Stay Awhile

 Stay Awhile S. Ambrose, 2026

I’ve always been invited to a table.
A place already made for me before I knew how to arrive.
People willing to scoot over, pass the bread,
Or ask me to stay a little longer.
Yet somehow,
I still kept looking around wondering,
Will we outgrow each other?
Will this disappear too?

Maybe that’s what fear does.
It teaches you to hold joy like it’s borrowed.
To treat love like it has an expiration date.
To keep one hand on the door, even while being welcomed in.

But this table,
This gathering of grace, of ordinary people choosing each other in ordinary ways,
Keep  teaching me something different.

Not through sermons.
Not through speeches.
But through small, sacred things.

Shared meals.
Serving one another.
Late-night conversations.
Checking in without being asked.
Laughter loud enough to loosen grief from the body.
The kind of honesty that doesn’t shame you for being human.
The kind of love that doesn’t demand you perform to deserve it.

And maybe that’s what the Lord meant all along.
Not just a table in heaven someday,
But this:
People making room for each other here.

People who understand grace make the table feel fuller.
Safer.
Freer.
Truer.
A place where presence matters more than performance.
Where no one has to earn their belonging.
Where being known does not threaten being loved.

And in that kind of room, you’re not just accepted, you’re called higher.
Not pressured into proving, but lifted into becoming.
Drawn beyond what you thought you had to be, into who you were made to be.

I couldn’t have prayed for a better group of people to save me a seat.

Somewhere along the way, without even realizing it,
I stopped reaching for the exit.
Stopped sitting with one foot out the door.
Stopped mourning old versions of myself long enough to become someone new.

And for the first time in a long time,
I am here.
Fully here.
Laughing without fear of losing the moment.
Staying without planning my escape.
Letting myself be known.
Letting myself be seen.

Maybe it isn’t about finding the perfect table,
But about trusting the one who made sure your seat was ready before you arrived.