Lunchboxes

I’ve decided that lunch boxes kind of define my life.

At first glance, they appear to be a never-ending routine of work. You fill them, they complain about what is in them, they partially empty them, you clean them out and then you fill them….again and again it goes. Not only do they need work to fill, you have a lot of prep work to get them ready to be filled. There is bread to make, groceries to buy and fruits and veggies to wash. There is guilt and worry involved as well: is this food good enough, healthy enough, non-processed enough? Will the other children/mothers/teachers think these lunches are good enough? Will the kids open their lunch and think of a loving mother or will the whole kit-n-caboodle get trashed immediately leaving my child begging for food, looking as if no one loved them?
If the first glance were accurate, I would have quit a long time ago, but luckily, upon further inspection, I see how valuable they are. I think of my mom and all the lunches she prepared for me and how we used to go through a loaf of bread EVERY day. But now she doesn’t have any lunchboxes left to fill. They go away you see…..they are not always there needing you to fill them. And if you worked hard and put up with the tireless routine, you look back on those lunchboxes with real joy. They represent true love and a stewardship given by a loving, trusting Heavenly Father. They represent enduring love, selflessness and what CAN be.

So you see, lunch boxes do define my life….what it is, what it looks like on the outsides verses what it feels like on the inside and what I hope it can be.