Bread and Roses
And Jesus said unto
them, I am the bread of life:
he that cometh to me
shall never hunger;
and he that believeth
on me shall never thirst.
John 6:35
Carol, a cleaning lady who's a friend of mine, was driving
to a client's house. It was just an ordinary day, and she wasn't thinking about
much of anything as she drove through traffic.
Suddenly, she got a strong urge to stop off and buy the
woman some gourmet bread. "Bread? That's odd," Carol thought. She never made
splurges like that for herself, and she didn't have much cash in her purse. So
she ignored the impulse.
She drove on, and pulled into the client's driveway. But the
urge came back, even stronger.
No. Don't go in yet. First, go buy the lady a loaf of bread.
OK, OK, OK, she thought, smiling quizzically. She has gotten
these little urges before, you see.
She pulled back out of the driveway, drove to a gourmet bakery,
picked out a gorgeous loaf of honey wheat, and came back to the house.
She rang the doorbell. When the woman answered it, Carol
held out the loaf of bread and with a big smile, said:
"God told me to bring this to you."
The woman took one look at the bread, and burst into tears.
Tears of joy, that is.
Carol was amazed. The two women hugged, and the story poured
out.
It happened to be the lady's birthday. It was one of those
big, bad birthdays, with a high number that sends most women kicking and
screaming to the store for the Oil of Olay.
Not only that, but the woman was newly divorced and newly
employed. She was under a lot of stress with her new job, struggling to make
ends meet, dealing with her teenaged children, embarrassed by her messy house,
drained by the recent divorce . . . and feeling very blue to be having a
birthday without a man at her side, her first like that in many, many years.
But she had Jesus.
And she had a deep understanding with Him. She told Carol
she trusts Him to provide everything she needs, through thick and thin, divorce
and loneliness, even on big, bad birthdays. He will see to her physical needs.
He will see to her spiritual needs.
Life is both physical and spiritual. Both require
nourishment and sustenance.
"Bread and roses." That's what the lady calls His promise to
meet all the needs of her life.
Yes, she had been sad when she woke up on that birthday. But
earlier in the day, another friend had surprised her with a bouquet of flowers.
Now here was Carol . . . with bread.
The two women hugged and cried. Carol was glad she had
obeyed that urge to buy the bread. If not, she would have denied that woman
and herself such a big blessing and faith-strengthener.
See, Carol is a divorced mother, too. As a cleaning lady who
doesn't earn much, her budget is very tight. She understands anxiety. She gets
stressed out, too.
The following Sunday after church, another lady called Carol
over to the trunk of her car. Turns out the lady works at a bakery. Her trunk
was full of all kinds of bread day-old, but still delicious. She urged Carol
and her kids to take as much as they wanted. They filled their arms, and later
their freezer. It would feed them for a month. What a wonderful blessing for
this struggling young family!
What made her call them over? Turns out that lady paid
attention to little urges that came out of "nowhere," too.
Payback! Carol still smiles about the brand name of the
bread that she had bought for the lady that day: "Great Harvest."
That's for sure. When you're working for the Bread of Life,
what you're "selling" lasts forever . . . and the dough is downright heavenly.
