Enough to Share

I was awaken by the warm comforting smell of fresh baked bread. When I came into the kitchen there was my grandmother surrounded by twelve loaves. If I close my eyes I can still see her standing there surrounded by her bread, my mind can remember the aroma that filled the kitchen. Bread was my grandmother's gift, a gift to be enjoyed and a gift to be shared.

On the day Grandmother baked bread I became her emissary taking her gifts throughout the "patch." Grandmother lived in a small immigrant coal mining community in Pennsylvania. At each home I was greeted with smiles and hands ready to receive the warm loaf. My grandmother was known for her generosity. Grandmother let me share in her joy of giving by allowing me to be her hands and feet as I delivered her gifts.

I often think about this experience when I pray, "Give us this day our daily bread." Jesus illustrated this request for bread by asking the question,"Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, 'Friend, lend me three loaves, for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him.'"(Luke 11:5) The request for daily bread is not only for my needs but so that I will have enough to share.

When I was a child my grandmother invited me not only to share the pleasure of eating her delicious home made bread but she also invited me to share in the pleasure of her generosity. Even though I had nothing to do with the making and baking of the bread still I got to distribute the it. When I say the Lord's Prayer and I ask for my daily bread I think of this. I ask for daily communion by taking the living bread and I marvel that I get to be an emissary of my Heavenly Father. He not only satisfies my deepest hunger but invites me to bring to others the warm comfort of the bread of Heaven.