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We Ration When We Are Forced To Make Do

I don’t like having to ration my food to make it last, but sometimes I’m forced to.

we ration when we are forced to make do

We live in a country of bounty. We have far more of almost anything you could think of than many other countries.

So maybe that is why I get really frosted when I have to ration my food. 

I realize there are some in Canada who don’t have an endless supply of food. They need to be careful how much they eat or spend so that they can make it to the end of the month. 

The other week I was walking out to my car and a man came up and asked if I could help him out. He said he ate his last bagel that morning and didn’t have anything else to eat until his government check came in … which would be deposited in his bank account the next day. 

There have not been many days in my life where I had to bypass a couple of meals waiting for my money to come in.

There are other people who don’t have a lot to begin with, yet do very well managing what they have. But with the price of food, gas and everything else going up, they are finding it that much harder to keep food on the table. Some must turn to food programs or city food baskets to supplement them during the month. 

I think most of us are feeling the pinch a little bit right now. 

But what bugged me the other day was simply not getting enough peanut butter for my toast. 

On Saturdays my normal breakfast includes toast with peanut butter. We keep a large jar of the heavenly butter around all the time.

We are purists too. There is no sugar or additives in our peanut butter – just straight peanuts churned into a smooth spread that I love. Of course it comes with about an inch of oil on the top, but a little mixing with a hand mixer and the result is a perfect consistency right to the bottom of the jar.

At home I put as much peanut butter on my toast as I want to. This morning when I ate breakfast at a restaurant, however, I got a little plastic container with maybe half a tablespoon of peanut butter in it. 

Oh, and I had to ask for it as well. … Waitresses hold onto this stuff like it’s the next crypto currency and they are trying to stockpile it. 

My meal came with two slices of toast. How in the world do you ration that one capsule of peanut butter over two slices of toast?

Things might be tighter in the world right now than they were a couple of years ago, but please let’s not ration the peanut butter!

Let’s live a little in these stress-filled times. Dish out those peanut butter cups like they are really good, not like they are really gold.

Here’s the thing: We all know people who are stingy and people who are generous. I want you to know that God is generous. He gave us His Son, Jesus, to pay for our sins, so that His generous love could extend to us. God is generous with His Son and generous with His love. Put your faith in Jesus, God’s Son.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What do you need to be a little more generous with? Leave your comments and questions below.

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A Restaurant Service Disaster

I am wondering if there was a restaurant servers’ work slowdown last Sunday and no one made it public. It seemed like just another Sunday to me, that is, until my wife, Lily, and I went out for lunch after church.

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We had a busy afternoon ahead of us, with some hospital visiting, so we thought we would grab something to eat at a restaurant rather than going home first.

In deciding where to eat, we didn’t really want fast food, but we didn’t really want to be a long time in a restaurant, either. We were kind of in a hurry. So where do you go when you want an upgrade from burger and fries but don’t want to wait half an hour for your food? Swiss Chalet, of course.

So we got in the car and headed right there. Swiss Chalet was a perfect choice because you know what you are going to order before you enter the restaurant (at least one of us does).

When I was growing up, their entire menu could be boiled down to three options: You could order a quarter chicken white meat, or a quarter chicken dark meat. And if you were really hungry, you could order a half chicken meal.

Now they’ve added a number of other items like ribs and salads and a few others that my eyes kind of gloss over when I look at the menu.

So, when we pulled open the doors to the restaurant, I was ready to tell my waitress exactly what I wanted on my plate. Except when we got through the doors, we realized there were several other people waiting to be seated.

I was a little surprised at this because it was after 1:00 pm, so the noon rush should have been over by then. But I thought, “This is no problem; it’s Swiss Chalet. This line will clear out in no time.”

And sure enough, we didn’t wait more than about 5 minutes before we were shown to our table.  However, on our way to our table, I noticed there was a whole section that was empty, and in the back of my mind I wondered why we had to wait to be seated.

We sat down and I did my usual thing of turning the pages of the menu, not really looking at anything, and then closing it again … because, of course, I already knew what I was going to order.

It was about then that I noticed a few things. There were no waitresses in sight. No one came to ask us if we wanted something to drink. I started to get a bad feeling that if we stayed we would be there all afternoon.

We actually decided to try another restaurant. Others stayed, but we left – no waitress had noticed us come in anyway. The crazy thing was, on our way out there was another line up of people by the entrance waiting to be seated.

If only they knew there was just a hostess working that day, and there wouldn’t be anyone to take their order.

Here’s the thing: We can get conditioned to just accept things in our lives, even things that are wrong in God’s eyes. Don’t just accept those sins as things you can’t do anything about.  Recognize they are wrong and make a move to get rid of them.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What is something that you have just put up with in your life?  Leave your comment below.