I grab a few items out of the freezer, including a random bag of cooked and sliced ham my dad had brought at some point. I'm not sure what I'll use this for, but it needs used. I don't even like ham. I think to myself.
The next day, I take a mental inventory of ingredients I have. Chopped onion. Cans of beans. Carrots. Garlic. Bone broth. Herbs. A rainy weather forecast.
Ham and bean soup it is! I grab my big metal stock pot while Jael slides her chair over to stand next to me. I chop and sauté. I rinse and pour beans. Jael helps me stir and excitedly chatters about how she can't wait to eat soup with a slice of bread.
The soup simmers along with our afternoon and the stove gets turned off while I settle us into naps.
Entirely too soon, naptime ends, and Jael comes rushing in asking if it's time for soup yet. We gather bowls and sit at the table scarfing down warm bowls on this drizzly day. Even I have to admit that ham is downright tasty in this fashion.
We assemble dirty dishes and I pack soup into a mason jar to take to my mother-in-law's home before snapping the lid onto a large tupperware container for us.
I make my way out the door to where Luis is sitting on our front porch chatting with our elderly neighbor. I look at the time, realizing that our neighbor probably hasn't gotten his dinner DoorDashed to him yet for the evening, and offer up a bowl of soup.
His face lights up. “Ham and bean soup is my favorite!” We say our goodbyes and leave him sitting on the porch slurping soup.
Later I tell my friend about it all and she says, “Maybe it was all to bless him.” And maybe it was.
I read this in Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary this morning as I worked through Psalm 104: “Does God provide for the inferior creatures, and will he not be a refuge to his people?”
Isn't it just like God to orchestrate circumstances and provision on our behalf?
Amen. What a precious reminder!