Hope

Follow the Rabbit (Poop?!) to Learn How To Homeschool With Joy!

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

Discouraged as a homeschooling parent?

Today, let’s talk about the foundations of this discouragement. We will never be able to come up for air, to feel like we are swimming in the lake on a bright summer day (i.e., homeschooling with joy), if public school culture guides the foundation of our homeschooling.

They will be holding our heads under the water. If we do what they tell us, we gasp, struggling for breath during our homeschooling journey.

The truth is teaching kids isn’t as complicated as we thought.

Teaching kids is sort of like the scatological habit of rabbits. (Yes, scatological means poop. Stay with me.)

We have an amazing little bunny that runs all over our house and currently only poops in two locations- in her little toilet and on my husband when he is sitting. If she only pooped in her little toilet, this would be a perfect analogy, but we can’t have perfection. We’re homeschooling!

My point is that you can train rabbits to use their toilet.

Our rabbit has almost attained this lofty goal. But there’s a trick to teaching a rabbit to go to the bathroom. This same trick (well, nearly!) helps us homeschool our kids so that we don’t constantly feel like drowning.

The rabbit decides where she will go to the bathroom.

Similarly, kids decide, at least in part, how (or what or where) they will learn.

Understanding how to work within the nature of rabbits’ scatological habits and kids’ learning habits is the key that sets us free.

I’ll explain.

Pet rabbits were traditionally kept outside in pens, as it was assumed these animals couldn’t be toilet trained.

Someone brilliant figured out that if the rabbits are allowed to choose their place to go to the bathroom inside your home, they will go to that one place with proper training. If a rabbit owner decides on the location of the toilet for the rabbit, complete with carrots, rabbit toys and treats of every kind, this won’t work. They won’t become toilet trained.

But if we set the rabbit free in our home and wait, a fantastic thing happens with some training.

The rabbit chooses her location to go to the bathroom.

So when you find a large pile of about 100 poops (because rabbits poop about 150 times per day), don’t despair, rejoice! Put your little rabbit toilet in that location and let the training begin.

Kids are identical to the pooping habits of rabbits.

If we believe the Ministry of Education that kids need to learn over 300 discreet and tiny bits of information every year and that this changes every year depending on the child’s age, we might as well put the kids outside in those rabbit pens and forget about homeschooling them.

It’s impossible!

Sure, if you have 30 kids exactly the same age and leave them in the same room day after day this could work . . .  (Wait, that analogy breaks down. This approach doesn’t work in the classroom either, if we’re honest. But that’s a discussion for another day).

The point is that this approach will kill our kid’s love of learning, our love of homeschooling, and maybe even change how much we like our  students (which happened to me once) if we work diligently, trying to do what they tell us, and how they ask us to teach our kids.

Instead:

  1. We dig around the soil of the little plants that we have been entrusted to steward, our children, and we transplant their little minds and bodies as often as possible to the place where their joy in learning can be protected.
  2. Sure. We also jump through the hoops and play the game of doing what we are told if we have the energy, but we try to minimize this as much as possible. Required to teach your kids about the Solar System in Grade 3, but they’ve already moved on to studying Astrophysics? We spend half an hour filling out a worksheet if this keeps our teachers happy, but we minimize this as much as possible. (Sometimes your rabbit needs to be in her pen).
  3. Sometimes, we accept the perception of defeat for a more significant cause. For example, our kids might look like idiots for a while because we are after longer-term goals. So be it.
  4. We sit back, put our feet up, and watch them learn. Just like toilet training a rabbit, joyfully homeschooling our children is possible when we let them choose the where (or the how or the when) as often as possible.

How specifically to help them do this while we put up our feet with a cup of tea and watch our rabbit use a toilet inside will be discussed another time.

3 Easy Ways To Find God And Get Drunk, Hoser!

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

Yes! I forgot to finish the blogpost series about “Hosers” I started last week! Thank you for reminding me!

I meticulously and fastidiously conducted extensive research for this blogpost series.

For example, I made a note to figure out what the slang term “Hoser” means and learned this:

1. The NCAA states that in hockey, before the invention of the Zamboni, the ice would have to be “hosed” down after a game. The losing team would traditionally do this mundane job. Thus, the term “Hoser” is synonymous with the term “Loser.”

2. So when I called you a Hoser, not knowing what that meant, I was calling you a Loser, but I have already done that in other blog posts, where I encourage all of us to embrace our inner loser!

3. “To get hosed” is also a Canadian slang term that means “to get drunk.”

So how can we get drunk on God, Hoser? Great question. This way:

1. We realize that deep down, we are all hosers, or losers. When we want to draw near to God, we must ask, “Are we honest?” We are all a bit like a rat’s behind when we stand next to God.

So let’s bow our knees, get down on our faces, and acknowledge that we aren’t God, but are specks of dust floating through the world until we return to the dust we emerged from.

We all have ego problems if we are honest. For example, MOST people believe they have greater than average intelligence. As we both know, dear reader, only you and I have above average intelligence, and no one else does.

(Wait – wha..? What is my editor yelling at me about now? Whatever!)

The summary is we’re not as impressive as we imagine.

It’s time to be on our faces on the floor. This truthfulness about our human condition allows God, who is truth, to draw a bit nearer with his FELT love, which we can sense, a bit more. (Caveat: He is always near whether we sense His love, but that is a topic for another day).

2. Do we bury the jewels we find along our path in life, the hints of the divine, and trample them in our busyness?

If so, this makes us a bit more deaf to the whispers of God the next time He blows the breath of His wind in our direction.

Are we thirsty for Him, asking Him to draw near, begging Him to touch us with His love? Are we reading about God, asking questions, and seeking Him to help our boxed-up minds open to the new ways He wants to reveal Himself? These actions help us remove the blinders we put over ourselves, making us unwilling to see Him standing at our door, knocking.

3. Will we put aside our maps for our lives that we ask God to follow and instead, will we be willing to follow Him?

Will we surrender?

God is not looking for people who know He is near but who thumb their noses at Him again and again. Will you, friend, pick up your mat and follow Him when he shows you the way out of your mess, the path to healing?

These 3 heart attitudes – honesty, thirst, and surrender – are a bit like a nest for the dove of the Spirit of God to rest awhile, to linger so that our hearts can receive more of His love.

Jesus . . . saw God’s Spirit—it looked like a dove—descending and landing on him.

The Message

Ready to take another step on the path towards being drunk on the love of God, Hoser?

Jesus holds out his arms to you.

He is so glad you came.

(And so are we)

Desperately Thirsty? No Hope? A 3-Minute Reset Brings Reliable Raindrops

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

I was discouraged that day.

My head was in my hands as I slumped on my desk. That light on the horizon, the hope I was clinging to, in this case, “summer” for a homeschooling parent, seemed very distant. I reached out my hand but couldn’t touch this horizon today.

I got up, dressed and showered, a “skill” I had learned from previous years of homeschooling. I knew I needed to wear my best outfit and smile like I had a job outside the home. I knew I needed to greet my little students with love as they emerged from their bedrooms in their little onesies and messy hair.

But how do I give my children what I don’t have?

I fall on my face alone in my room.

Then I hold out my outstretched hand containing the seed of homeschooling He placed in my heart many years prior. I have carried the seed close to my heart. I have worked and tended this garden. These seeds (No! – Wait! These small plants!) have been watered by my sweat and hard work, ploughing in the sun and the rain. Will these small plants grow thick, strong roots downward? Will these roots find the hidden, underground springs that will sustain and nourish them?

That is my hope.

That is why this tired mother rises early again, gets dressed, puts on lipstick, and seeks hope in these pages that have fed her in the past. But what happens when we search these pages of the book but today there is no hope to be found? We have searched and turned the pages, but it is a dry season, a time of drought.

What then?

I set my three-minute timer, my little “vacation” getaway. I close and lock the door and lie down on my face alone in my room. I try to ignore any sounds outside my door, for those few minutes.

And do I pour out my heart and explain to God my life situation, knowing at a deeper level that He understands more than I do about my problem?

No.

I put on a worship song, fall on my face in my room, and praise Him for three minutes. Sometimes, the tears flow, sometimes, the anger comes, and sometimes, the drought feels too much to bear. But every time, after a couple of minutes of focusing on Him, the one who created the world, worship reminds me how big God is.

And by definition, I then remember how small I am.

And this is my hope.

When I stop shrinking God down to my size, the rains come. This drought today is over for now. Because He is so big, powerful and wise, He has multiple answers to my problems in His little pinky finger.

Will I trust him, remember His grandeur and pick up the hope that came with this rain of his presence? Will I take a drink? Will I stand in the rain? I’ll be cleansed, if so, my face uplifted to the One who is the source of living water, the God who, by touching the hem of His robe, can make us well.

And I don’t understand it, but I can trust the rain and hope I found today. And this rain becomes living water in my heart so that I can pour out hope on my children today and face whatever dangers, tigers, or math come our way.

And when we stop at the end of the day, decade, or season of life and put up our feet, we can thank Jesus for giving us the strength and hope to keep going.

. . . I provided water in the desert. . . Drinking water for the people I chose, the people I made especially for myself, a people custom made to praise me

The Message

Discouraged? Try These 3 Uplifting Mind Habits For Lasting Joy

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

It’s an awakening season.

Holy Spirit has been poking me early, early every morning. Wake, wake, He is saying. There’s something new. Do you see it? Do you perceive it?

Forget about what’s happened; don’t keep going over old history. Be alert, be present. I’m about to do something brand-new. It’s bursting out! Don’t you see it? There it is!

The Message

It is time to get dressed in the clothing of royalty, the robes my Father gave me.

Do you see the clothes your Father gave you? They are crumpled up and dirty in the corner of your room. Can you find the shoes He gave you? They are in your closet behind dozens of other pairs of shoes you’ve purchased. It’s time to sort your closet.

What has God been stirring in your heart?

Let’s start there. After our morning coffee and looking out at this new day dawning, let’s leave room on our to-do lists. Action item number one is left blank. This item is the most important I need to do today, and I must try to do it first as soon as I have time.

It is the response to God’s whisperings to my heart.

What is it for you?

My first task is to turn down the noise in my head, the cacophony of sound that tells me that God can not use me. For me, my first task is remembering who I am. It is shrinking myself down to the size of a piece of dust, my proper form.

The body is put back in the same ground it came from. The spirit returns to God, who first breathed it.

The Message

It is raising God to the glorious infinite that He is big. I am small. He has always used insignificant people!

Good morning!

And as I put on the long princess gloves that God gave me, I remember that these hands were bought with a price.

The color red of the gloves reminds me of Jesus’ blood that was shed for us so that these hands can be used to help, comfort and serve.

I found my shoes! Here they are in my closet, behind all those pink heels I had forgotten about. These shoes the Father gave me are decorated with jewels, a reminder that the message I understand is rare, a priceless gem many step on but few pick up to keep close to their hearts.

And many more have only seen cheap, counterfeit copies of the real jewels we wear on our feet. Will we carry the message of a long obedience following Jesus, shined in its brilliance, wherever we walk today? Is He asking you to walk a new path with Him, a path overgrown with branches because so few have travelled in that direction?

And I wear a smile on my face.

This smile is not shallow, resulting simply from the movement of the muscles on my face. A genuine smile is the outpouring of a great joy born in the heart, which overflows out of my eyes as a sparkle that can’t be hidden. (Need some?)

Let Him awaken you and help you out of bed, friend.

Then:

1) Remember the size of you and the size of your God.

2) Donn your gloves.

3) Find your shoes.

Then let the joy bubble forth.

Being with You is to be full of joy

Ancient Text

Confused About Life? Have You Tried Advice From This Person?

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

When we don’t fit in with the crowd’s way of living life

who can offer relevant advice for the unique challenge we encounter?

When the promises on bolded signs aren’t as enticing as anticipated

who is the one who will deliver more than expected?

When life is confusing

who do we turn to?

Wouldn’t it be amazing if someone we trust could suddenly appear in each of these circumstances, offer us their hand and point us to the best path?

Wouldn’t it be outstanding if that person never tired or gave up on us but offered grace and strength and sometimes even rubbed our aching feet as we rested?

What if this person offered us a cold drink, a healthy snack and a plan to follow?

Wouldn’t it be wondrous if this person was always by our side, could be leaned on when we lacked strength and helped to calm the chaos in our lives?

Any of us would give the world to find someone like this.

The substitute people that we esteem so highly instead, including movie stars, sports heroes, self-help experts and billionaires, eventually fall off their pedestals, and we trample them in our disappointment.

But wait . . .

Before we choose another human we highly esteem to take their place (someone with eventual skeletons in their closet, too), let’s pause and reassess . . . for just a moment.

Is there anyone who can be trusted, admired and in some ways, even followed?

Yep. There is. The grand unveiling reveals

the person your soul most longs to meet

He’s here entwined within the pages of this best-selling book.

Have time for a read?

Spiritually Asleep Again? How To Wake Up And See

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

I woke up one morning and realized with a start that I was also alive spiritually. I poked myself to be sure I was awake. I was the same on the outside.

What had caused this inner transformation?

My circumstances were the same. I lived in the exact physical location as many years ago. But undoubtedly, something had shifted recently.

Like all births, the growth had begun unnoticed in the hidden places long before.

My story of waking up is a long story of twisting paths, walking in circles, and many falls.

Just like your spiritual story.

And I’m still walking.

(You? That’s good. Very good.)

This morning, my rear felt particularly sore from all the falls recently. Jesus held his hand to me again today, offering to help me get up.

I’ll start there.

I woke this morning in a cyclical funk created by my discouragement. I was spiralling down, ready to flush the new thing God had been stirring in my heart down the toilet of my despair again. Then I heard a quiet thought encouraging me.

You are in the fight of your life.

(Would I jump into the battle or claim immediate defeat, like usual, keeping my soul asleep?)

I was in a fight for God’s whisperings to be brought forth like a new babe into the world. But I had to surrender my half-eaten lunch. Would I obey?

God had been whispering, waking, urging my soul towards the new life he wanted to see sprouting in my heart.

Would I throw away my hope that God can grow something beautiful through the dry depleted soil of my life again today?

Would my discouragement win?

The question is not how big is our faith. The question is, how big is our God? I shrunk God, again, into my image.

And so I was asleep.

I awoke when reminded in a time of prayer this morning of this truth:

The impossible thing He whisperers that he wants to bring forth in our lives is easy for Him.

How exactly this discouragement transformed into hope is a story for another time.

But for now, suffice it to say that I was reminded that God made an amaryllis bloom after twenty years or more of bareness.

And He made a lilac bloom after ten years or more of barrenness.

And so He can make our lives bloom after seasons of bareness, too.

We begin to wake spiritually every day by opening our spiritual eyes.

Here’s how:

  1. We fix our spiritual eyes on God, the master gardener of hope, instead of keeping our eyes closed by focusing on our bareness.
  2. We open our eyes to the fact that harvest will come for every field, including that unwatered corner of our hearts if we allow the Master Gardener to work His ways within.
  3. We wait, not passively, but prayerfully, with anticipation, like a farmer planting seed in fertile soil.

This subtle shift in my thinking helped me soar on the wind of hope I found this morning. I picked up the hope. I carried it next to my heart.

For as the sky soars high above earth, so the way I work surpasses the way you work, and the way I think is beyond the way you think.

Just as rain and snow descend from the skies and don’t go back until they’ve watered the earth, doing their work of making things grow and blossom, producing seed for farmers and food for the hungry, so will the words that come out of my mouth not come back empty-handed.

They’ll do the work I sent them to do, they’ll complete the assignment I gave them.

The Message

God is standing next to us with seeds, a shovel and a watering can. He wants to dig deep, exposing old roots to create room for new growth. I want to get out of the way to allow Him to do his work.

You?

While waiting for life to sprout, consider praying along to this song.

This song begins like the prayer of a person who doesn’t honestly believe what they’re praying (like many of many prayers over the years):

You make beautiful things out of the dust.

The song ends in a loud declaration of the exact words, daring the soul to believe.

Time for a battle for you, too, as you pray along to this song?

What is He saying to you through the pages of His book, asking you to have faith to believe?

May your eyes be opened, your soul awake.

The One Valuable Ingredient To Find God And Lose Weight

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

I was shocked when the notification blared its announcement.

I was in the top 3% of users of a new nutrition app I was using.

The TOP 3%.

Everyone else (or 97% of people – whatever! – stay with me!) had already given up.

Now, I have to back up a bit to explain.

As you know, and have been forever changed by, I wrote a riveting blog post series last fall on weight loss. (To my editor: Why DIDN’T anyone read those posts, anyway?)

I have been (more or less) within the healthy weight range (basically – okay!) for my entire life, which has been no small feat.

However, when following my advice failed me, I decided to switch it up and buy a nutrition app. Truthfully, I am constantly trying new approaches and programs and learning a bit more about implementing healthy habits, which is the point of this post. But I’m not talking about that right now.

I’m talking about the notification that startled me.

I thought I was the ultimate failure in using this nutrition app. Check this out. The photo below is an actual graph of my progress over two months, showing NO improvement in achieving my ideal weight.

None.

There are normal fluctuations, but the graph of this line is flat.

Same, same, samers.

I immediately unsubscribed to the “encouragement” texts accompanying this app because so many people complained in a way I could not comprehend.

“I only lost 5 pounds this month!” they would complain.

Huh?

I hadn’t lost anything, so I could not relate.

But I kept going with the program.

And the results EVENTUALLY paid off. EVENTUALLY. I lost 10 pounds recently and feel a lot better.

And I believe the results would have also paid off for many, many other app users.

If only they kept trying.

And now, we’ll switch gears to talk about God, but it’s not changing gears, because the concept is the same.

MOST PEOPLE GIVE UP TOO SOON IN THEIR SEARCH FOR GOD

Is it annoying people that keep you away from your search for God? Get over them! (Get over yourself too, but that’s for when you are MUCH more spiritually sanctified and you realize that you are a loser too!)

Is God distant, just out of reach? You’re on the right path. God hides Himself as a critical component of his character.

God delights in concealing things

The Message

Why, you ask?

He is not a dictator, shouting orders and wanting us to go off somewhere and obey every minute detail of his complicated directives. He longs to walk WITH us on this journey we call life. He wants us to WANT to want Him.

And so, right now, He is bending down low but right next to you. Will you reach out, tag his back, and say, “Gotcha!”

Will you seek Him?

If we don’t give up, even though most people do, and keep walking forward, following where we last saw his footsteps and carving out time in our busy day to sit with Him, unhurried, if we read his word, and ask others what it means even when we don’t understand it, then we will find God.

He’s waiting for you right now, holding out His hand to you.

And so, what is the one valuable ingredient to lose weight and find God?

Perseverance.

There’s more to come . . . keeping us alert for whatever God will do next.

The Message

Keep walking, friend.

Hunger for Jesus attracts the manifest (felt) presence of His Spirit. Does your hunger for God outweigh your discouragement? He’ll help you up, point you in a new direction, lighten the weight on your feet, help you soar.

Don’t give up just before your breakthrough, friend.

Feel Empty? Surprisingly, God’s Strange Reward For Winter Is Spring

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

That time when I was discouraged, when I sensed God calling me into something new, something that made my knees quake, she said she saw a picture of something in her mind whenever she prayed for me.

It was a picture of a dead plant.

The dead plant was me.

“Well, there is a bit more,” she explained. The plant was in the winter season. All that could be seen were a few branches poking above the ground.

Sounded like my life at that moment.

“But spring is coming,” she encouraged me. I picked up my discouragement and continued walking on this ill-marked path that it seemed God was leading me down, wondering if, in the future, sometime, there would be fruit.

Come here every morning, God seemed to whisper.

So I sat each day in my office chair, which seemed to be on fire because it was so uncomfortable to sit in. You want me to write, I clarified? I don’t see myself the way God sees me.

How do you want to work within my life, Jesus?

It seemed I had to follow Him to find out.

But I was learning to walk in obedience, even if I was blind to where we were going. I sat with Him each day long enough for my discouragement to be appeased by a God who knows who I was created to be. Could I learn to trust that if he can use other losers He can use my tattered, edited pages, too?

God can do anything, you know – far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it . . . by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.

The Message

He seemed to say enough, sometimes after only one letter, one word typed, bidding me to dance in joy with Him.

And so, to return to the start of this post, “A winter season,” she had suggested that day.

And then a few people read these blog posts. (Yes! Accidental clicks count!) And I still write boring things and even you read them!

And so I rejoice this spring with one amaryllis blooming and one lilac blooming after a decade or more of relative death for each.

I look back in awe at where He has been leading me. People from 23 countries so far have read the neurotic ramblings of a spiritually intense person, walking in circles but seeking God and falling and getting up again. And since people from so many countries are reading this blog, this is how we can know my life has meaning!

But He does take our pathetic gardening efforts and redeem them to give strength to each other.

God saw to it that I was equipped, but you can be sure it had nothing to do with my natural abilities. And so here I am . . . writing about things that are way over my head . . .

The Message

And he reminds us that spring, the season of blooming and life, follows winter, the season of rest, as we work with the master gardener to see life bloom as He leads.

Where is He leading you, friend?

May you soar on the wind as He leads you deeper into the wormhole of His purposes that always lead to life, growth and joy as we take one tentative step and another in the direction He is travelling, holding his hand as we go.

God, help each of us to see further than we could before, using your glasses.

While listening to the song below, consider quieting your heart, being thankful, and asking God, “What is one next step you are asking me to take that will eventually lead to blooming in my life?”

May you find the strength to follow.

An Unremarkable Event Instructs Us In Hope – Need Some?

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

I was startled when I saw it yesterday.

It was a mundane circumstance for those without eyes to appreciate it.

But my heart quickened many beats. God whispered, calling me to see something more profound than this mundane object. Would I have ears to hear? Did I have time to listen? Was I too busy to notice?

Here’s what happened.

At least ten years ago, I decided to plant two lilac bushes.

My husband encouraged me to plant the lilac bushes in our yard because they are my favourite flower. I love lilacs because they confidently fill the air with their scent. You can smell them from a distance.

Because of Christ, we give off a sweet scent rising to God

The Message

They are the only flowers I have planted in our twelve years of living in this house.

Unfortunately, I made a classic mistake when I planted them. I planted them at the edge of our lawn, where two lovely bare spots were in the grass. I found out later that these two spots were bare because our automatic sprinklers didn’t reach that far.

I watered these plants by hand once or twice and then forgot about them.

Every spring, I (perhaps pathetically) mourned these lilacs, thinking I wish I would have loved on them, poured into them and helped them get established. When I drove past our neighbour’s wall of  lilac bushes this spring, I was startled at their beauty and again mourned that my  lilac bushes had died. I didn’t get around to buying more lilac bushes and planting them again.

And then last week I saw it.

One little lilac blooming in the exact place where I had planted that lilac bush over a decade ago. 

God seemed to whisper that we are like this lilac blooming.

Huh?

I stared at the lilac, trying to figure out if God was speaking and what he could possibly be saying through the life of this flower.

My mind wandered a bit as I stood staring at the lilac, waiting. I found myself impatient for next year. “This small flower, on an established plant, ushers in hope for more flowers next year and even more the year after that!” I found myself thinking.

And this is what I am saying to you, God seemed to whisper.

Where I had thought there was death, God was silently, patiently growing life. And my pathetic, misguided gardening efforts were enough for the master gardener to redeem. The lilac’s foliage blended with the background foliage of the nearby leaves, so I hadn’t noticed the bush was still alive.

Do you feel hope rising?

How is God growing hope in you?

What do you need hope for? How may God be offering you hope? Can we use the hidden winter season to store hope deep in our roots, waiting for spring to blossom?

That was God’s message to me last season.

He had asked me to plant, and to establish a habit in my life that would eventually bear fruit.

I’ll explain next time.

But today, my arm is outstretched to you. Here’s some hope, friend. What step of faith is God asking you to take?

Despairing? Unlikely People Carry Startling Crumbs Of Hope (Again)

/ Lori Lawe / 2 Comments

Crumbs of hope that whisper or nudge from God can be found in the oddest places.

Sometimes even through strangers.

Are our ears glued on?

It seemed that God wasn’t finished speaking to this clerk at Tim Hortons yet, but I had some pressing paperwork to do. Would I trust Him to interrupt my more essential tasks again? Was I too busy?

My bagel was burned.

I could eat a bagel, slightly dark at the edges. Tell them it seemed God may have been saying. Really?

I already had one interaction where God somehow fed this young man a crumb.

Why did I have to ruin it by criticizing the food? I obeyed, and co-incidentally, perhaps, it was the same young man whose turn it was to speak to me. Several others were working the till.

I showed him my bagel and explained that I recently learned that burned food contains carcinogens, substances capable of causing cancer.

I apologized for the nuisance. “Maybe I should come to you for advice,” the clerk called loudly across the restaurant, as I walked away. I smiled.

He thinks he is drawn to me, but he is drawn to You in me.

May he learn the difference.

As I was about to leave, I thought the Lord said to buy another coffee. But I didn’t want another coffee! “Maybe my life is not entirely about what I want,” I reminded myself.

I stood in line.

Clerks were running everywhere, and many different people were taking orders. Again, I wasn’t surprised when I got the same clerk because this felt like a God appointment. Ask him about his church, God seemed to nudge as I ordered coffee.

“Hey, you said you are a Christian. Have you found a good group of people at a church around here to belong to?”

I wasn’t surprised when he said no. Theology that revolved around the type and frequency of product he smoked, the topic of our earlier conversation, didn’t seem completely orthodox. “Even though my mom is an atheist, I used to go to church. But I don’t have a ride right now,” he said as he gave me my change.

Again, a nudge from the Lord.

Do you have a car? God seemed to ask me, tongue in cheek. I offered him a ride to our thriving church. He declined, and I presumed there were deeper reasons why He wasn’t in a church community.

I walked away, carrying a bagel I was too full to eat.

Use me, Lord. There is so much food here at Your table. I pray this young man’s hunger pains will be satisfied one day.

May he truly know he is accepted and thus seek his next step in a relationship with You and other believers.

May he find another who can lead him to the feast.

Teach us more clearly to scatter a bounty of crumbs from Your voice, and with Your love, we pray.