Potato Salad Alert

My family celebrated Thanksgiving a little differently. We had ham (not turkey,) Sweet potato pie (not pumpkin,) and potato salad (not mashed potatoes and gravy.) It was in reminiscing about our quirkiness that I remembered that my sweet mom always made three kind of potato salad to appease everyone: with pickles and onions, with pickles no onions, with onions no pickle. Woe to the meal that only had one potato salad option.

It was in this recollection that I realized that I have more expectations of food at the table than people at the table. And if that isn't bad enough in itself I do not even consider who is not at the table.

Those who give to the poor will lack nothing, but those who close their eyes to them receive many curses. Proverbs 28:27

I sit at the Thanksgiving table with food all around me looking for my expected food choice and forget really that I have been blessed with FOOD (expected or not, Mom’s recipe or not, what I requested or not.) God has blessed me with food, water, family, and shelter; the fundamental needs for survival.

And across the ocean in the country of the Philippines there are people right now without food, water, family, or shelter. That is only one example of the needs all around me. And I just close my eyes and pretend I don't even know this. I shut out those screams of people struggling to survive the day and complain if the food doesn't meet my dietary anticipations. How petty. How cruel. How unchristian. How have I let myself get to this point?

God doesn't give me a, “Sorry, my bad,” way out on this oversight. He puts me in the line to receive curses. What? Really? So I looked up the Hebrew word we translate as curses.  Do you know what this word really means?  Yep, it literally stands for “curses” And what does that mean?

Curse - a solemn utterance intended to invoke a supernatural power to inflict harm or punishment on someone or something.

Wow, I think God is serious about this. If I have been given the blessings by God, He wants me to share these blessings with those who need. No hoarding. No grumbling about what I didn't get. But concerned about what I can give.  So this Thanksgiving I'm going to keep my eyes, heart, and hands open.

 I’m going to look for ways to give love to my family, help for the helpless, and hope for the hopeless.

It’s going to cost me money, time, and expectations.

I'm not even going to be alarmed about what kind of potato salad is on the table.