hope a la mode

My housemate walked in the door this afternoon, dropped her bags and pulled out a bowl that she filled with frozen berries. She proceeded to make a full dinner with broccoli and all…oh and of course the berry crisp! Unless starvation has ensued, neither of us are that commandeering of the kitchen. But she had another mission. It wasn’t just dinner. Or food. Or a new recipe. It was a gift for her friends. Lately her friends have been dealing with the troubles and worries of a complicated pregnancy, one with a lot of questions and few reassuring answers. So my housemate made dinner for the couple and enjoyed a meal and time with them.

A friend from church emailed a bunch of ladies, looking for help. Another church member was undergoing emergency surgery. With boys at home, food had to be provided. So without hesitation, I made dinner for the family. An easy recipe made complete with a warm loaf of French bread was the offering I could deliver in the midst of this precarious time.

A family I love moves to Mississippi in about a month. The couple needed a chance to go out for a “unique” dinner and some time together before packing up their young daughter and heading south. So my sis and I gladly offered to babysit. I brought dinner for us all and then we played with Sesame Street finger puppets.

All these circumstances could have happier parts. My housemate could have gone over to celebrate a couple as they get ready for a new life in their midst. Instead, she just needed to be with them in this less than carefree moment in time. Likewise, surgery or moving don’t wrap me up in warm fuzzies. They are parts of life, kinda the gloomy parts, that have to be lived along with the rainbows and butterflies.

On my way home from babysitting, I thought of how Jesus ate dinner with people who had terrible diseases, women who were shunned from society, and friends who grieved. He could have and often did relieve these people of the heartaches of life, but actually promised to do more. He promised to share a meal, a dinner, with everyone; it was a meal that would help them remember him. This dinner also showed them how life, in all its circumstances, can be endured with perseverance and hope. As the Apostle Paul said, “Hope does not disappoint.”

I realized no amount of ice cream or cards or hugs or petitions to the people in charge can fix a circumstance. I’m good at doing those things. But Jesus didn’t want us to rely on such distractions. He wanted us to remember him because he gives life, and he gives peace unlike any that the world could give. He’s also helps us with perspective which I think is a huge part of persevering. Tomorrow is another day with new possibilities and no mistakes. And when the gloom recedes behind the sun, I’ll take that circumstance in stride, celebrating with a dinner and hope.