Our family is in a bit of a tight spot here this summer as my husband's job went away semi-suddenly. He's been with the same company for nearly a decade, and we've been so blessed during that time. Now he's job hunting, but there is a lot of uncertainty about what this will mean for our family in the coming months.
Needless to say, with a new baby and the job situation, things are stressful for us.
So, our day to serve in the new Philadelphia Temple open house finally came last weekend. I was signed up to serve Friday night, which meant leaving my husband to fend for, feed and get our five kids settled in our downtown hotel all on his own. Let me just say that given the conditions of the downtown area where the temple is located, this was a BIG ASK.
Anyway, my shift was from 5-10pm, and the last time I had eaten was 2pm, so midway though my volunteer time I started to get hungry.
While I was standing there waiting for another group to come through my thoughts turned to food. I found myself wishing I could have a hamburger for dinner...and wishing I could tell my husband to pick one up for me before he came to pick me up (which would be well after 10pm that night.)
I couldn't text my husband though, because our cell phones and purses were being kept in the meeting house next door. So, without thinking about the impropriety of my request, I said a prayer in my head, "Heavenly Father, please ask Steve to pick up a hamburger for me before he picks me up from my shift tonight."
I caught myself and thought...um, that seems like an inappropriate request to ask God for a hamburger! What am I thinking? But I had already thought the prayer! So, again in my head, I tried to soften the request with, "A salad would be ok too...but a Burger would really hit the spot." Man, I thought, God must think I have some nerve!
When my husband picked me up, he told me how difficult it was with all the children and the circumstances at the hotel...then trying to secure dinner for them all.
I asked, "You didn't happen to pick up any food for me, did you?"
Of course, his answer was yes.
It wasn't until we made it to the hotel that I discovered he had indeed bought me a hamburger!!! (Which is not at all a usual request for me!)
He said he was all set to pick up Panera for the kids. He had even taken their orders. But when he walked downstairs to get dinner, he walked by a burger joint and he suddenly thought, "Hmmmm, a burger sounds good." He scrapped his plans and bought hamburgers for dinner instead.
I don't know why the Lord saw fit to get me a burger that evening. I am well-aware that the most powerful-being in the Universe does not need, nor should be expected to fulfill such a silly request...and yet He did and He does....all. the. time. Because He can. And because He loves us.
Because of the physical demands and changes of having a baby and the stress of not having a job, I have felt spiritually distant lately. But through this experience, I felt the Lord reaching out to me, pulling me back in, and showing me, once again, that there is nothing He can't do...no request too great or too small...and that if I will just lean on Him a little more, He can help me with anything.
The temple is beautiful. Life is beautiful...and strange sometimes.
And that burger was DELICIOUS!
(Burger Fi brands their name on their burgers as you can see. We had never even heard of Burger Fi, but even re-heated, this burger was smashingly good. So for our ward Linger Longer this week, Steve made his own branded Temple burgers!)
How sweet, hang in there and your other prayers will be answered also....
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your little miracle. What I found even more touching is this is what I read immediately following your story (my daughter is a brand-new school teacher):
ReplyDelete"You know God's hand is in all things when He even knows exactly what time you need to take out the trash. I had been procrastinating taking out our garbage, but I finally took it out tonight and found an answer to my prayer sitting there by the dumpster.
"I didn't have a chair for my desk at school, so I was just using a tan, plastic chair that was a little too low to the ground. It was on my to-do list to get a nicer, cushier chair for my desk, but the heavens opened and placed one that someone was getting rid of right in my path.
"Thank you human that was tossing a relatively decent desk chair. It's going to a good home."
#tendermercy #firstyearteacher #teacherlife #parableofthedeskchair #sharegoodness
P.S. When we were in a similar loss-of-job position a few years ago, 1 Nephi 2:20 helped me a lot.
Love this burger story! We too are in the midst of trying to find a job, it's been since January and it is getting tough. I have seen some tender mercies in that time, and I hope you will too. Here's hoping and praying that jobs will happen soon for your family and mine too!
ReplyDeleteLove this! It was the perfect reminder for me today to remember just how much our Heavenly Father loves us!
ReplyDeleteYou're a mom of small children who was serving in the temple, which caused you to miss dinner. Totally appropriate request. God doesn't just bless us in the big things.
ReplyDeleteThis is a wonderful story! Thank you for sharing. My friend, who works in the Manhattan Temple, was sharing with me some of the Mundane Temple Miracles she and her husband often witness, and it made me consider how much God does care about our details and experiences. Sometimes we think we are being ridiculous to include Him in the mundane and ordinary aspects of our lives, but isn't that what family does? And God is our family--just like our parents want to be including in those regular details, so does God. The difference is that his infinite capacity allows him to attend to the needs of all 7 Billion of his children currently living on earth.
ReplyDeleteSomebody up there loves you.
ReplyDelete=)