Our Miracle of Elijah and the Widow of Zarepath

A week ago I was in the commissary doing my weekly grocery shopping. With gas prices rising, food prices have been rising. R’s cost of living adjustments the last two years haven’t kept up with rising gas and food prices, let alone the increasing consumption of our growing family. Our budget continues to be tight. As I was shopping on Thursday, I was a little discouraged. I was thinking about all of the extra food that I was buying for R’s birthday party Friday night, and the extra food that I was buying for the company we were having on Sunday as we’d invited a couple of sets of friends over to watch General Conference with us. I wondered about how much all of it was going to cost. As I walked the aisles of the store I thought back to the story of Elijah and the widow of Zarephath who he asked to make bread for him from her last little bit of meal and oil. (It had been shared in sacrament meeting last Sunday.) I also thought about the people I see in the commissary each week with grocery carts overflowing and mine, that is usually only half full of food. I reflected on thoughts I’d been having over the last few weeks when week after week I go to the check out counter with only a half a cart full of groceries, amazed that I can feed our growing family (to included a teenage son) with so comparatively little food. I unloaded my cart wondering what the total would be this week, only to be shocked when, in spite of all of the extra food I was buying, the total was what it always averages out to be. As I paid for the groceries, the thought came clearly to my mind that I was witnessing our family’s own little miracle…our version of Elijah and the widow. That, in spite of rising food costs, and feeding extra people, and a growing teenage boy, our family is fed and full on such a small grocery budget and such a small amount of food. I thought about all of the many people we have fed over the past nine years that we have lived here.

It was wonderful to share this experience with the kids this week in Family Home Evening and testify to them of this ongoing miracle that is blessing our lives because we are trying to serve others and do the right thing. (And R added, "because we’re paying our tithing.")