This is a true story. It happened sometime ago. But IT happened.
A few of my dear loved ones know this story.
I felt it needed to be told again. I want to share it with everyone.
I will tell you this. This story does not belong to me. It belongs to God.
This was at a time, where I was really struggling with my emotions and talking a lot to God about my feelings. I was feeling frustrated and angry.
I was letting my feelings get in the way of what God needed to do in me.
I was feeling upset about some things that was going on in my life at the time and questioning God concerning those things and what He wanted for me and how he was going to help me.
I felt mad and hurt about those things that was happening.
My normal reaction to these things, was to eat. Now at this time, I was trying not to do that. I was just starting to learn how to go to God with my feelings instead of to food.
I was on a journey with God and I wanted His healing in my life.
I couldn’t understand so many things and wanted to know why, for everything.
Because so much damage, hurt, and lies were done to me.
I got desperate to know truth. His truth into my life.
Food just did not give me the answers I desperately needed for my life.
I was at a cross road. God met me in the middle.
Now at this time I also was thinking about making a meatloaf for my family.
I was thinking about how my mother-in-law made hers. She put potatoes and string beans around it, as it cooked. It was really good. So I decided to give it a try. I am not a good cook. Never have been. So I begin to pray about the food turning out good, before I even went to the store to get all that I needed to make this. I kept on praying for it to be blessed and to taste good as I prepared it and cooked it. Prayer over the food I cook serves a good purpose for those who will eat it!
We were on a very tight budget and I only went to the grocery store every 2 weeks. So I had to make certain of my list of needs and that the things I bought would last 2 weeks. If I missed something on the list….then I had to do without it.
The evening I was preparing to make the meatloaf. I noticed I did not have the potatoes. I was very upset. I complained to my husband. I shoved the 2 little cans of string beans in my husband’s face and said, “See, no potatoes!“ I complained a little bit more about it, as he moved back away from me.
“I planned this meal and forgot the potatoes!”
My husband comforted me and told me it would still be good without them.
I told him, that it was not going to work out at all. I was so disappointed.
He gave me a “I am sorry for you look,“ and then told me, he and my son were going to go over to his dad’s house to help him mend a fence.
When they left, I turned my attention, half hearted, to my supper plans and I put on the radio to listen to some Christian music.
I begin to sing as I cooked and felt better.
But I still didn’t feel especially happy about making this meatloaf without the potatoes. I was also still thinking about the frustrations I was feeling about the hurt in my life and wanting to know what God was going to do about it.
An Amy Grant song, came on, ‘Love Will Find A Way.’
She started singing,
“Here I stand an angry young woman taking all the pain to heart, Love will find a way.”
Hear it for yourself and you’ll see with your heart, how God spoke to mine through this song…right then and there in that moment!
http://www.lyricstime.com/amy-grant-find-a-way-lyrics.html
As I listened to this song. I became overwhelmed. Tears fell from my eyes, like a steady rain on a windshield.
I felt tingles and my heart squeezed. I knew God was loving on me, relating to me, showing me He cared.
I began to cry and I lifted my hands up to Him and prayed. I told Him, I was sorry for my attitude and thanked Him for caring for me and being there for me.
I felt better as I was cooking.
It came time for me to put the string beans and NO potatoes with the meatloaf.
My Heart got okay with that, I would have been an idiot not to get over that now.
I accepted we would have a good meal without the potatoes.
I got out a can opener and the 2 cans of string beans and a bowl. I opened the first can and poured out the string beans.
I opened the 2nd can of string beans and poured out……………………………POTATOES!
YES! P-O-T-A-T-O-E-S!
Beautiful white little round ones! They seemed endless, coming out that little can!
Filling the bowl, over flowing!
I praised God and thanked Him, right then and there.
He did that!
He is so in the details!
I decided not to cook them right away, I covered them up with a dish towel and waited to show my husband.
I couldn’t wait for him to get home. I kept saying to God, “Please hurry him home, I can’t wait to show him what You did!”
I thought he would never get there! I was acting like a little kid that had to go pee really bad and had no bathroom to get to. I couldn’t hardly stand it!
He barely got in the door and I was on him, like white on rice. Jumping up and down, acting like a woman gone crazy!
I kept saying, “You gotta see this!” “You gotta see this!”
“You gotta see what God did!”
I whipped off the dish towel from the top of the bowl. He looked astonished, his mouth was wide open….He said, “Where did those come from, we didn’t have any potatoes.”
I held up the little green bean can and thrust it toward him and said, “From this can!”
He said, “That is a string bean can.” (like I didn’t know that)
“How can you get potatoes from that?!”
I said, “I knoooooooooow!” “God did it!”
He began to cry. He was very moved with overwhelming feelings of emotion.
We sure had a great meal.
And everything tasted so good.
There is just a little more to this story….
At the time, I was attending a women’s class one night a week at the church we were attending at that time.
The next day, after God gave us potatoes for our meal. I pondered in my heart all day about what happened.
I said in my heart, “God, this is mine, what happened here last night is mine, not anybody else’s.” “It is between You and I. It is my story.”
Oh, you know what? I bet when I said that in my heart. God just smiled at me. Cause He was going to set me straight on that in a quick minute!
I think He takes a little joy in our stubborn-ness. He does His best work in those times!
I went to my class.
After the leader prayed us in, to start the class, my heart begin to stir in me something fierce!
I am not kidding! Then all the sudden the leader said, “Does anybody have something they would like to share, before we get started?”
“What in the name that is all holy?????” “She never asked that before!”
My heart kept squeezing in a way I never felt before.
I heard the Holy Spirit tell me, “Tell about the potatoes.”
I said, inside myself….”No, it is my story.”
He said, “No, it is not your story, it is My story.”
I sat there, determined not to tell it.
I wanted it to myself.
All at once…I felt a heavy pressure on my head, gently pushing me down and down and down. I am talking literally. I was going down for the count!
I was slipping out of my seat and onto the floor!
I thought, “Good Lord, I am sliding right off this chair in front of all these women!”
Just before I hit the floor. I said in my heart, “Fine.” “I will tell it.”
I pulled myself back up in a sitting position and opened my mouth.
The words just poured out.
There were tears and laughter everywhere in that room.
Amazement!
That story touched each one in there in a different way and meant something different to each of their lives.
One lady who was there, who is now a best friend to me, she said, “I bet when you opened up that 2nd can and those potatoes came out, an angel up in heaven saw the look on your face and said, “Now that is a Kodak moment, I’m taking a picture!”
Later that story, was printed in short version form in another Women’s Bible study in that church. It was shared with many others. I learned from many women, how it touched them personally in their lives.
It is not my story. It is God’s story.
After that class was over with…some time later. I was at the dollar store. I saw a white gift bag with big potatoes on the front and written across it were these words, Thank God for the food and don’t forget the potatoes.
I bought the bag.
Kim Wenrich
2 Corinthians 5:17
Psalms 139
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Gods-Girls-Most-Honorable-and-Beautiful-Among-All-Women/248867505178819
