Tuesday 30 July 2019

Five Loaves, Two Fish and a Mum (Who was Probably Sick of Making Lunches)


Cereal is my friend in the mornings. School lunches are not. 

Not that I hate making lunches or anything but, well, between the nut-free rule cutting out my kids’ favorite spreads, the Queensland heat knocking out a bunch more options and plain fussiness knocking out the rest, finding something (read that as anything) to put in the kids’ lunch boxes five days a week is a serious challenge. 

So yeah, not my favourite part of each morning. But, something that has to be done because, hey, kids need to be fed. 

I was thinking about school lunches when I read the story of Jesus feeding the five thousand last week (John 6:1-14). I know, I know, I should have been focused on reading my Bible but in this case, my distraction actually led to a big spiritual moment for me so it was probably good. 

Instead of thinking of the miracle, all I could think of was the mum who’d probably packed that boy’s lunch. Probably the same thing she did every morning. I don’t know what mums were like in Jesus’ time but I’m guessing their lists of things to do each day (every single day, over and over again) weren’t all that different from my own.

Cook dinner, make kids’ lunches, change nappies, do laundry, clean the house, wrack their brains for a thousand answers to, “Mum, I’m bored…” Day in, day out. 

I imagine that morning for her went something like mine… get up before everyone else, wake up kids, convince them breakfast really is a good thing, find their missing socks (in the sock basket, believe it or not), get lunches sorted, send them off to school, remind them again not to forget their lunch as they run out the door… 

She probably sat down, once her son had left, and tried to find a moment for herself amidst the craziness of the morning and her never-ending to-do list. I doubt she thought, even for an instant, that her faithfulness in making her son’s lunch that day and making sure he took it would impact so many people. 

I know, I’m probably being totally fanciful and, for all I know, the boy packed his own lunch. But what if it was his mum? What if she did it every single day? What if she was feeling down about her to-do list which just replenished itself every single day, never to be complete no matter how many hours she spent on it? 

What if, that day, Jesus didn’t only feed over five thousand people? 

What if he encouraged one mum that what she does every single day is important? The things she thinks are just another thing on the to-do list. Just another thing she does every single day which nobody notices because she really does do them every single day. That lunch she made, that moment of faithfulness, used not only to feed a multitude but be astounded over, told and retold by people the world over for millennia to come. All because she did her one little thing. Because she was faithful in the little things God had given her to do. 

Romans 12:1, The Message version, puts it like this: 

“So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your every day, ordinary life – your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life – and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him.”

That every day life. Those things which don’t seem important. They’re worship too. God can use them. God does use them. Nothing you do is unimportant. 

The laundry you hung. The cushions you picked up. The rooms you tidied which were messy again the instant the kids breathed in them. The floor you swept, and swept, and swept and was still covered in crumbs at the end of the day. God noticed. He saw you. The first time, and the second, the third and the fiftieth. He noticed and he cared. About you. About every single one of those moments of faithfulness at the job he’s called you to do. Those little things you do for your kids, they matter. God can and does use them all. 

Even those dreaded school lunches.







2 comments:

  1. wow! That's good! Stay-at-home moms especially can feel like all the mundane things that we do day in and day out don't really matter. But if they're helping our children become who God means them to be, then it's all worth it.

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  2. Thankyou :) It's something I've struggled with as a stay-at-home mom over the years. But yes, they really are important. Some days it's easier to remember that than others but I'm getting there. Glad this could encourage you :)

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