“But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “‘today’” (Hebrews 3:13a ESV).
Yesterday Christian, my son, made me two “crummy sammiches.” I’ve been calling them sammiches ever since Christian was very young and could not pronounce sandwiches, and yesterday he made me two of them.
Let me rewind. Christian told me he was hungry and he was heading upstairs to make a sammich. He asked me if I would like one, and what kind. I said, “Yes, surprise me.” As I waited, I realized I was hungry as well. I started to wonder what kind of sammich I would receive. Would it be the traditional PB&J? Did we have some luncheon meats left and would I get a turkey and mustard sammich? Or would Christian go all out and make me a tuna and mayo sammich? Then I remembered I said to surprise me. This may have been a mistake, as I then realized I could get air in between two dry pieces of toast (he can be a jokester, and I did say surprise me).
Lo and behold, he came down with not one, but two sammiches, and surprise me he did! He delivered them, I thanked him, and he went back up to make his own sammich. As I bit into the first sammich, I could not believe the detail and effort Christian put into making that sammich. It was lightly toasted to perfection. On it was a fried egg, a strip of bacon—perfectly crisp and broken into small pieces—a few pieces of cheese, and the piece de resistance, a touch of mayo. I will unbiasedly say these are two of the best sammiches I’ve ever eaten. As I stared at the plate full of crumbs (yep, I misspelled crumby in my first sentence), I contemplated what my son had done for me and realized there was one more special ingredient in those sammiches, and I quietly thank God for it.
“Giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Eph. 5:20 ESV).
The ingredient was in the asking if I wanted a sammich. The ingredient was in the preparation of the sammich. The ingredient was in the delivery of the sammich. The extra ingredient was love!
The extra ingredient was love!
As tasty as those sammiches were, that extra ingredient put them over the top. I had to go upstairs to tell him. As I brought my crumby plate into the kitchen to let him know, I realized he had yet to eat (even though he originally went upstairs hungry). He was in the kitchen doing the same thing for his mother and his sister, adding portions of the special ingredients to their order.
There is a lesson here, but as it was with Jesus’ parables, each had multiple lessons. From this, we could learn to serve others with love. We could learn to put our best efforts into all we do. We could learn to serve others before ourselves. All of these would be valid and valuable lessons from the sammich account. But, here is the lesson I received from this unselfish act: Count your blessings. Count them one by one. Be thankful for the little things in life. These are currently trying times for us, and in the mundaneness of the day in and day out of being cooped up in this home, my eyes have been opened to see the beautiful blessings in the little things—like a crumby sammich!
“Praise the Lord! Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever!” (Ps. 106:1 ESV).