Starving Jackson

       I would like to think that I feed my family well.  Judging by the hours I spend in the kitchen, I don’t think I do too badly.  I admit, it can become monotonous to cook, clean, and serve, just to do it all over again.  So, I am grateful for my family’s cooking endeavors.

       My older children are beginning to get into the kitchen more.  Bella has acquired some basic cooking skills and is always looking for an excuse to cook for us.  Most of her results are pretty good.  Jackson however…  Well, this story is about him.  And it is also about me.  This is a story about feeding Jackson.

      One Saturday morning I had the rare pleasure of sleeping in.  The rest of my family had been in the kitchen for a good while before I came downstairs. I entered the kitchen wrapped in my fleece robe, looking for some coffee.  As my sleepy eyes glanced up, they beheld a scene of carnage.  My son was holding a plate filled with a pancake like substance, and he had the look of one who intended to eat it.  I gasped.  I opened my mouth, but nothing would come out.  It was a pancake massacre.  I turned and walked out of the room. 

      When I found the courage to enter the kitchen again, I walked passed my son, who was attempting to stomach his “pancakes”, and looked at the griddle – ground zero for the pancakes.  I put my hand over my mouth and realized something.  This was much bigger than poorly made pancakes.  This was near starvation.

  

      A scene of my son, maybe two or three years down the road, repeating this pancake incident over and over again came into my mind.  This was not in someone else’s kitchen, this was in my own.  It was real.  He knew how to “cook” two things that I knew of, “pancakes” and “kettle corn”.  This was serious.  I had to do something.  My son could starve. 

      My son was in danger.  The possibility of starvation was there.  Grabbing for what he could find was his first thought.  He needed help.   He needed to learn how to feed himself.  He could not rely on others to feed him.  One day, Momma would not be there anymore.  It was time to learn to cook. 

      We have often heard the phrase, you are what you eat.  What goes in will eventually bear fruit of some kind.  And we all know that we can tell a tree by its fruit.  No mother wants to raise a son who bears the fruit of bitterness, anger, selfishness, or unbelief.   The loving mother will do what she can to help tend that young sapling.  To help it bear the sweetest fruit she can. She will tend to the feeding and care of his soul.

      I know in the back of my mind that I could and should be doing more to help my son with his desire for more of God and His Word.  I would console myself with the sight of his Bible off of the shelf or when he would tell me that he read his Bible today.  Ok, well at least he is getting some Bible reading in.  But, how can I help him to want to read Scripture, to love the Word, to know his God?

      My father in law is a chef.  He makes, no creates, wonderful food.  He is very particular in how he cooks and for whom he cooks.  To get an invitation to his table is a real treat.  He has one standard that he judges most food by, was it made with love? He says that if you love the person you are cooking for, you will put your heart into it. 

      And so, because I love my son, I put love into what he eats.  But his soul needs to be fed just as his body needs to be fed.  His soul, as well as mine, can only be satisfied with one thing, God and His Word.  As the Psalmist tells us, “he would feed you with the finest of the wheat, and with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.”  And if words were food, then my son would be a glutton.

      My son loves to read.  I mean loves to read.  He gets into ketchup bottle labels.  I mean, who does that?!  When I talk about a book I am reading or an author that I like, he wants to know about it himself.  One evening, we had a young man in our home who was talking about John Bunyan, the author of Pilgrim’s Progress.  The very next morning, my son was sitting on the couch with a copy of Pilgrim’s Progress that he had found on our shelf.  The fly was drawn to the honey.

      How sweet are the Scriptures to me?  Do I savor them and speak of their sweetness?  Am I offering my son a taste of the Words that are sweeter than honey and the honeycomb? 

      I need to draw Jackson into my own story, into my own interaction with the Word.  I need to tell Him about my own sweet encounters with the Bible.  I need to tell him that even though we have no money, we can come and buy food and drink.  I need to tell him that we can come to Jesus poor and naked and have nothing to give, and yet be filled with all the fullness of God.  I need to tell him that the Bible is not just a vitamin that we take once a day to ward off sickness.  God’s Word is meant to be savored and enjoyed, like a good pancake. 

      So, I think tomorrow morning I will make blueberry pancakes, and I will have an assistant.    I think I know what we will be talking about while we flip those beautiful blueberry pancakes.  It will be sweeter than honey and more satisfying than any feast.    It will fill our souls and we will be fed.

                      ~Your Fellow Sojourner

“Your words were found, and I ate them,

and your words became to me a joy

and the delight of my heart,” Jeremiah 15:16