When Dinner Feels Like a Chore: Finding God in the Ordinary

Lisa Henley Jones shares tips she learned to simplify dinner prep to show the love of Christ to her family. 

Cooking is just not one of my strengths, and when you pair it with a busy family household, I find it difficult and stressful. As a mother, it feels wrong to admit that I dislike the daily chore of cooking meals for my family. That I’m not living up to part of my vocation of motherhood.

The Lord Walks Among the Pots and Pans 

We are called as Christians to love and serve our family, and for many of us that includes daily chores such as laundry and preparing food.  From the example of the saints, such as Saint Thérèse of Lisieux and Saint Teresa of Avila, I’ve learned that God is present to us in our mundane and ordinary, daily tasks.  

Our routine chores, including those we don’t like to do, are holy opportunities to show our love of Christ to our families.  We should perform our chores with humility, grace, and a heart of service. 

With prayer and attentiveness, I’ve worked to get my heart and mind focused on honoring God and my family through this daily chore of service. But I was still struggling with the practical aspects of getting dinner on the table each night.  

I approached friends who enjoy cooking for their busy families for help getting dinner on the table each night with less stress and grumbling from me.   The tips they shared with me were instrumental in helping me approach this daily task as a holy opportunity to love and serve my family as called to by Christ.

8 Ways to Simplify Dinner and Serve Your Family with Grace 

Make a Meal Plan

Nothing is more stressful and chaotic than standing in front of the refrigerator or pantry after a long workday, deciding what to make for dinner. Prepare a list once a week of the meals you’d like to make that week, along with the items you need to purchase.

Ask the Family

Ask your loved ones to suggest their favorite meals or what they would like to eat. This can be surprising and helps get you off the hook when you think they want something new and different when they really want your awesome baked chicken crusted with crushed Goldfish crackers.  True story! Plus, my kids really enjoy dinner more when they think the meal was their idea!  (Bonus mom points if they help in the kitchen.)

Rely on a Family Favorites List

Make a list of those favorite dishes and keep the staples in your pantry.  When you’re in a pinch, it relieves stress to know you have a routine meal they will eat. And you don’t have to make an extra run to the grocery store on your way home. For us, that includes various pastas, taco fixings, homemade pizza, and poke bowls.

Prep Ahead

Brown meat, chop vegetables, and assemble the casserole in advance.  Batch-cook meat or sides to keep in the freezer for meal prep. Now I have dinner-portion storage bags of shredded chicken in my freezer, ready to use to speed up my evening dinner plan.

Create Meals Ready to Finish

Assemble a casserole or other such item the night before or in the morning so it just needs to be popped in the oven by whoever is home first. Quiche, meatloaf, pasta bake, enchiladas — really anything you can make in advance and finish in the oven.  With teenagers, they can turn on the oven and take it out of the refrigerator when I’m on my way home.

Set It and Forget It!

Take advantage of the many kitchen gadgets available, especially if you’re working at home.  Slow cooking in my crockpot used to be my favorite, but now I’ve discovered a Sous Vide precision cooker!  I love my sous vide — I can put my meat in, set the temperature, and it is always cooked to perfection when I take it out a couple hours later.  It will NOT overcook if I get distracted.  (Within reason, of course. Ha.)

Be Realistic

Go easy on yourself.  I’m the queen of wanting to make a new, complicated recipe when I have a ton of other things going on.  No one’s happy eating something new hours later than usual, and I usually end up too stressed out to eat by the time it’s done.  Save the big new recipe for the weekend or a day with a more flexible schedule.

Serve Breakfast for Dinner

Don’t overlook scrambled eggs, pancakes, biscuits, or even cereal for dinner!  For my kids, these seem not only to be comfort foods but also a treat to have breakfast food at dinnertime.  It’s like you’re doing something mixed up & crazy.  Always a top favorite in my house!

Implementing these tips helped me reduce my stress and get dinner on the table each night, even when life is busy.  The key for me was really simplifying the process so I could keep an eye on the importance of serving my family.  It took humility and grace for me to ask friends for suggestions and admit how much I disliked preparing meals for my family.  

Now, when I become frustrated or stressed about my dinner plan, I ponder these words from Saint Teresa of Avila, “The Lord walks among the pots and pans.” She was reminding her fellow nuns that God is present in the ordinary, mundane, and daily tasks of our lives. 

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Copyright 2026 Lisa Henley Jones
Images: Canva

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