A Fellow Traveller

I take the frozen bananas out of the freezer and compare the number to my recipe that calls for 2 mashed. It looks like I'll be quadrupling the recipe if I want to use them all up.   Will my biggest mixing bowls be big enough to do the job? Will I have enough of all the other ingredients needed? It looks like I'm good to go.  As I get my giant wooden spoon into the mixture, I remember my Grandma Wideman making pies and butter tarts. She did nothing in a small way, being used to baking for market days. In her later years, she would take over our kitchen while my mom would "gopher" this and that, washing the dishes and cleaning up the flour which ended up being everywhere. Those days are long past, but I feel closer to my Grandma as the warm memories come flooding back. Before long my bowls are literally overflowing. When thinking that my biggest mixing bowls would do the job, I didn't take into account the total sum of adding wet to dry ingredients. How...

I've been thinking of the little boy with a lunch of five loaves and two fish. In a crowd of thousands, he's the only one with a lunch. Everyone ran so quickly to follow Jesus that they didn't think to pack any food. This boy's mom probably admonished him to make sure to eat when he felt hungry.   What kept him from snacking and eating it before? Had he been so engrossed in the storytelling that he forgot to eat? When the disciples were looking for food, did he try to hide it? Or did he suddenly remember that his mom had tucked it in his bag? Did he wonder what his mom would say if he didn't eat it? Or maybe he was supposed to deliver it to someone else and had gotten sidetracked by following Jesus. By now, his stomach was probably growling along with everyone else. He now had a decision to make; one that would determine history.   If that were me, I'm afraid I would have hung on to it. I would not have wanted to go hungry. Being concerned about pleasing...

Each of us is in a boat of life, maintaining it and doing our best to steer around obstacles. When we see our need, we choose to invite Jesus to join us. He comes and takes up residence in our boat, ready to do life with us. When things are calm, we have time to talk and we can learn to listen to his words of truth. But when a storm whips up, we suddenly forget he is even in the boat with us.   We paddle furiously, trying to keep our boat afloat. The huge waves lift and toss us about, bringing fear into our throats as the spray stings our eyes. When the water starts leaking in, we grab a bucket and start bailing, wondering how much time we have before we're going down. All the while, we've forgotten who is sleeping in our boat.   Resting calmly is the creator of the universe. Sleeping with his head on a pillow is the One who spoke the water into existence, separating it to form moisture above and liquid below. We have one in our boat who created the natural world and a...