Donuts

God speaks to me through donuts.

Or maybe it is that I see God in ordinary things.

Or He waits to be profound when I'm thinking about something else entirely.

But all the same,

God speaks to me through donuts.

-

I was sitting at my usual Saturday morning bakery, reading John Ortberg's book, "God is closer than you think".

"We may ignore, but we cannot evade, the presence of God. The world is crowded with him. He walks everywhere incognito. And the incognito is not always easy to penetrate. The real labor is to remember to attend." (Nicholi)

People were streaming in and out, families, cyclists, students, and children. I smile, thinking about how breakfast unites people. The lawyer who is a regular just like me walks by, and then here comes the tattooed, thirty-something wearing a zip up hoodie.

I keep reading.

Until a family of three walks in.

Mom, Dad, and a 5 year old son.

They walk up to the counter and buy a dozen donuts. The donuts get packaged in one of those large, flat boxes. Mom heads for the door. Dad grabs the big box and the son follows him.

I watch as, about halfway across the bakery, the son reaches up for the box. "Let me carry it, " he asks his dad, excitedly. He reaches his little arms up and grabs the box and tries to put it under his arm. Sideways.

Dad lets go only momentarily, knowing exactly what is about to happen.

When the box starts to slip from the little boys hands, Dad grabs the box at either end.

Leveling the box of breakfast treats, Dad stands over the son, and together they start walking to the door.

The whole time, Dad is holding the box firmly in his hands. While the son walks underneath the box, his arms stretched up as far as they'll reach, his fingertips pushing on the bottom of the box.

Proudly, they walk out of the bakery together.

-

God snapped His fingers in my ear.

The whole bakery stood still for a minute as I watched this metaphor walk out the door.

"Once you see God in an ordinary moment at an ordinary place, you never know where He'll show up next. (Ortberg)"

He is carrying the weight.

He is controlling what I cannot handle on my own.

I may stretch and reach, He may even let me help, let me walk along with my fingertips brushing against it...

but in the end, He has it in His hands.

-

There is a recurrent theme about the lessons He is teaching me in this season.

He is using donuts to speak to me.