the pantry

The pantry in my Memphis home was huge. As a result, I could never find anything. Now, in my off hours, I am unpacking the boxes packed by the moving company and I'm finding many duplications of goods. I count five cans of diced tomatoes, three cans of tomato paste, four cans of cream of chicken soup and so on.

Not only does my tiny new home in Eagleville, PA lack a pantry, there is very little cabinet space in the kitchen. I have far too many things to fit in the space!

In my preparation to move from 4000 square feet to 950+ square feet, I was so busy paring down my furniture and accessories and clothes, that I failed to consider all of the stuff in that pantry. But all of these duplications makes me consider whether this isn't a good lesson for my life.

Is it possible that I have so much that I fail to see what I have? Are diced tomatoes symbolic of some other blessing that I have in abundance that I fail to be thankful for on any given day? Am I, in fact, seeking what I already have?

This is not the first time I have been faced with this lesson. When my son was six years old, I was running late one wintry morning and raced out to the car, only to find it covered with ice. I wanted to cry and silently complained to God as I scraped the ice from the passenger side of the car, "Could you not send me an angel who would do this for me?" I meant a partner in life, of course, a man who would scrape the ice from my car and do so many of the other tasks that husbands traditionally do. As I felt the full force of my bitterness flowing from me into that ice scraper, I glanced through the hole I was creating and noticed my son's sweet face smiling brightly at me through the hole he was creating in the ice on the other side of the car. I already had an angel. I smiled back and felt ashamed. Count your blessings, my grandfather used to tell us, count them - every one.