spreading the love

The other day, a friend called me and asked me if i wanted more bread. She has a friend who gets a store's excess and it's too much for her to handle so she spreads it around - and every crumb that ends up at our house ends up consumed by all those ravenous little tummies around our table. i peeked in the bags of buns and loaves of bread before tucking them gratefully in my freezer. With Neil gone so much, it's such a treat to have something handy for those days when i'm just a lump of mama - good for reading books, and snuggling little ones - but pretty negligent in the grocery shopping department. Then a couple days later, another friend called me, "Hey, we're going gluten free at our house, would you ever be able to use all of our pantry items that we're not going to be able to use now? Would opened boxes bug you?" Our grocery budget being the impressive thing that it is these days, i assured her that nothing would go to waste at our house!
It felt a teeny bit like Christmas as her and her husband lugged shopping bags through my door and i put each item away in my own nicely rounded out pantry.
But still, i felt kind of shamed by my bounty, and the generosity of friends who think of me in moments of giving...
Then today, with my husband back on the road and life awhirl in the new week, we had our little extra honey here - a little girl who comes to our house before and after school - and she was hungry after her snack... so i pulled out a box of fancy crackers from my newly stocked pantry and she grinned at me as she tucked in. Then at supper, i pulled out some frozen buns to make garlic buns from one friend to eat with the organic spaghetti from the other and stirred up a huge batch of home made meat sauce, knowing i'd have a couple extra lanky teen legs under my table - just like we do for most meals. (i love feeding extra teenagers - they'll eat whatever you've got and they never raise an eyebrow at a meal's presentation or variety...)
And it made me smile - because i felt like a sparrow under my Papa's watchful eye... He knows we have a pretty open door... and rather than feeling guilty for the provision of my Father... i felt seen, and cared for - and ready to spread some love of my own...
On days like today, i feel the bonds of my extended eternal family - and i understand that i am under the tender care of a Faithful Father who feeds us all.