When you’re feeling a bit flat – cooking and creating something can be an amazing way of re-engaging your problem solving and creative brain for other things going on for you.

When you’re feeling a bit low – making yourself and cuppa and talking with someone, munching biscuits and putting the world right can be life-giving and mood-changing.

When you’re feeling a bit disconnected – planning a meal together can be enough to remind you that all this will pass and there is light at the end of the tunnel.

As we work, we can feel quite disconnected from others (unless we do something that has us sat in teams all day). As we carry on with our own tasks and do what we can do, sometimes we lift our heads and feel like we have been left to get on with stuff all by ourselves. This period we are in now will feel a bit like that from time to time, a lot like that on fact.

For those who are working from home, not only might they be juggling children at home, family members or a partner around, and still wanting to carry on with conference calls, zoom meetings and something of a work schedule – the team might be spread across the whole of the south of London and Kent. They lift their heads and see nothing other than the other side of the kitchen table, the desk in their back bedroom or the other end of the sofa in their living room staring back at them.

But food has a power to bring people back together.

On a normal working day the time spent in a staff room drinking tea and eating lunch can reconnect us, having a coffee and watching the world go by, or the ability to quietly eat and drink as a break from the hustle and bustle can be the therapy we need to reconnect and reset our headspace.

Even now it has the ability for us to reconnect with other people.

Why not take a moment and think:

- If you were to make yourself a meal, what would you prepare. What dish would you serve it in, what room would you eat it in, who would you share it with?

- When all this stops – who are you going to go for a meal with? Where will we go? Have you told them yet? Have you talked over the plan together?

- Could you call someone today and share a coffee and biscuit with them?

- If you baked some biscuits – could you drop a few in a bag on a neighbour’s step, ring the doorbell and say hello from a safe distance?

Maybe you’ve got your own ideas.

God meets so many of His faithful people through food and over a meal table: With Abraham as they shared a meal (Genesis 18), With Moses and the people with Manna and Quail (Exodus 16), Jesus on a beach with barbecued fish after His resurrection (John 21). A chance to be fed by the Lord, a chance to be valued and made worthy of praise and a chance to be tasked with loving people a bit more like Jesus loves us.

As if He were in the same room, imagine Jesus sharing your tea and smiling back at you. Smile, God is with you.

As if He were with you at your mealtime, imagine yourself sharing in the bread of life. Smile, He is here.

Food is definitely one of my favourite things. Take care, take time and take a break.