The little girl looked at the cabinet that once stored cans of
government chicken meat. Now the last can of was gone.
That meat had been in the cabinet for a long time. Until recently, the
idea of eating meat from a can seemed funny. She vowed that she would
never eat the meat. Today she was hungry and the meat was all that was
available. She ate it quickly. She realized that there wasn’t anything left to
eat, and Christmas was less than a week away. She assumed there would
be no big Christmas meal. But there was a more pressing problem, what
would they eat tonight and tomorrow?
Her mother didn’t seem to notice that there wasn’t any food in the
house. Her mother went about doing her work as if the cabinet and
refrigerator was full. At last she had to ask, “Mama what are we going to
eat?”
Her mother looked at her and her siblings and said, “God will
provide. Don’t worry; He knows what our needs are. He will provide.” The
girl looked skeptically at her mother, and glanced at her younger siblings.
They didn’t seem to be concerned about the food crisis either.
It wasn’t long before there was a knock on the door. Her mother
opened the door. A young man explained that her family’s name had been
chosen to receive a Christmas basket from the community center.
Box after box of food was brought into the house. There was
everything for a good Christmas dinner, and more. As they put the food
away a second knock was heard. This time a local church had chosen their
name to give them a basket of food. Again she and her siblings went out to
receive the goodies; again they put the goodies away. Her mother
reminded her that the Lord had blessed them with more than enough food.
She was convinced that it was indeed an act of God.
Even in our time of plentiful, many children and teens are asking

parents about their next meal. A small act of kindness on our part may go
very far, in sealing their belief in God. Let’s be generous this year.