The Meal Train

Posted on January 21, 2014 by Margaret

One of the delights of belonging to a church congregation is that when you have a baby, everybody wants to join the celebration. At Linnea and Adam’s church there’s something called The Meal Train, and people who want to bless a newly-expanded family with a dinner simply sign up online, letting everyone know when they’ll be delivering what food. That way a family is covered for a couple of weeks and doesn’t receive duplicates (though surely they wouldn’t mind).

As The Meal Train rolled into action celebrating our baby Isaac, the benefits have been great. Linnea doesn’t have to cook (or me either), and we’re enjoying creative, delicious dinners along with tasty leftovers. In my role as the out-of-town grandma, I‘ve also experienced another benefit: meeting many of Linnea and Adam’s friends, godly young couples with lively families, serving one another and being blessed in the process.

And isn’t that the way it works when we serve others? Originally we might sign up to take a meal to someone, thinking of it as an added chore to our already long to-do list. We spend much of that day shopping, cooking, and baking, wanting our contribution to be special for the other family. We drive it to their home and hope it helps them in some way. We might even shortchange our own family’s dinner to put together a nicer meal for the others.

And then we step in their door.

As God would have it, the delivery of our gift becomes a gift back to us.

We have the pleasure of oooing and ahhhing over a new baby, touching the soft skin and hearing about the birth. We set our meal on their counter and quickly forget the work of making it, focusing instead on the family that’s undergoing fresh stress with a new baby who is causing temporary overload. And we listen to their wholehearted gratitude over our food, realizing that our meal-prep was nothing compared to the appreciation with which it was received.

We step out the door and feel pretty good.

Linnea mentioned that one friend bringing a meal to us had just had a baby herself, and another was due in 3 weeks. But that’s the beauty of God’s system. We are blessed to bless others, and Linnea has cooked and will cook for them, too. And now, since she’s been blessed, she’s eager to pass it on. It’s a good system.

Tonight we feasted on chicken pot pie, a green salad, toast, and brownies for dessert. A family of 4 delivered it, coming inside for a few minutes to meet Isaac and greet the rest of us. After their young boy had taken a quick peek at Isaac I said, “Do you like babies?”
His answer: “I’m 7 years old, and I’m gonna get a go-cart.” I guess he’s not riding The Meal Train after all.

“Remember that our Lord Jesus said, “More blessings come from giving than from receiving.” (Acts 20:35)

Parcels of Love

Posted on January 20, 2014 by Margaret

When my brother, sister, and I grew up and got married, all three of us settled fairly close to home. We didn’t plan it that way but landed within quick driving distance of our old stomping grounds and also of our mom and dad. The 17 children between us had the benefit of nearby grandparents who loved spending time with them, and we parents took advantage of every opportunity to be together.

My children, however, have taken a different approach, and 8 of my 9 grands live far, far away. People have said, “Isn’t that hard?”

Yes.

But I can’t do much to change it. Although I visit England annually and get to Florida a couple of times each year, I’m a long-distance granny more than a hands-on one. I’m thankful for our local post office, though, and love sending trinkets to my young relatives thousands of miles away.

Most often the padded mailers I send are packed with inexpensive trinkets that aren’t worth as much as the postage to mail them. But all children like to receive mail, especially chunky mail, and it’s one more way I can feel lovingly connected to my grands.

Interestingly, God is in the business of love-mail, too. That’s one of several things he had in mind when he inspired the authors of Scripture to write what he told them. And because the Bible has been accurately preserved for thousands of years, we can “check our mail” and receive his “chunky love” by way of countless biblical promises.

But it’s up to us to open the package.

Our world bombards us with lots of attractive alternatives to opening our Bibles. There are colorful magazines, cable TV programs, and that great gobbler-of-time, the internet. If we’re going to enjoy God’s love, we have to be intentional about using the love-gift he’s given us. Without steady determination, we’ll set it aside unopened.

Years ago on another Florida trip, our family visited The Holy Land Experience. Part of that biblical theme park was a walk through an animated time line of the Bible’s history and how it’s been accurately preserved. I’ll never forget looking at an actual Bible someone had protected by using his body as a shield, losing his life in the process. His blood still marked the pages.

The fact that we have access to all the Bibles we want shouldn’t cheapen the treasure each one is. Even when God seems thousands of miles away, his loving promises are close-by daily, hundreds of them. And as Scripture says, none has ever failed.

As for my love-parcels to grandchildren, Skylar inadvertently let me know today how eagerly she receives them. While playing in the Florida sunshine she suddenly said, “Midgee! Let’s see if the mail came!” Jumping up and down she said, “Maybe you sent something!”

“God made great and marvelous promises, so that his nature would become part of us.” (2 Peter 1:4)

Weeping and Wailing

Posted on January 19, 2014 by Margaret

Nobody can holler like a newborn. They make an abrasive noise-pollution sort of sound much like a crow cawing or a cat in fight-mode. Pegging it perfectly is difficult, but new babies all seem to agree on how it should sound.

Parents agree on something, too: that it should stop a.s.a.p.

Baby Isaac celebrates his one week birthday tomorrow, and like all babies, he has his moments of wailing. Diaper changes are his least favorite activity, during which he voices his opinion at full volume. When that happens, even grandmas are distressed by the crying.

It’s not that the noise level is intolerable. Isaac’s three older siblings contribute plenty of that, but it never reaches the fever-pitch of a newborn’s cry. When Isaac is wailing, we wonder if he’s in some serious pain or is in another kind of desperate need.

But we have to continually remind ourselves that newborns don’t have much to offer between silence and full-on screaming. They haven’t learned anything about that middle ground, whining, and certainly can’t use words. Hard-core hollering is the best they can do, and it’s usually overkill in comparison to their needs, i.e. major outbursts over minor problems.

Sometimes I wonder if God views our flare-ups against him the same way. Of course we don’t see it as “screaming” directly at him and might even say, “Heaven forbid I should do such a thing!” But when we loudly object to the circumstances he puts us in (or allows us to be in), he’s probably thinking, “Major outbursts over minor problems.”

Although baby Isaac has nature on his side when he’s hollering over every need, we don’t. As adults, especially Christian adults, we ought to know better than to rail against situations just because they’re not ideal. When frustrations and annoyances come, God is hoping we’ll resist the temptation to object and will square off with our needs responsibly, improving what we can, and accepting what we can’t.

It’s good to know, though, that God doesn’t put a complete ban on crying. He knows we’re emotional beings that need to show our feelings. If we look to Scripture for guidance, we see all kinds of godly people in tears: widows, mothers, fathers, oppressed people, Jeremiah, Job, Mary, Hezekiah, Peter, Esau, David, Paul, and Jesus himself, to name a few. The difference between weeping that’s welcomed by God and wailing that’s not, is the condition of the heart behind it.

God’s heart is always tuned in to what’s going on in the hearts of people… all people. Nothing slips past him, and everything matters. That’s why a bout of crying that emanates from a sincere, unselfish heart is a call for help he will always answer.