Beauty on the Backroads

Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns

faith & spirituality

What if God is like boxed mac and cheese?

A couple of months ago, we had a friend over for a play date. She and her mom had driven up from their house and were staying for lunch. We hadn’t seen them in a while, but the kids got along well.

I hadn’t been to the store and was a little low on groceries, but I had enough to make mac and cheese, a homemade way, with boxed pasta covered in a flour-butter-milk sauce with melted cheese. I told the little girl who was visiting that we were having mac and cheese for lunch, and she was super excited all morning because let’s face it, mac and cheese is a pretty great promise.

macaroni

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But when lunchtime came, she expressed disappointment about what was in her bowl.

“Mommy, I don’t like it!”

I can’t remember if she tried it, and really, it wasn’t my best effort at homemade mac and cheese. Fortunately, her mom came prepared with a microwavable bowl of the Kraft kind, and she ate that like a champ.

Nothing against boxed mac and cheese. I’ve eaten my fair share of that in my lifetime, and my kids like it when we have it.

Still, it’s not “real.”

We’ve been starting to make some changes in the food we eat and buy, opting for more “real” and “natural” ingredients. The coffee creamer I use is made with milk, cream and sugar. This revelation came when I bought some non-dairy stuff off the shelf at Dollar General, and I thought, “What exactly is this stuff?” The answer: a bunch of things mixed together to taste like creamer.

Our favorite ice cream maker has a new line of all-natural ice creams. One night last week I tried a salted caramel variety and I kid you not, it was like tasting ice cream for the first time.

I’ve been eating fake food for so long I’ve forgotten what real food tastes like. 

It might take some time for my palate to readjust. Or maybe not. Every summer I swear I’ll never eat another store-bought tomato when I’ve tasted the sweet juiciness of a homegrown one from the farmer’s market. Until winter comes and I want tomatoes and all I have available is the reddish, tasteless tomato-shaped fruit in the store.

Then I settle for something less than real.

And I fear the Church, and my faith, may suffer the same taste preference as our 3-year-old friend: We prefer the fake to the real because we don’t know what real is.

Taste and see that the Lord is good.

Words from a Psalm, and yet do I believe it? That God is good.

A member of the local Jehovah’s Witness congregation periodically stops by our house, mostly to talk to my husband, but since he’s not around as much because of his work schedule, I’m the one who ends up talking to him. This week, he handed me the weekly literature, which posed the question, “Is God cruel?”

“What do you think of that question, Lisa?” he asked.

“Oh, I don’t think God is cruel,” I said. And in my heart I added, He is far better to us than we deserve.

Words my head affirms but the truth is I have shaken my fist at God, doubted His goodness and demanded He do things my way. As recent as last week, I threw my hands up in the air and said, “Don’t You see what we’ve given up for You?”

As if God owes me anything.

Boxed mac and cheese is quick, easy and it tastes good enough to eat, even if it doesn’t provide much in the way of nutrition.

And sometimes I want a quick, easy faith that makes me feel all warm and cozy.

Not the kind that requires patience and preparation and that might be bland if I rush it and skip a step.

And sometimes God gives me what I want, but it leaves me feeling empty. Hungry for something more.

I think of the song we’ve sung for fun at camp:

I wish I had a little white box

to put my Jesus in

I’d take him out and kiss, kiss, kiss

and put him back again

Maybe it’s all fun and nobody takes it seriously, but I wonder how many of us have Jesus in a box and we only take Him out of it when it suits us? How many of us are living a faith that is only a shadow of the real thing?

And I’m not talking about not being saved or a member of the church or a faithful disciple. Even those who followed Jesus while He was on earth got it wrong, creating in their minds a Savior of a different kind.

I’m talking about opening the box and letting Jesus out, even if we’re not sure we’re going to like what He has to say or wants us to do.

Taste and see.

Yesterday was the Day of Pentecost, the day the church marks as the birth of a movement that would spread worldwide for thousands of years. The Holy Spirit arrived and Jesus was no longer limited to his earthly body.

The Spirit moves today.

But sometimes we put Him back in the box, choosing to believe only what is safe, comfortable and palatable.

What if we’re missing something?

Something real. Wholesome. And good.

What if I’m not really following Jesus at all but just a cheap substitute?

Taste and see.

For when you think no one sees you {a 3-part reflection}

Part I

Pine trees tower over the backyard sanctuary where she sits in the cool of a spring day, head wrapped in a scarf to protect her from the sun.

She’s dying of cancer and her body battles diabetes.

I only know this because her name is on the prayer list at church, though I’ve never seen her there. She is a shut-in, as we call those who are too ill or frail to sit in a pew for an hour or make the weekly drive.

In the backyard, she almost fades into the background, unseen.

But I see her.

I know her name but not her story and sometimes when we walk by, I want to call out to her and ask how she is. Even though we’re neighbors, living on the same street, she doesn’t know me. And she might find it odd for me to call her by name and ask about her life. And I avoid standing out, being odd, whenever I can.

More often, she’s not in the backyard, which is when the sanctuary comes alive with squirrels, birds, even a duck or two.

She faithfully sets out corn cobs and fills feeders for the creatures who find refuge in her little corner of the world.

And I wonder, who will feed the birds and the squirrels when she’s gone?

Stock Exchange | www.sxc.hu

Stock Exchange | www.sxc.hu

Part II

Her body is ravaged. For 12 years she has baffled doctors, healers. She is unclean. Without help. Without hope.

Desperate.

She hatches a plan.

If only she could get close enough, touch the hem of his robe, then maybe, perhaps, she’d be healed.

It was a long shot. Her only shot.

And if it didn’t work, she’d be no worse than she was now.

The crowd pressed in. She fought for position. She had one chance.

She reached for him, and her fingers grazed his cloak.

And she knew.

She was healed.

She’d meant to slip away, blend in. But shocked by the change she felt within, she couldn’t move.

“Who touched me?”

The man’s words sent panic through her. Was he angry? Maybe she could slip away yet.

But no. The crowds had closed in. And if she tried to force her way through, she would make a scene.

“Someone touched me.”

The man was adamant despite his friends trying to convince him otherwise.

She could deny it, like everyone else in the crowd.

But then he was looking at her, and she couldn’t deny it.

When the woman saw that she had not escaped notice, she came trembling and fell down before Him, and declared in the presence of all the people the reason why she had touched Him, and how she had been immediately healed.

“Your faith has healed you. Go in peace.”

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III

For most of my life, I’ve walked a narrow line between wanting to blend in and wanting to be noticed.

In grade school, on the bus, I mostly hoped to blend in and prayed–if I could have called it that back then–the bus bully would find someone else to pick on.

And in middle school, I desperately wanted the handsome jock in our class to notice me, not as the smart girl, but as a girl. I was drawn to stories in movies, books and songs, where the girl unnoticed becomes the noticed one. The one who had always been there but who had been passed over for something better.

Then in high school, I watched from a distance, once again hoping to blend in. Put your head down, do the work, come out unscathed. Don’t draw too much attention.

College–as it is for most people–was a fresh start. Yet I still found myself blending in. Flying under the radar. I wasn’t dramatic or loud or noteworthy. To this day, I still feel the need to remind people who I am, even if we shared a meaningful experience like a semester in England. (Hi, you probably don’t remember me but …)

Then, like the desperate woman who took a chance and reached out to touch Jesus’ cloak, He noticed me.

Or maybe I noticed that He noticed me.

I read Genesis, the story of creation, of a God so big He spoke the world into being, made something out of nothing. Yet the same God knows me personally, as David celebrates in Psalm 139.

You have searched me and you know me.

You are familiar with all my ways.

You knit me together in my mother’s womb.

Nothing escapes God’s notice. Not a dying woman feeding the wild animals. Not a desperate woman looking for a cure. Not a woman who doesn’t know who she is and hopes nobody learns her secret.

It is a scary thing to be noticed, sometimes.

Because the one noticing you might be like the bus bully, looking for a target.

Or the jock, looking for help with homework, nothing more.

But it’s scarier to believe no one notices you at all.

When you think no one notices, no one cares and that you don’t matter, hear this now: God sees you. He knows you. And He loves you.

Forgive me, Father, for all the people I’ve not seen, not noticed. Thank You that there is nowhere we can go that You don’t see. Help me to see what You see.

Amen.