OUR PRESENT HUNGER

This was a hard week for our family. 

My vibrant, charismatic sister Mary would have turned 58 years old but instead left four years ago - smack dab in the middle of life’s party.

We had barely run our fingers across the crumbs of Mary’s first Heavenly birthday cake when her husband Jay died suddenly, a few days after that sad celebration.

If you do the math, that’s two unspeakable losses in eight short months. Right now, it will never add up.

Every time I think I may have found an answer that will provide a tourniquet for my shredded, love-seeping heart, the wound bursts open and I am left helplessly mopping up my faith.

Because let’s face it-when someone feeds your soul in this love-starved world, will it ever be enough to satisfy? So, much like the confetti cake that is served up at every family birthday, I cannot help but dip my fork down into the frosting for one more bite before it's whisked away from me.

My dear mother-in-law, Barb, summed it up best with eyes full of tears, “Life. I think people expect too much out of it. Then they miss seeing what’s really important.”

So we are learning to enjoy the delicious meal of moments that God has set before us each day; the people He has placed around our table. We bow our heads in thanks, then reach out and savor every single morsel we can.

Because this voracious, insatiable appetite we have for more time with those we love will never be fully quenched until we all sit down together again at Heaven’s celebration feast.

On that day, our hunger here will be forgotten.

Jesus, the sweet Bread of Life will feed us warm slices of His goodness, slathered with laughter that melts into the pores of our longings and fills us to the brim until we push ourselves back from the table, throw our hands up in surrender, laughing and shouting, “No more! No more!” 

But there will always be more on that glorious day.

And for now, we lick the bowl and imagine what’s in store.

So thank God for his marvelous love,

for his miracle mercy to the children he loves.

He poured great drafts of water down parched throats;

the starved and hungry got plenty to eat.

Psalm 107:8-9 msg