Summer Breakfast

I had a moment that caught me completely off guard.

Each morning this week, I found myself in a community kitchen preparing breakfast and lunch for a local summer camp. Hundreds of little kids would come through the line each day. For many of them, these meals might be the most complete, dependable meals they would have all day.

So I found myself doing what I’ve always done, seasoning, tasting, adjusting.

Making sure every plate looked right before it left the kitchen.

I’ve cooked thousands of meals in my life. Events, events, events, restaurants, television, private dinners. Feeding people has been my profession for almost as long as I can remember. But something felt different this week.

As I watched those little kids laughing, running through the building, chasing each other with the kind of energy only summer can produce, my mind drifted somewhere I wasn’t expecting. It drifted to my own four children. I thought about all the summers when they were little. I remembered I missed almost all of them. I remembered the adventures from camp, Grandparent shopping sprees, feral babysitters, and mom doing most of the heavy lifting.

The days when they were home before I was, nights when they were already asleep by the time I walked through the door after another dinner service.

Our home never lacked food. There was always a roof over our heads. They never wondered if they were loved.

But there were so moments they experienced that I simply wasn’t there for.

That’s the part no one tells you about when you’re “building a career”.

Sometimes you’re building one thing while dismantling another. Standing over those pots this week, I realized something that brought literal tears to my eyes.

Every perfectly cooked and folded egg, every piece of toast, every tray that left the kitchen... I wasn’t just feeding the kids at camp. Somewhere deep inside, I think I was trying to give those little kids a piece of the father I wish my own children had experienced more often.

Not because I believe I can make up for lost time.

There are moments you never get back, summers that are gone forever.

But maybe grace works differently than time. Maybe grace takes what we cannot change and somehow still finds a way to make it useful and beautiful.

Every morning I walked into that volunteer kitchen, everything became more intentional. Not because anyone would notice. Those sweet children didn’t know my story. They didn’t know I was thinking about my own kids while I stirred pancake batter or buttered biscuits. They just knew someone cared enough to make breakfast. And maybe that’s enough. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about service. Real service isn’t about recognition. It’s not about being thanked.

It’s certainly never about being the hero. Sometimes service is simply loving the person standing in front of you with everything you’ve got, even while carrying the weight of things you wish you had done differently.

I can’t go back and be there for every summer morning my own children deserved. I would if I could. Every parent who has ever missed something important understands that feeling.

But I do choose how I serve today, I choose to cook with care and love and I choose to slow down.

I choose to love people through the work of my hands, maybe that’s one of God’s quiet mercies. And sometimes, if we’re paying attention...

That is enough to begin healing.