Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread

The missionary's Power Point slide showed children in the Congo selling field mice skewered on sticks as I watched from my seat in the balcony yesterday. Mouse shish kabob. At that very moment I realized that I had forgotten to take the previously frozen dinner roll dough out of the refrigerator.

Four preachers - two of them retired jungle missionaries - were going to be dining at my house for Sunday dinner and I had every detail of the menu planned. I had completed everything that could be done in advance and had written myself notes on Saturday about what needed to be done before I left for church on Sunday morning. I'd just neglected to write myself a note reminding myself to read the note!

What to do! What to do!

I thought about running home between Sunday school and church, but this presents its own set of problems. I know, because I've done it before. We don't live in a parsonage next door so it takes a little time to get there and back. That would require missing a few of my other obligations such as singing in the choir. And going to the house would require dealing with Pepper. No need to upset her if it can be avoided.

As I pondered the options I breathed a silent prayer for wisdom. The Lord answered immediately and He had two good points:

1. Serving food is admirable, but hearing the message is important. The account of Mary and Martha in Luke 10:38-42 came to mind. Since I'd read this passage recently it was readily available for the Lord to use.
2. The missionaries had eaten such things as mice, monkey, porcupine, snakes, and rats. They weren't going to be impressed by the rolls (or lack of them) one way or the other.

So I remained at church and forgot about the rolls.

When I got home I set them on the counter while I completed other steps on the list toward getting food from kitchen to dining room table. In that interval they doubled in size. I've never had them rise at such a quick rate before! It wasn't the feeding of the 5,000 but it was a wonderful display of God's provision all the same. And we weren't even serving fishes with our loaves! :)