Want Some Spirituality with Your Potatoes and Carrots?

I love my work for the fact that whilst I’m on the road, delivering meals to very vulnerable people, listening to some didactic radio, God speaks. He always speaks. And He gives me some wonderful opportunities in the interactions I have with the fifty or so clients I deliver to. I have the privilege of serving all these people, and my few minutes of ‘pastoral care’ makes much of a difference to some.

With one particular person I’ve developed a rapport. This person is in their late eighties, has had many health and medical issues and trials to contend with, and happens to have a very strict diet. And I could tell straight away that this person values their spirituality.

Over the fifteen (or so) occasions I’ve delivered to this person, every interaction’s been different, and every contact has been remarkable. Some occasions we’ve talked about the weather, other times I’ve listened to a passionate complaint about our service, once I prayed a blessing over the home, and another time I listened for a few minutes more than normal because there were tears. Pain is something that this person bears constantly. We have both had cause to apologise, and still I have cause to thank this person for their grace — for what they can muster, in their interactions with me, given the challenges they face. What we have had is real spiritual contact through perhaps little more than one hour overall together.

I praise God that I have found myself in work that has had more than its share of spiritual blessing; that I’ve been surprised by it. It’s hard work, no doubt. There are many tests and frustrations being out on the road, managing the shifting sands of details and customers and meal orders that change, and the like. And sometimes I’ve given in to those frustrations and cussed like a demon. Yet God knows these tests have been good for me. I’ve been pushed to a place where my resilience has been defeated many times, and, in that, my resilience has improved.

The person I discuss serving here is the epitome of the diversity of the work. I’m very thankful that I can offer some welcome spirituality with their potatoes and carrots. I never thought that the spirituality of caring concern could be vital in this work. The truth is that the spirituality of caring concern is vital everywhere, even when the core work is meals delivered with potatoes and carrots.

With God, watch for the wonder in the banal. God ‘shows up’ in the everyday more than anywhere else in life. The Lord works best in the boring.

May God truly bless you as you see the wonders of God working in the mundane,

Steve Wickham.