The shack was nestled into a stench of run-down buildings, surrounded by wreckage, rubbish, and the dangerously-dark, lifestyles of those who lived nearby. Planted, by my now absent husband, in that dismal place, I had more than just my own grief to deal with. Somehow, I had to summon a way to distract my two and three-year old sons from the gnawing hunger that was in their stomachs. My own stomach was bulging with my third child. For months we had desperately needed food; sometimes it would show up on the back porch—vegetables from someone’s garden. Sometimes someone would hand me a $20 bill. Those were answered prayers.
God was about to turn my life around, but He first needed to rebuild my hope. On this particular morning nothing had shown up on the back porch. There was no money. The only thing in the refrigerator was a six-inch plate with about two tablespoons of cooked spaghetti on it. I knew this would never fill the tummies of my children.
Defeated, I sighed, “Lord, what am I going to do?”
He said, “Heat the spaghetti.”
I sighed deeply. “Lord, it isn’t enough to fill them.”
Again, the Lord said, “Heat the spaghetti.”
I dumped the contents of the plate into a small pan; you could see the bottom of that pan. I turned the heat on low and stirred it …and I began to cry.
It all seemed so hopeless. It had been hopeless for a very long time.
Once the spaghetti was warm, I took out two six-inch plates, preparing to put a tablespoon of spaghetti on each plate. It all struck me as terribly pitiful. And then I began to cry even harder. I cried and cried and cried and spooned and spooned and spooned. I grabbed a third six-inch plate and continued crying and spooning. And then … I stopped crying.
Notwithstanding all of my “poor, me” sobbing, a miracle was occurring right in front of me. Staring me in the face were three six-inch plates, completely filled with steaming-hot spaghetti.
When I realized that I had just been the recipient of a miracle, I fell to the floor with my arms up in the air, confessing, “You are the same God. You are the same God.” What I was trying to articulate was the fact that the same God, reported in the Bible, to have taken a small boy’s lunch of two fishes and five loaves, and had fed five thousand people with it, had just stepped into my shack and stretched the spaghetti to feed three very hungry people. God had just demonstrated His ability to do the impossible before my very eyes. That incredible act of love and kindness poured a strength into my heart that had been absent for a very long time.
The knowledge that He could see what we were enduring, and that He was stretching out His hand to relieve us, emboldened me to ask Him for a house. I did not want to have my third baby in that shack.
And God heard. More miracles were to follow; and my hope grew because of His faithfulness and compassion. Eventually, the children and I moved to a quiet, little red house in the country. It was surrounded with sweet-smelling wheat fields; and gentle breezes that would blow their scent and peacefulness through the screened windows into the ample rooms. It was there that the Lord poured out His blessing on me; for in that clean, little country abode, I would hear my very first song. Over a thousand songs would follow.
Psalm13 How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? 2 How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? 3 Consider and answer me, O Lord my God; light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death, 4 lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed over him,” lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken. 5 But I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. 6 I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me.