Feast or Famine in the Wilderness

Hunger adds flavor to any meal.

I am fasting this morning.  I am fasting in prayer that Heavenly Father will help me and each member of my family to open all the doors of possibility and that He will push us through the right ones;  that He will help us to take any needful action on our part that is necessary for Him to do His part; that He will help us to find the path and pur our feet upon it.

I have been ill for several weeks.  On Friday morning I made a journal entry in which I expressed I held no hope for relief from my present life situation.  On Saturday morning I received an e-mail post which held out to me a baton of hope.  This happened just fifteen minutes short of twenty-four hours when I had no hope.  This is how I came to realize how tightly my physical health is bound to my spiritual health.  I felt the weight of worry and despair that I have been carrying leave my body particle by partical.  I was exhausted.  I gave mental thanks for being able to breathe.

And so I came to see that I have been having what I will call a "wilderness experience".  I am coming to see that this experience has been necessary and that it was necessary that it be NOW.  In this context let me introduce Babbette.

Babbette's life was good, and yet it was unbearable--even in the time of her being surrounded by all that she needed to become and be the artist that she was in the finest kitchen in Paris.  The very wealth and oppulance which drew upon her gifts smothered the lives of her friends, neighbors and family.  She was part of the "resistence" which overthrew her clientele and made it necessary for her to flee France.  A string of events that happened years earlier brought her, penniless and ill,  to the threshold of a pair of devout spinster sisters.  These sisters were persuaded to keep her in their service by a letter of introduction which Babbette presented them.

Babette began her wilderness experience.  Not one soul in this tiny community understood her great ability.  Indeed, they could not even guess.  In this remote and simple village Babbette gave freely what she could, never complaining, never demanding, never correcting.  She quietly went about rendering service and using what simple means she had at hand to make life more pleasant for the sisters and their little flock of fellow believers in their austere congregation.  Their pastor father, long since deceased, had relied heavily upon the help of his two young and beautiful daughters while he was alive and highly regarded among the faithful.  Both daughters gave up opportunites of love, fame, and fortune to remain by their father's side.

Two events brought to Babbette an opportunity to both honor the sisters' charity to her and to give her an opportunity to bless others while at the same time releasing the long hidden gifts of the artist she truely was.  One was her receiving 10,000 francs and the other was the sisters' desire to honor their father with a little feast at the 50th anniversary of his passing.  Babbette persuaded the sisters to allow her to prepare the menu and the feast, all at her own expense.  They reluctantly agreed.  Their reluctance grew to anxiety as they watched the ingerdients parade into their kitchen.  They sectretly visited their congregants, desiring of them that the meal be attended but not accepted. They feared that this meal would usher in damnation of a sort.

Luckily for them all a former suitor of one of the sisters who had found worldy success and acclaim had returned to visit his grandmother who was among the sisters' invited guests.  He was added to the list, bringing the number of diners up to twelve.  It was this man who recognized Babette's genius and interpretted it to the other guests.  He even had an ephiphany of the savior's grace which he shared with the little group.

 Meanwhile, the feast had worked it's magic upon all around the table.  Over the years petty slights and arguments had festered among them to the point of excluding harmony within their hearts and among their association with one another.  Somehow the elgance of the dishes, the table decorations, the fine wines, the delicate dishes, all combined together to soften their hearts and open their minds to a higher truth.  Whether they understood or agreed with the little speech on grace, they did feel it.  They were each transported to a happier place in ther memories -- to a time before their perceived suffereing.  They opened up and laughed and forgave -- forgave themselves and forgave one another.

This is grace--the miracle of forgiveness. 

Man is that he might have joy, and have it more abundantly.

It is better that we pass through sorrow, that we might recognized the good.

There must needs be an opposition in all things.