I’ve kind of hesitated to participate in the #givethanks challenge. Mostly because I hate doing whatever the crowd is doing, and I don’t want to be trite in my gratitude. I’ve been thinking about what I could share that’s not shallow.
In the early days of the pandemic and shut down, when the store shelves were really bare of everything, I was quite worried how to feed my family. With moving two years before, a broken foot, and then my husband and I both losing a parent in a short time period, I just had let our pantry and food storage get really low. Week after week there was no bread in our store and I was starting panic. With a food allergy kid anything that comes from a commercial bakery is going to be unsafe to eat. There are two kinds of commercially produced bread Kroger sells that my son can eat. I was also down to my very last bag of flour and half-jar of yeast, so even baking bread was going to be problematic.
We’d gone to visit my mother-in-law in Vernal where they have three grocery stores. Every day I’d leave for a few hours to go see if I could find flour, bread, or anything else our family needed. Even in Vernal things were sparse, and the one day Walmart had a few bags of flour someone came in a bought all of the bags at once, leaving everyone else without. We left Vernal at the end of that week with everything we needed except flour. I remember driving out of town with a prayer in my heart, “Heavenly Father, I need to find some flour for my family so I can make bread for my son. I need help. Please help us.”
That day we drove home thru Colorado and stopped for the night in Alamosa. We needed to get gas for the car, and stopped at a City Market with a gas station. I decided to go in and see if there was anything to be had at this store. I walked in and saw bare shelves at almost every turn. There were a few things and I placed those things in my basket. Then I stood a the head of the bakery isle, it was bare too. But I walked down anyway. There on the bottom shelf at the very back were three, five pound bags of flour. I grabbed two and had to hold back my tears. I left one for someone else and walked away very thankful that my needs had been met and my prayers had been answered.
As this pandemic has lengthened and we’ve begun to face the possibility of food shortages again and food insecurity in New Mexico, my panic levels have begun to rise again. But this time I’m better prepared having felt impressed many times over the last weeks and months as I’ve gone shopping to buy things, and being able to find things online as well.
I’m thankful for a God who hears my prayers and who provides for us. I’m thankful for the Gift of the Holy Ghost that comforts, guides and helps to focus my thoughts when they need some help. Miracles are real, and prayers get answered, sometime in a 5lb sack of flour.