Boy 1 woke up with something on his mind.
“I had a dream about people who are poor. They only had a little soup, and were so hungry. Mom, I want to help feed them.”
Moments like these make motherhood an amazing gift. To see a human soul, so often full of self, open up and want to give is a miraculous encounter with love; your love for that child, that child’s love for others, and the love of God that makes hearts whole all overwhelm you.
That’s how all six of us all ended up there, at the church, helping to make sandwiches, pack supplies, and then head out for a Thursday night truck run to feed the hungry and the homeless of our city.
And all night I knew by the tight feeling in my chest, love was filling me to overflowing.
I am ashamed and sad to say this was the first time I had gone since we moved back to Austin two years ago. It won’t be the last, now that I know how much we all need to be there, where gifts are given in such abundance. Bread loaves are sliced and bagged at the church. Heart-loaves are broken and passed at the truck. Grace gifts are poured out and shed abroad in a parking lot.
The greatest gift I received that night was the sight of my first boy standing in the back of a truck, filling meal bags. Like a farm-grown fish finally put in the stream of life, he swam his way through that crowd with purpose, with destiny. His sadness that a tired sister meant going home before the other stops tied the night’s gift up with awe from his mama’s heart.
This boy loves God’s people, and he wants to feed them. How did we miss that for eight years? He gave everyone in our family the gift of what childhood is so very full of: dreams of a better world.
This world can always use more dreams like the one Boy 1 had that night. I wonder what else we can dream of doing?
