When Life Hands You a Bag of Bread
I am sure you have heard the phrase, “when life gives you lemons.” It is what people say when things go wrong but are encouraging you to seek a positive spin. Sometimes in that moment, there is not positive spin. We just have to feel it, go through it. As it runs its course only then do we see how “lemonade” can be made. In my case, it was a garbage bag full of bread.
Recently, I have been dealt some large disappointments. One right after the next in my line of work. Which is spilling over into my personal life. Making life altering decisions very challenging and causing me to question, well everything. Things just keep coming, like waves crashing into me. Waves I am not equipped to deal with, causing me to swallow water, and my life raft is almost gone. When you are trying to keep your head above water it takes the smallest raindrop sometimes to make you lose it, am I right?
Like when you were looking forward to a box of donuts or some interesting cupcakes. However, all you got was a bag of bread. That bag of bread that started to cause you more stress, and highlighted your disappointment when you looked at it. You knew you should be grateful , because others wished they had bread. So now you are guilty. You feel a responsibility to not waste it, to want to see if there is someone in need you can help. However, you can’t seem to find an avenue to pursue that thought.
What you don’t realize is that you do find a solution. However, it may not look like what you thought. You put the bread in ziploc bags. Give some to your parents to enjoy. Freeze some for a later date, store a couple of other bags hoping you can find good use.
As the days go on you realize you have gotten creative. You formed a new recipe, you passed it onto people in need when you dropped off dinner to a sick couple. You wrote a blog post that will hopefully encourage someone else’s heart who feels the just can’t bear the disappointment at this time in their life. There is still some bread that went to waste, because it could not all be used. Not everything turned out perfectly alright, but not everything went to spoil either.
You may have to walk this valley, it may even be wider than you hoped for. You may even find yourself so desperate you take a garbage bag of bread and give it some meaning. But I think that is called hope. Which I am hanging onto in the waves of disappointment. It is piece of driftwood in the sea that I hang onto even as the waves batter against me. I can pass this test and be strong for the next because I refusing to let go of the hope I have that God is with me. If I can love him and others through this storm, the shore I wash up on is going to be even better than the one I came from.
Resting in this promise:
Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.
Isaiah 48:20-21