Beech Tree News Network

My granddaughter, Sabria, had her tonsils removed last Tuesday.  She has really struggled.  I made the mistake of holding a flashlight up to her mouth and looking at the back of her throat.  It was very nasty looking, to the point that I almost dropped the flash light.  She stayed at our house the first night.  She had to be awoken every three hours for pain medication.  She slept on the futon in the room next to ours, under her snowman blanket. 
    She’s been with her mom and Scott at their house since then.  It’s been a rough go trying to get her to drink or even eat the softest of foods.  Natalie put her on speaker phone last night when we called.  She asked for her snowman blanket.  She needed the comfort it always brings her.  I understood.
    The thing about the snowman blanket is this.  It is a simple throw given to her for Christmas by her cousins—two little girls whose parents struggle to get their own children gifts for Christmas.  It was all they could afford to do for Sabria.  Sabria doesn’t know that.  She just loves the blanket because it brings her warmth and comfort.  She is a little girl who appreciates little things.
    Sometimes, I forget how important it is to give what you can.  I’ve told you what a large garden we always have.  We put up a lot of stuff, and we give away a lot, as well.  Today, I was going through green beans my son-in-law, Scott, had pulled from a trellis in order to plant green peas in their place.  Because they’re late beans, a lot of them need to be shelled instead of broken, and there are bug bites on many that will have to be discarded.  While surveying the rest of the veggies, I noticed the cucumbers are misshapen, the tomatoes have splits around their cores, and the squash aren’t as tender as the early summer squash.
    I started to put some of the veggies into bags for my friends, and I found myself thinking, “These things aren’t good enough to give to people.”  I had draped Sabria’s snowman blanket over a kitchen chair, so I wouldn’t forget to take it to her when I left the house, and it caught my eye, as I stood there looking at the less than perfect produce on my kitchen floor.
    Food has always been Garey’s and my offering, almost since the first year we were together.  Raising food is what we do well, even if it is sometimes misshapen or cracked or has bug bites on it.  Standing in the kitchen with the vegetables in the floor and the snowman blanket draped over the chair, I remembered once more the line from Leonard Cohen’s song, Anthem: Forget your perfect offering; there is a crack in everything; that’s how the light gets in.
    In the Gospels there is a story of how Jesus fed a multitude of 5,000 with only five barley loaves and two fish.  That indeed was a miracle, but an important part of that miracle was—as our pastor, Josh Scott, pointed out—that the five loaves and two fish were offered in the first place.  Who would give 5 loaves and 2 fish to 12 disciples who were trying to feed 5,000 people?  A child, that’s who.  A young boy who believed his offering could be useful.  And it was.
    “Except you become as little children…”
    I hope I always remember the parable of the snowman blanket and its message: My offering is good enough.