On a particularly chaotic Monday morning in the middle of homeschooling and lockdown, I find myself thinking about all the things that are wrong in the world. And in my life. Things that are just not working out and making sense. We try our best to do the right things and accept wrong things that happen, but at a certain point you just want to give up - "God just give me a flickering of light in this madness," I pray. In the background of my desperateness, I hear two of my kids throwing unkind words at each other and eventually it lands up on my plate. My youngest asks: "Does my brother and I really have the same blood? Because I don't like him!" Big sigh (from me). "Why don't you and dad have the same blood, yet you love each other." Bigger sigh (from me).
Some things just don't work out. You do the right things, you avoid the wrong alleys, you throw yourself down that pipe, but it doesn't work out. The bills still need to be paid when the money is finished. You still have to go to the same job with the same work even though you don't get paid the same. You still have to greet that guy who spread those nasty stories about you.
The door bell rings and a man I haven't seen since the beginning of the year, greets me with a block of cheese under his arm. Maybe it was more like a loaf of cheese - it was big. "Do you eat cheese?" Why? Where does this come from? Of course we eat cheese. He said he bought a cheese for us and here he is bringing it to us. For free. Amidst the thoughts of why and where and how, I managed to say thank you, walking to the fridge with my loaf of cheese. Come to think of it, I did forget to buy cheese. But who gives cheese to someone out of the blue?
That evening I lay on my bed eating a yummy toasted cheese sandwich and drinking my tea, realising that I feel better. I have hope, even if it just a little flicker. I give a big sigh, but one of relief.
Today a long lost friend brought us a loaf of cheese. Even though I didn't need cheese. Or rather wanted cheese. I wanted a paid bill, and answers to my questions. I wanted those specific things I have been praying about for so long. But somehow cheese wasn't too bad. I remembered the tropical scarf with the olive tree that a random lady at one of my bible study lessons gave me just the week before and started to connect the dots. Maybe just cheese for my sandwich or a scarf because it was cold that day, but maybe just God saying "I will provide." My sigh burst into a smile. God does answer, maybe I am just asking the wrong questions. There is a thick, strong bond of cheese and scarves and flowers and kind words and warm socks and hearty stews and hugs and other random acts of kindness that binds us all together, and that binds us all to the promise of God that He will deliver and He will provide. It is a bond that is thicker than blood.
"Why don't you and dad have the same blood, yet you love each other?" I think I have an answer to that question: "Because we have a promise. And that promise is thicker than blood!"
May you find God's answers in the random things that happen around you every day. And may we continue to share cheese and hand out scarves to those around us.
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