Great Is Thy Faithfulness
Around the Sunday Table
There are some hymns we don’t simply sing. We carry them with us. “Great Is Thy Faithfulness” is one of those hymns for me.
Recently, I made a Great Is Thy Faithfulness hymn board and donated it to a church benefit auction for a member of the congregation who is awaiting a kidney transplant. As the evening unfolded, I discovered just how many people held this old hymn close to their hearts. It seemed that nearly everyone had a memory or a reason the words meant something special to them.
There was something especially meaningful about seeing a piece I had made with my own hands become a small way to help someone else. What began as wood, paint, and the words of an old hymn became an offering—and a reminder to me that the gifts we have been given can be used to bless others.
Its words have been sung in little country churches, at Sunday morning services, around pianos, and by generations of families who knew that life would not always be easy—but God would always be faithful.
The hymn takes us back to these beautiful words from Lamentations: “It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.
They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.”
— Lamentations 3:22–23
New every morning. I love that.
Those three little words also take me back to something I shared with you in my Morning Basket post. I created my Morning Basket because I wanted the first part of my day to belong to what matters most—not to the noise waiting for me, the unfinished list from yesterday, or everything I think I have to accomplish before the day is over.
My basket gives me a place to begin: Scripture and prayer, my FROG—Fully Rely on God, my priorities for the day, and a reminder to release what I don’t need to carry.
But perhaps the most important thing in that basket isn’t something I can actually put my hands on.
It is the reminder that this morning is new.
Yesterday may have been productive—or it may have gotten completely away from me. I may have finished everything on my list or hardly anything at all. There may still be things sitting on the table waiting for me.
But God does not ask me to begin this morning carrying yesterday.
His mercies are new every morning.
That changes the way I think about my Morning Basket. It isn’t simply a way to organize my day. It is a little daily practice of beginning again—first with God, then with the work He has placed in front of me.
Not just on the extraordinary mornings. Not only when prayers are answered exactly as we hoped or when everything seems to fall neatly into place.
His mercies are new on ordinary mornings, too.
They are there when the coffee is brewing, when sunlight comes through the kitchen window, when we pull an old recipe from a cookbook, when we set the table, and when the people we love gather around it.
Faithfulness in Ordinary Things
The older I get, the more I realize how much of life is made up of ordinary things.
Meals cooked. Tables set. Dishes washed. Gardens tended. Prayers whispered. Church doors opened on Sunday morning. Recipes passed from one generation to another.
None of these things seem very grand by themselves. But put together over a lifetime, they tell quite a story.
They tell a story of faithfulness.
Maybe that is one reason I love old cookbooks so much. Their pages hold more than recipes. They remind us of the women who stood in kitchens before us, making something good from what they had.
A handwritten note in the margin, a splatter on a favorite recipe, or a page that automatically falls open to the family favorite tells us: Someone made this again and again.
And somewhere along the way, an ordinary recipe became a tradition.
Gathering at the Sunday Table
For this Sunday table, I wanted the meal to feel like something that could have been served years ago after church—simple, comforting, and familiar.
Nothing complicated. Just good food and time together.
Our Sunday Dinner Menu
Coca-Cola Pork Loin with Apple Cider Vinegar & Rosemary
Slow-cooked and comforting—the kind of main dish that makes the whole house smell like Sunday dinner.
Baked Corn Casserole
Warm, simple, and perfect beside the pork.
Brown Sugar Harvest Sweet Potatoes
Sweet potatoes bring the goodness of the fall harvest to the table, and their natural sweetness makes them a perfect companion to the savory pork loin.
Apple Cake with Caramel Frosting
An old-fashioned cake deserves an old-fashioned frosting. A warm caramel frosting makes this one feel especially suited for fall.
And tucked among my vintage recipes is another little treasure: Stone Jar Molasses Cookies
The recipe comes from the 1929 Calumet Baking Book. The original directions tell the cook to roll the dough very thin, bake the cookies in a moderate oven, cool them carefully, and then— “store in stone jar.”
That tiny instruction may be my favorite part.
I can almost picture the jar sitting on an old kitchen shelf, waiting for someone to lift the lid and sneak a cookie.
Set the Table Anyway
For this fall table, I’m keeping things warm, simple, and gathered from the season. I’ll mix creamy dishes with old white ironstone bowl and pitcher arrangement. I want the arrangement to feel loose and abundant, with some of the harvest spilling right out of the bowl and across the table. A few glowing candles tucked among it all will add that warm fall-evening glow.
Place Settings
At each place:
- Fold a cream linen napkin
- Tie it with jute or narrow gingham ribbon
- Tuck in a sprig of rosemary or wheat
- Add a small pumpkin blessing tag.
- Place a conversation card beside each plate.
[Photo: My Great Is Thy Faithfulness Sunday Table]
Pull out Grandma’s serving bowl. Use the cloth napkins you keep saving for a special occasion. Because maybe this is the special occasion. The people sitting around your table are there today.
That is reason enough.
A Hymn for the Table
Before dinner, place the words Great Is Thy Faithfulness somewhere everyone can see them. Maybe write them on a little card, tuck them into a hymn board, or open an old hymnal beside the centerpiece.
Then take a moment to remember what those words mean. We can look backward and see places where God carried us. We can look around the table and see blessings we might otherwise overlook. And we can look toward tomorrow knowing that His mercy will meet us there too.
Morning by morning.
Something to Talk About
Sunday dinner gives us something increasingly rare—a reason to sit still long enough to really talk to one another.
This week, ask:
Where have you seen God’s faithfulness in your life?
Maybe the answer will be something big. But listen for the little answers, too. A friendship. A meal when money was tight. Someone who showed up at just the right time. A prayer answered differently than expected. A family tradition that somehow survived the years. A quiet morning when peace came unexpectedly.
Those stories matter. Tell them.
Our children and grandchildren need to hear them.
Linger a Little Longer
When dinner is finished, don’t rush quite so quickly to clear everything away.
Pour another cup of coffee. Cut one more little piece of apple cake. Pass around the molasses cookies. Stay at the table.
Linger.
Because someday we may discover that these ordinary Sunday afternoons were never ordinary at all. They were part of the story we were building together.
A table. A meal. An old hymn. People we love.
And a faithful God who has been present through every season.
“Great is thy faithfulness.”
Yesterday. Today. And when morning comes again.
From My Sunday Table to Yours
This week, pull out an old family recipe or choose one from a vintage cookbook. Make something simple, set the table with what you have, and invite someone you love to sit down with you.
Choose a hymn. Share a Scripture. Tell an old story.
And before everyone gets up from the table, take a moment to notice what is already there. There is so much goodness hidden in ordinary things when we remember to look.
Taste and see that the Lord is good. — Psalm 34:8
Until next Sunday, linger a little longer, gather around the table, and remember His faithfulness.
