Our trip to Children’s Mercy made Jesus’s words in Matthew 6 real to me in a deeper way than they have ever been before. Especially the part about food.
I think that for both Katie and I, the scariest part of hearing that we were going to need to go to Kansas City by ambulance for a 48 hour admit to Children’s Mercy was the thought of being hungry. When you have a special diet out of medical need, and home-cooked food is really the only safe way for you to know that you are getting what you need, the thought of an unexpected hospital stay several hours from home is terrifying. We both truly thought, “We are going to be soooo hungry!!!”
We live in the United States of America. While I have never been what Americans would consider “upper crust,” I have also never truly worried about going hungry. Not getting the food I’d like best? Sure. But not having anything I could eat without it making me miserably sick? No. And yes, I realize that, even in that, our concern about food was a very 1st world worry. Wanting to have food that doesn’t make us miserable is different than facing starvation, I get that. Nonetheless, this was the most concerned I have ever been about going hungry.
And wow. Did the Lord ever come through!
From moments after we arrived at Children’s, the Lord used friends old and new to bring us “safe” food. We didn’t just avoid going hungry – we feasted!!
In the words of Rich Mullins, “He will watch over you and He will watch over me, So we can dress like flowers and eat like birds.”
Thank you again to the many of you who have been part of God adding “all these things” to us (both in KC and in coming days). Our hearts are overflowing with gratitude, awe, and joy. May you be awed as He returns those blessings to you, packed down, shaken together, and running over!!!
~~~Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. ~~~ Matthew 6:25-34