I’VE RECENTLY LEVELED UP my stay-at-home-mom game by learning how to bake bread. It was something I was always nervous to try, but I’ve been surprised how fun and easy it can be with a little bit of practice.
My kids eat their crust now! And I feel like a superwoman.
I found bulk bread flour and yeast at Smart and Final, and stashed them in my garage freezer. Now not only have I brought my materials cost down below a loaf of Walmart sandwich bread, I feel like I’ll never run out of breakfast for my kids again. With that much overstock storage, I know there will always be enough ingredients on hand to make bread for my family. It’s a good feeling.
All that to say, today’s reading from 1 Kings really resonates with me this year. Since I quit my office job to stay at home with my kids, providing for them has been my whole world. When I’m doing my job, they always have clean clothes to wear, a peaceful home to live in, and food to eat. I can’t imagine the heartbreak of the widow of Zarephath when she realized that her supply of flour and oil was running dry, and she wouldn’t be able to provide for her son. The country was in the midst of a famine, but if she’s like many of us, she probably felt it as a personal failure anyway. She probably also felt completely abandoned by God. How could he let this happen to her and her family?
Of course, we know she wasn’t abandoned by God, and the prophet Elijah was there to make sure she knew it too. He invited her to trust God in a radical way, and the most surprising thing in this story is that she did! We know that God keeps His promises, and obviously we know how this story ends, but it’s so much harder to put this lesson into practice in my own life than to read about it in the Bible.
Trusting God is hard! I don’t like worrying about running out of flour to make bread for my family. I don’t like worrying about running out of money in our weekly budget because we were generous in the collection basket. Day to day, I have my head down, worrying about cooking the next meal, washing the next load of laundry, getting the kids to the next activity. But God is asking me to let go and trust Him with everything – my children, the bread, the budget.
I actually did recently increase our weekly giving, even though it means we’re relying on my freelance income to do it. It’s scary to trust that God will take care of our family if we trust Him with our future, but He always does. He did, the time my husband was out of work for six months. He did, during a year-long house hunt a year later. And He will again, with every scary thing we allow ourselves to offer up to Him. We all have areas of our lives that we don’t feel ready to surrender to God’s never-failing hands. What is the flour jar in this season of your life that He’s asking you to offer up in order for Him to fill you up beyond your wildest dreams? This is the reminder we all need again and again: trust Him.
Follow in faith, and He will provide for you and your family like He sustained the widow of Zarephath and her son when all hope seemed lost.