We ate in the kitchen. It was one of those aluminum leg tables with vinyl seats on the chairs – always comfortable in a house that was not air-conditioned! Mom cooked up the meals, called us when it was ready – always hot and tasty, and we sat ourselves down for grace and then lively conversation. Dad always seemed to have a game or something funny for the meal.

If he wasn’t asking us to check the wall behind us – “Is that a spider on the wall?” – he was asking us to name the tune he tapped the rhythm for on the table. Of course, the choice of songs was from the songbook, Christmas carols, or the occasional commonly known songs! He would always tell us that it could be a song by Kate Smith! If you don’t know who she was it’s okay…neither did we as kids.

Sunday was always – I mean always – roast beef with vegetables and Yorkshire pudding…which is not a pudding! Just sayin’ !

The meal would end most days with Dad praying for us as a family and for each of us individually – for wisdom to know what is right, for school or friend problems, for upcoming events, and for our spiritual health.

Recently I was remembering when I was ten. Maybe because Carlyle just turned eleven. We were living in Hamilton and unlike today – we had Sunday School before the morning service. But then during the service, the kids would go out to some other kind of program. At age ten my Dad had taken me aside to talk about what it meant to be now ten – how each year from there on I would get more freedom, more expectations for me to be “growing up” and how important he felt my spiritual life would be from here on. As a step in growing spiritually, he told me he would like me to stay in the meeting and listen to the sermon, participate in prayer, and learn to be mature in my faith.

I was not unhappy about any of that – even when all my friends left the morning service and I stayed. I carried my Bible, followed along, and began to consider what I was hearing impacted me.

I’ve often thought about those days – life did seem simpler whether it really was or not and how simple decisions can have amplified impact. Small prayers said regularly, reading the Bible a few minutes each day, taking a walk, escaping toxic conversations, living within our means are all really small decisions with last impact.

So that raises the question for me now, what are the small decisions which if implemented in our lives would have lasting impact?