan:You just want to get to the heart of the issue, right?

Ann:I want to know the person.

Dave:Who cares who the Lions are playing this week. “Let’s talk about your spiritual walk.”

Ann:No, I didn’t go so spiritual, but here’s what I did. We had someone over the first time. They were in their twenties. They’d been married maybe eight months, and this is a Detroit Lions player and his wife, super nice. And we’re eating and I say to him, “Hey,” let’s say his name’s John. It’s not John. “John, how are you guys doing? How’s your marriage going? We really struggled our first year. Is it hard? Is it easy? How are you doing?” This is probably 15 minutes into the dinner.

Ryan:Oh my goodness. Yeah, nice to meet you.

Ann:He looks at me, he stands up, and he pushes his chair back very loudly and awkwardly and he walks into the living room.

Dave:Didn’t even say a word, just left the table.

Ann:And I look at his wife like, “What happened?” And she rolls her eyes, and I could tell by her face, they are not doing well. But then he said something to you, Dave.

Dave:Well, I went into the living room and he’s actually pacing. I’m like, “Dude, what’s going on?” He’s like, “I can’t talk about that stuff. That’s way too intimate. I never talk about this. I’m very uncomfortable right now.” I’m like, “Okay, glad we had you over.” I mean, yeah, I mean Ann did that one other time with another guy, and I’ll never forget, he literally looked at her like “You just violated my life by asking me such a personal question.” Ann’s like “Come on.”

Ryan:I love that that’s your gift though, because you’re causing people to think about things they don’t.

Ann:Is it a gift?

Ryan:It sounds like he needs to talk about those things, but you start in the shallow end before you go to the deep dive, right?

Dave:Get in the kiddy pool first; read the room.

Ryan:I’ll tell you the best way I’ve found to do that, and I know you guys have discovered maybe some better ones, is just let them drive the conversation to start.

Ann:That’s good.

Ryan:What do they want to talk about? “Tell me your story.” And that allows somebody to begin wherever they want to.

Ann:Oh, that’s a good question.

Ryan:They can talk about the difficulties of childhood, or they can talk about what their dad did growing up, whatever they want to.

Dave:By the way, if you want some great questions—

Ann:Tell us your story.

Dave:—great questions for the table, we got them at FamilyLife.com/TableTalk. I’m just going to tell you to go there. Some of you are like, “I’m not really good at asking questions,” we’ll help you.

Ann:What did you say? How did you say it?

Ryan:Tell me your story.

Ann:That’s good, Ryan. Tell me your story. And they can choose whatever they want to share.

Ryan:Absolutely. What part, you get to choose.

Ann:They can stay as shallow or deep as they want to go.

Ryan:Absolutely.

Dave:I will add this. There are some people in some conversations that they want to go deep, go. That’d be an awesome time if they’re willing to go there—

Ann:They’ll go there when they tell their story; they’ll go deeper.

Dave:So that’s not like, never go there, but don’t over—

Ryan:Absolutely.

Ann:At least at the beginning. Once you know someone well and you have a good relationship, you kind of know where you can go and not go so that’s mine.

Let me ask you guys this though. With your kids, do you have to keep it shallow? Can you go deeper? What do you think? Are there times that—

Ryan:I think you have the opportunity at times to read the room and know this is a good time. Because most of the time when we sit down with family members, you know them well enough to know when something’s troubling them and it actually can be a little tone-deaf. Dads can be guilty of that sometimes to just say, “Hey, let’s talk about whatever.”

Or even on some serious issues when we’re not addressing the elephant in the room, whatever that is. So we’ve talked about this before, Ann, you mentioned something great that worked for us; kind of a high-low moment to say, “Hey, what’s the best thing that happened today? What’s the worst thing that happened today or this week? And who wants to share first?” Let them go around the table, usually you can get to the heart of those things.

So there are times when you know somebody that the Lord will allow you to break through those barriers. But there are also times when you don’t want to dive in the deep end at the table or they look at it as a time that, “Okay, every time we come here, it’s therapy.” Let’s back up a little bit and let’s talk about our day, or let’s talk about football. Let’s talk about what we’re excited about and that’s going to allow us the on-ramp to go deeper.

Ann:I’ll just share too, another tip with us. When you go out on a date with your husband, don’t necessarily dive too deep too quick. Have some fun, laugh a little bit before you get into any marital issues that are really heavy on your heart, not that you don’t go there.

Dave:Been there, done that.

Ann:It’s not that you don’t go there. Just be very wise and pray like, “Lord is now the time?”

Dave:But also it could be a powerful time if it’s the right moment. I know that when our youngest son was the only one in the house—the two older brothers were off to college—we had some of the richest conversations that he prompted. I remember Cody looked at us and again, it’s so different. There’s nobody else in the house, just the three of us. And we’re sitting there eating and Cody goes, “Hey, so can I ask you guys, did you guys drink in college? Did you guys have sex in college?” We’re like, “Oh boy, here we go.” And he really, “Tell me your testimony.” I mean, he’d heard me preach his whole life, but it was pretty intimate, and he wanted to go there. So it’s like, “Okay, we’re going to go there.”

Ann:It was really sweet.

Dave:And there were some pretty powerful moments in his life because of that intimacy that he initiated. I think a lot of it’s see what they’re initiating and follow the lead.

Ryan:See where they’re going for sure. So there might be an opportunity you’re going to end up in the deep end of the pool because of the meal. And going back to the same idea: there’s something about having that food in front of you that allows the barriers to come down so be ready for that. Just don’t start with it unless they do. I love that; that the Lord allows that conversation.

And that’s something I think that gives a glimpse to families who haven’t done this. Say, “Man, if you will do that,” and “You can’t get your teenager to open up, watch what happens if you really invest over time with these meals. It’s incredible.”

Dave:Yeah.

Ann:I love that.

Dave:Okay, what’s another don’t?

Ryan:Okay, so here’s what maybe I was the most guilty of. If my wife Lana were sitting here, she’d say this is where when the girls were younger, I used to get caught up in the sermonette meal. “So kids, this is a chance to dive into these three points and I have a lesson in mind.” And they kind of knew the routine so their baloney meters would go off. They knew what was going on and sometimes I would do it when they were really young because I wanted to get some good material. So I knew, hey, I could share this on Sunday. I’m going to be preaching on this.

I can remember one time Riley was about seven, Reagan was five. We’re sitting at the table on a Tuesday, and I said, “Girls, I’m talking about the breakdown of the family this Sunday. And it’s really heartbreaking what some people go through. I’m so grateful that we don’t have to do that. So why do you think some families deal with such hard times?” So Reagan puts her fork down, five years old, and she says, “Dad, if you don’t know what to say, maybe they should just get somebody else to preach.” She knew exactly what I was doing, and she was tired of me stealing her material.

So that’s an extreme example but the reality is—

Dave:From the mouth of babes.

Ryan:Right? I know. Don’t make it where your kids see it coming and they think, “Okay, this is just a chance for you to teach a class.” Or it can become so formal that it’s not something they look forward to. You want it to be something that they can’t wait to get to. This is that special moment when they grow up, they look back and they say, “There was laughter. We had a good time together. We talked about silly things sometimes, but this was great”.

I think about, this is a really old example but remember the sound of music.

Ann:Sure.

Ryan:So the Von Trapp family early on, what was his name? Mr. Von Trapp. He wouldn’t let anybody speak at the table, right?

Dave:Oh, that’s right.

Ryan:That’s pretty extreme but it sounds like you guys had the same thing. We had a good time around the table.

Ann:We did too.

Ryan:Sometimes it drove me crazy because they’d get going, but we were going to enjoy life with one another around that table. And we still treasure that today.

Dave:I remember one time, do you remember this? It was lunch. All three boys were there. Ann was there. I got up, got some iced tea, some ice for myself, sat down at the table and I looked at Ann and I go, “This weekend I’m preaching on sin and I’m trying to make the illustration that sin is really selfishness. We’re all selfish.” I go, “I really need a good illustration of selfishness. Give me one that I’ve done recently.” She goes “Like right now.” I go, “What?” She goes, “You literally got up, went to the refrigerator, got ice, got a glass, got yourself iced tea. Does anybody else at the table have a drink?”

Ryan:Wow.

Dave:She goes, ”There’s”—

Ryan:But you just did that for the sake of the sermon, right?

Dave:I did. I literally was like, “I am the most selfish little jerk on the planet.”

Ryan:That’s fantastic.

Dave:I’ve never forgotten that. I’m like, “Well, at least I got an illustration.”

Ryan:And here’s the beauty of it. When pastors do something dumb, we can always just use it later on. God redeems every dumb thing we do. So it works out great. We can’t lose.

Dave:Here’s another one that, I don’t know what we’ll call it. Media rich. Media obsessed. Media bound. It’s the distraction of tv, phone.

Ryan:Yes.

Dave:You name it. I’ve literally done this at the table. The phone’s down here. I don’t have it on the table because I’m not looking at it, but I’ve got a thought for a sermon, and I pull it out and I’m putting it in my notes, or checking out scores, or I’m looking at the TV that’s on in the family room. You got to be careful.

Ann:Well guys, here’s what’s hard because we’ve had three sons and a game would be on, you could see the TV from the kitchen into the other room and they’re all sitting so they can see it.

Ryan:Sure.

Ann:And there are times I don’t care about that, but there are other times, what should a mom or a wife do when she does want to have the TV off? Is that bad to turn the TV off during a game?

Ryan:Well, what I would challenge if it’s going to be a regular occurrence and it’s something that brings a family together. Now granted, this is my bias show. I like watching sports as well. I’d say just don’t make that one of your meaningful mealtimes because you don’t want to create this scenario where, man, every time we get together—

Ann:—it has to be deep.

Ryan:—we don’t get to enjoy that. So just finding another time, say, “Hey, let’s go watch the game and then we’re going to do this,” or “Let’s press pause and watch this,” and just “Everybody put your phones away. Let’s enjoy the time and then we’ll go watch.”

Ann:That’s a good idea.

Ryan:I might call this, this is a sports analogy, but the media time out meal where you say “We’re going to have a meal. We’re going to make it special, but by the way, we’re just going to glance over there every now and then.” It never works. And we’ve all been to the Chili’s or the whatever where the TV is on the screen, and you’re just trying to do both things and watch the game, and it just doesn’t work hand in hand.

So what I’m saying to my wife or my kids, if I have the game on over her shoulder and she’s sharing something and I’m nodding and looking there as I’m saying, “I care about you but not enough to focus my attention solely on you. I’d like to care about you and what’s happening on this television right now.” And we don’t want to send those messages to our kids.

Ann:What about the kids that have their phones, and they just go crazy, “This is ridiculous. I should be able to have my phone.” Is this one of those times we just stand firm?

Ryan:You have to, and this is science folks. I mean, we’re learning more and more all the time about how distracting and even debilitating this is to relationships. So you’re doing your kids a great service to set the phone down for a significant amount of time every day anyway. Because it’s moved from, “Man, this is really distraction. Our kids like their phones” to realizing what it’s doing to their attention spans, their physical human relationships, and it’s messing us up.

So we really have to have the discipline more times than this, and that’d be another conversation for another day. But I really encourage families, put the phones in a base in one place in the kitchen. Phones aren’t in the bedrooms, going to bed, not even for the horrible stuff that we hear, the nightmare stuff. I’m just talking about the distraction from the things that matter and having focus on real life. So the phones absolutely, and you’re right, they can show up under the table and we can all make excuses. Well, we have this important assignment. Well, I’m a pastor. I mean, what if somebody texts me about something important? Just this one time I’m going to. That’s why I’d call it a media timeout. I’m going to have this—

Ann:What are you looking at there at the table?

Dave:I looked up, I don’t know if you’re familiar with Simon Sinek.

Ryan:Yeah. Yes.

Dave:—very intelligent about these things. He has—I was just looking it up, which is exactly what we shouldn’t be doing.

Ann:—while we’re talking.

Dave:He is saying we think that when we’re at a meal with somebody, if we put the phone away, like put on the table or even turn it upside down, that we’re—he says that is saying to the person, “You don’t matter.” He says, “You have the phone in your hand and you’re thinking, ‘It’s not buzzing. I’m not looking at it. It’s just in my hand.’” He goes, “You are saying to that person or those people, ‘You’re not that important. Anything that happened on here is more important.’” He says literally at a dinner table or at a mealtime, don’t even put the phone on the table upside down.

Ryan:Yes.

Dave:Get it out of your hand, get it away. That says to everybody there, “There’s nothing more important than you right here, right now.”

Ann:My one friend when we would walk in her house—

Dave:Absolutely.

Ann:These are just friends. We walk in the house and she’s standing at the door with her basket for all of us to put our phones in the basket.

Ryan:Yes. Yes.

Ann:Why not? Why? Because she’s like, “You really matter to me, and I want to spend time with you.”

Dave:Back in the day when we first started pastoring, we had phones on the wall with the cord. There were no cell phones, and we had a mealtime rule. That phone is never answered during dinner. Then it would ring. We just never answered. I remember other pastors saying, “You have to take calls. It could be somebody in distress in your church.” I’m like, “They’ll call back.”

Ryan:Absolutely.

Dave:The next 30 minutes, 40 minutes are going to be sacred because this is a mealtime. We didn’t even know all the research you’ve come up with since then, but it was important. It said to your family, you matter.

Ann:Alright, let’s do another one.

Dave:There’s only one more. We got four done.

Ryan:Do we have four already?

Dave:We got four, boom.

Ryan:Okay. Let’s call it the courtroom meal.

Dave:Courtroom?

Ryan:Here is what I mean. If we seal this off as a family tradition, let’s say that our listeners love it, and they make it a part of their lives. You might have this as the only time of the day where you get together and you have a little bit of a vendetta. Nobody can hurt us like family. Nobody can make us more angry. So we come together and say, “This is an opportunity. I’m going to teach these kids a lesson. I’m going to have this lecture now,” or it can happen to date night as well, can it not?

Dave:Yeah.

Ryan:Where I finally got you alone, “Look, we’re going to address this need right now.” And so you start firing lasers of bitterness and anger across the table, and all of a sudden it turns. Doesn’t mean you can’t have serious conversations, but don’t hijack the mealtime to make it the hall of justice, right?

Ann:Oh, that’s good.

Dave:So protect mealtime to be more, not that. You’re going to do that somewhere else.

Ryan:Absolutely.

Dave:Don’t do that at the meal.

Ryan:So let’s talk real life. There’s somebody with a teenager and that teenager has just done something crazy dumb. I know that never happens, but theoretically, right?

Dave:Never.

Ryan:And you’re just put out with them. You’ve already had the lecture and now you’re sitting down. If you’re not careful, the natural response is going to be, “Let’s unpack this again. I’m so disappointed. I’m so frustrated.” But what if, again, you’re not ignoring the issue, but now you have a chance to address grace and say, “I just want to remind you how much I love you. Hey, let’s talk about something else. I want you to know this is a chance to say, even without saying it, that you’re my son, you’re my daughter. And so we’re still in this.” So it can be a healing process rather than—

Ann:It’s the healing table.

Ryan:The healing table. I have a chapter called “The Healing Table” for just that reason.

Ann:I like that. That’s really good.

Dave:We learned on our date nights to stop doing that on our date nights because a lot of times our date night would start with Ann saying, “Hey, on a scale of one to ten, rate our marriage.” And I’m like, “Oh no. That means my number’s going to be nine and yours is going to be two. And that means we’re going to talk all night about how we can get our number higher.”

Ann:And we realize that’s not the time to do it because we started—

Dave:We need to do it but not on that mealtime, on that daytime.

Ann:Yeah. Well, I’m going to bring up another one. When food—

Dave:You can’t do six. You can only do five.

Ann:When food becomes the battle.

Ryan:This is 5b.

Ann:That’s right, 5b. When you have toddlers and they’re not eating anything, it becomes a battleground. The table becomes a battleground instead of the healing ground. It kind of goes into the courtroom too.

Ryan:It really does.

Ann:How do we do that where we’re just like, “You need to take one more bite” and then you’re—

Ryan:I’m so glad you brought that up, Ann, and that’s a perfect way to end because there’s a lot of parents of preschoolers or young kids or let’s face it sometimes sounds like high school boys can be the same, right?

So you feel like, I had a mom say the other day, she said, “I feel like I live in a frat house.” She’s just raising boys. And she said, “This isn’t what I imagined. It’s their food flying everywhere.” First of all, never underestimate what your kids are grasping by sitting around that table, even if it seems like it’s a war zone.

Dave:There’s chaos, yeah.

Ryan:They are feeling the love that you have for them. God is moving in their hearts just by sharing the meal. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It’s okay if you’re having to do the train to get them to eat or whatever you have to do. Remember the choo-choo train? Do they still do that?

Ann:Yes.

Dave:Or the airplane.

Ryan:But you’re going to have little pockets, little moments of peace, of love, of connection that God’s going to move so don’t underestimate those.

We’re working on a new book right now with a friend of mine for disabled parents, and we decided to call that book Grace in the Chaos. I don’t know whether they’re ever going to be done, but that’s such a picture, right, of how God works. It’s not going to be perfect. It’s kind of crazy at most houses with parents of special needs as well, sometimes for life. But God brings these moments of grace in the midst of the chaos that will bless you if you’ll let Him.

Ann:That’s so good.

Dave:And I’ll close with this. We’re old enough to know those mealtimes, you’re going to blink, and they’re gone. Your kids are going to be gone. I mean, I know when we were there and older parents would tell us, “Seize the day. Enjoy the moment,” we’re like—

Ann:We’re exhausted.

Dave:—we’re exhausted. There’s food everywhere. It’s on the walls.

Ann:I don’t know if it’s on the walls.

Dave:Sometimes it’s on the walls. That’s where the pee was, on the walls. But no, I’m just thinking it flew by and now there’s two people sitting at the table, Ann and I, and it’s quiet. It’s awesome, but I wish for some of that chaos that I hated at the time that I sort of miss now. So seize the day when you can.

And by the way, here it is, Restore the Table. That’s the book we’ve been talking about the last three days, Discovering the Powerful Connections of Meaningful Mealtimes. I tell you what—

Ann:It’s so good, Ryan.

Dave:I don’t know anybody else who’s written on this.

Ryan:Thank you so much.

Dave:It’s a powerful truth. You can get it. Just go to FamilyLifeToday.com, send a gift of any amount to FamilyLife, we’ll send you this book. Or you can call us at 1-800-358-6329. That’s “F” as in Family, “L” as in Lasagna, and the word “TODAY.”

Ann:FamilyLife Today is a donor-supported production of FamilyLife®, a Cru® Ministry. Helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.

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