The Holy--Packed in a Lunchbox

This morning lunches for my guys (plus an extra worker we make lunches for) had to go into two separate lunchboxes because Jonathan was going one direction to Pierre and Danny the other direction to Mission.

I hadn't gotten homemade buns made yesterday, so I had to make do with Walmart French bread slices and homemade barbecued beef to make sandwiches. Wednesday's apple cake and Tuesday's chocolate cookies had disappeared almost as fast as they were made, and last night we had Ukrainian borsch and cornbread with most of the last of the apple cake. So Friday I'm scrounging through cupboards finding nuts and granola bars and peanut butter cups instead of homemade dessert. 

I hadn't even had time to read my Bible, though Jonathan and I had prayed together as we try to do each day. I don't feel very holy first thing in the morning when I drag myself, shivering, out of bed (especially if I've had a short night of sleep due to some pretty severe stresses lately) and go to the kitchen to take the first of my drinks and pills and start in on making lunches for three very hungry men. In between, I'm clearing the dishwasher and dish drainer, putting away this and that from counter or table, listening to plans for the day, and finding a padded envelope for Jonathan to use for a return item he has to mail today.

Another return item I packaged yesterday sits, waiting for Crystal to mail, on the counter underneath a purple envelope with a filled-in annual questionnaire required by Samaritan Ministries.

 

I can't find paper or foam bowls to send in Danny's lunch, so I have to run to the basement to find the extra ones down there, and then later I run downstairs again because I can't find a large size jar ring for the jar of leftover borsch I'm sending with Danny for him to share with his coworker along with their sandwiches at noon.

(Unless it's at 11, as it was yesterday when Danny's hungry coworker was already digging into the lunch pail.)

Somewhere after 8 o'clock, the guys are disappearing to their separate destinations and I am scrambling eggs for my breakfast since the others eat theirs earlier. Still in my bathrobe, I finish too-many-to-count capsules and pills and head to my room. I push odd clothing items aside to sit in my rocking chair in the finally-showing sunshine to read Psalm 146. (If I had gotten up in time, which hasn't happened yet this week, I listen to Jonathan's audio Bible chapter in 1 Corinthians with him, but this week, I've been too exhausted to get up at 6:30 when he does so faithfully.) So there I am, with my Bible on my lap, finally feeling holy.

 

At least that is the temptation--to not feel that the morning work of packing lunches, making breakfasts, packaging returns, and starting the day's home school studies is as holy as reading our Bibles and praying.

And yet--it is. 

God Himself, Who is All-Holy, is sincerely interested in providing food for every living thing. 

 

"The eyes of all look expectantly to You," the Psalmist wrote, "and You give them their food in due season (not late or skipping meals). 

"You open Your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing."

"As we pine for angels and the other-worldly, there is the danger of missing a precious aspect of Christianity. We are incarnational people. The Word was made flesh in our midst," wrote Wiederkehr in A Tree Full of Angels: Seeing the Holy in the Ordinary (a book I picked up at a library book sale in Rapid City recently). 

And being flesh means we get hungry, and our husbands and children get hungry--really fast, like two hours after a meal--

and if we really want to become like God, and be holy as He is holy, 

as a wife and mother, I need to look at preparing and serving nourishing meals as part of becoming like Jesus--holy and gracious and faithful in the way He provides always, every day, what we need to fill our longings.

 "The fast pace of our lives makes it difficult for us to find grace in the present moment, and when the simple gifts at our fingertips cease to nourish us, we have a tendency to crave the sensational."

When the Smith family lost their son, I wanted so badly to do something to help. The tragedy was on so many minds. I wanted to make a meal, but the family had immediately traveled far, far away where the search for Jeremiah was going on. Making a meal for my own family didn't feel nearly as exciting. I do that (or oversee it) every day, often three times a day, thank you. 

How exciting!

I managed to make, along with a large apple cake for our family of five plus Danny's coworker, a single small apple cake to take to the couple who is managing the Smiths' chores while they are gone, along with a few other things, to bless them for the weeks of work they are doing for the Smith family I cannot help. In the freezing cold wind, the lady helped transfer the cake and other items to her vehicle, and we said goodbye, her afraid that the bug she's been fighting might transfer to me in my chemo-weakened state, and I got my shivering self back into my car and drove back home--

how sensational! 

The same day, my son Danny was called to help fight a fire east of Mission. At least three structures burned, and Danny ended up tired, dehydrated, and with a headache. He stayed for hours, helping "mop up," as they call it, not quite such an exciting job as hosing down a fire, which, by the way, they could not do because there was no water on the property. He discovered smoke coming from another structure and was able to stop the smoldering fire before it destroyed another building. Danny came home late that evening with black all around his eyes and face. And I realized I had someone to care about right under my nose, in my own home. 

"Are you hungry?" I asked. And yes, he was. My volunteer fireman who left a paying job to spend about 7 or 8 hours fighting a fire and mopping up afterward, for no pay, was exhausted and hungry and glad to be out of his heavy fireman uniform. 

"Holiness comes wrapped in the ordinary," I read in the same book mentioned above. "There are burning bushes all around you...Hidden beauty is waiting in every crumb."

In every crumb of homemade bread for my guys' lunches, in every crumb of apple cake taken to someone who is just helping another, and in every crumb of loving duty that I do for my very own husband, son, daughter, family, and neighbor is a burning bush of holiness--a holiness just like God's.