The story in church was about cows. And wheat. As it happens I was on the schedule to add music to the service, and could pull out of storage a song I composed fifty years ago about those very things. Not that I sing it much.
The Pharaoh in Egypt had a dream about seven fat cows that were swallowed up by seven skinny cattle. His second dream was similar, with seven ripe heads of grain being consumed by withered ones.
The minister invited children up to plunge their starfish hands into a deep bag of wheat, and wiggle their fingers in the life sustaining
grain. At that moment I sent a prayer to the thin children across the planet looking at the sky waiting for food to fall down. But these well-fed children, some of whom wore their fancy church shoes, and velvet dresses, had a good breakfast. One boy kept his arm around his younger brother, guiding him. A little girl curled hers around her littler brother. There were more darling children than I could watch at once, so I loved them collectively. The sweetness nourished me like warm
bread.
These memories are what the story is about. When there is enough, no, more than enough, God stores the feelings of protection, and innocence in a deep place. Then, when we feel stripped bare, He pulls it out like a surprise stash.
I have
felt this in a hundred ways. Yet it still astonishes me. A waft of music, stirs my heart out of nowhere. A kind gesture when I am self-absorbed drops from the sky. Sometimes God's tactic is to plop someone else's lack in my lap, inviting me to respond, thereby rebooting my energy in a more delicious way than whining ever could.