Hunger Is Not a Disease

Thank You for the Small Pains I Get in the Pantry

Lord, you know I do need them, of course.

For each sore shoulder pain or back spasm that goes away after a while:  THANK YOU!

The small pains remind me of all the pantry work that needs to be done every day. When the small pains come around, they remind me to pray for more volunteers.

So, thanks for the sneezing fits and scratchy throats I get every delivery day.

The last time I had a sharp pain on delivery day, I caught myself praying in surprise.  And, guess what!  The entire Roberts family showed up to help.  It was just a miracle – that’s all.

And, one afternoon, I had a shoulder pain during the pantry shift and a volunteer stepped out of the line and helped us all that day.  And, he kept returning every week for several months.

For me, these small pains are reminders that I should ask for help and be ready for it to show up!

What these pains mean is that I should also hold out hope for the coming miracles.

After all, miracles happened and I couldn’t hide from them.  I was in denial for the longest time but, eventually, I had to face facts.  When I finally owned up to their reality, I saw they were special miracles for a food pantry.

Stigmata, relics, icons, and visions weren’t appropriate for the pantry.

Nobody controlled how or when they happened, only whether or not they were seen for what they were.  I wasn’t focused on the miracles because I was busy paying attention to lifting boxes, stocking shelves, filling out forms, driving to the dump with the trash.

And, so, Lord, I promise to try to ask for help when the pantry needs it.

Meanwhile…thank you…and…Amen

THANKS FOR READING THIS POST!  It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?

I have a whole volume’s worth of meditations, devotions, short stories filled with gratitude and thanksgiving.

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Miracles – Because Hunger is Not a Disease

Miracles happened in the food pantry.  It took me a while to realize this and then it took another while to accept that such a thing could happen in the basement of a small town church in Upstate New York.

I sneaked miracle stories in on the blog posts.  I sneaked them on the pages of   “I Don’t Hang Out in Churches Anymore”.  Finally, I gave them their own pages – as much as I had the nerve for anyway,  in a short book “Miracles”.

Research on miracles taught me some things.

I learned that miracles often include weeping statues, broken legs healing  straight,  relics, stigmata, and visions.  The pantry miracles included none of those things.

Our miracles never really cured anyone.  I never saw a statue weep, and no one came down with stigmata.

Instead, they  showed us all how to grow and love and forgive.  It was giving away the food that was the tip off for me.

As far as I can tell, the food pantry miracles were not the result of prayer.

God just showed up and brought food.  Once he came disguised as a fireman.  Each miracle was a complete surprise, a unique and different event.  God came when the pantry shelves were bare and the lines were long.

I don’t think the miracles proved that any of the shoppers or volunteers were more  faithful than anybody else in town.   Frankly, I think that some of us saw the miracles as coincidences or something.

However they were seen, these events made an impact on a small number of people who saw them as they happened.

The clincher for me occurred when I finally realized and accepted a few basic things:

Carloads of food never showed up when we didn’t need it.

Boots never appeared on the shelves disguised as toothpaste in the summertime.

Nobody ever brought a handful of nails to fix the barn when the wall wasn’t falling.

Two books appeared on my desk out of the ethers:  “Miracles” by Tim Stafford and “Looking for a Miracle” by Joe Nickell gave a feeling of legitimacy to my thoughts and memories.

Because of Tim Stafford,  I wrote my book entitled “Miracles”.    He was direct about a few things – one of them being that people should not spread “miracle gossip”.  Because of his feelings about what he called “miracle gossip”,  I’m compelled to relate the pantry miracle stories.

To sneak them in  blog posts  does not do them justice.

Thank you for reading this blog post.  Please refer it to your favorite social media network.

Thurman Greco