Cast your bread upon the waters, for after many days you will find it again. ecclesiastes 11:1
i cast some bread a few years ago. threw out some crumbs actually. some of them might have even been moldy crumbs. a lot of them were dry. and not always the freshest morsels. nevertheless moldy crumbs in Jesus' hands become something quite special...
i threw them onto the waters of a sunday morning Bible study class for college students. sent them out into some late night conversations with young college girls. tossed them out as we rode bicycles across florida. up north carolina mountains. risked our lives pedaling wildly on a crowded 12 land highway beside the mall of georgia. flung out crumbs disguised as dinners. birthday celebrations. april fool's day parties. craft nights. i let some more crumbs loose during late night phone calls. shot them forth in facebook messages. tweets. texts. emails. these crumb catching girls have stayed in my life. they all moved to different cities. states. areas of the country. but they never left my heart.
i had no idea why these girls liked me (then or now). or wanted to grow up to be just like me (and they may be rethinking that goal). i was as much of a mess then as i am now. i was a younger and cuter mess. i taught things that i only am beginning to understand now. i said things with so much bravado and certainly that i fooled them all into thinking i had some kind of strong faith. but those were words. now i live in the faith that i only talked about then. every word i taught them was True. He is worthy. He is good. He is faithful. now i know by heart what i had to have notes on to tell them years ago. but i tossed crumbs then because God made me fall in love with those girls. and stranger still He made them fall in love with me. and strangest of all He made them think that i might have something to teach them. then and now...
moldy crumbs of the Bread was all i had then. but in His hands it was enough. not only for them. but enough to come back to feed me years later.
my bread has come back to find me...
it found me in tampa when i had lunch with this lovely former college student (who forgave me for forgetting to bring my camera and only having my phone to take photos of she and her sweetest new addition)...
it filled my mouth with sweetness and my heart with joy as i had a long phone conversation with this girl. i have not seen her in YEARS but that does not seem to dim our love and mutual respect a bit...
and today this girl sends me a text about a song that i just cried listening to and it perfectly said what i needed to hear (in face contained a line that i had just prayed and i had NEVER heard that song before) and she says that she joins me in praying for our mutual goal EVERY time she hears that song...
and here is the song...
so all those years of teaching... all those lessons prepared on saturday nights (i mean prepared MUCH earlier than the night before the lesson). those chats while biking when we thought we had no words left. the tears cried together. the laughter in the middle of the tears. all those phone calls. NOT TO MENTION that one night i stayed up ALL night praying for lynnell because she had left me a message saying that she had broken up with josh (who she is now married to) and i was so worried about her... only to find out the next morning that they had gotten back together right after the sobbing message that she left me... i cast my bread upon waters...
and i have found it again. in the comfort of their counsel. in the earnestness of their sweet prayers. in the way they are all raising their babies in grace and truth. and in their love for me...
God is never wasteful. He recycles. redeems. restores. and returns our bread to us. in greater portions than we ever sent it out. and at the moment we need it the most.
2 corinthians 9:10 Now He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness.