DAILY BREAD

Can't even remember how this was brought up recently, but has really kept me thinking, questioning.

When we, speaking the Lord's Prayer, asked for our Daily Bread, we grew up assuming it meant we would simply have our daily food needs met. Believe me, when I, for a number of years, was living in very poor circumstances, personally trying to find enough "Daily Bread" for my kids, I was very frightened. And then, through God's care, huge blessings occurred when groceries were left by my front door, or a church gave me a gift for groceries.

Once, in early 1983, in Edmond, OK, Steve, my son, who was 10 years old at the time, and I were sitting at the table and eating supper. Each of us had a bowl of rice with milk and sugar. That was it. Period. A few minutes later, there was a knock on the door and a lady came in with two bags of groceries. My son put her in tears. Standing next to me, looking at the sacks, big eyed, he said, "Mom. FOOD." Bev gave me a check for $75.00 made for a grocery store and had already arranged with them that I could spend it. She stayed at the house while I went shopping. THAT gift was SUPREME "Daily Bread" -- in an extremely joyous gift!


In today's present life, "Daily Bread" could, however, mean, not just food, but the common everyday needs... when and wherever we live. Even though Nebraskans have needs, I'm highly aware that most folks on the coastal sides of our nation face far more challenging financial or material basics than we do.

In our area, besides food and housing and utilities, most of us require cars... that means that we must have gas, oil changes, insurance, repairs, new tires and on and on. Sometimes buses, or other inexpensive transportation, simply isn't available -- we don't have subways, for instance. In portions of our region, jobs and shopping locations are quite distant, or the local can-walk-to ones are expensive, i.e. convenience stores. [Yes, while working at times, and not having a car, I've bussed, walked, biked, and carpooled, so that's obviously less expensive, but also not too easily accomplished.]

Even those of us who try to live as basically as possible in our society can really be struggling, day by day, and, especially, month by month, since that's the way the bills are scheduled.

So, besides just filling some of our necessary "Caesar" requirements or everyday ones, Dave and I are rarely spending more. We've hit a phase of life that requires some heavy financial attention. Don't want to be irresponsible, to God or others.

So any thoughts? This may seem a little extreme to some folks, and I'd like it if some ideas were shared and spread so we could adjust our lifestyles.

Oh, and I DON'T think most of us should require fancy washers and dryers, any dishwashers, fragrant deodorant, tooth-whitening toothpaste, wrinkle-reducing creams, etc. There ARE "Daily" options, but I don't think things such as these count. We need to think about what's reasonable to anticipate the Lord's "Daily" touch for our lives, without which we simply can't make it.

Different locations, such as Uganda, where we lived, of course, have different requirements, different needs, different daily "Breads".

Our yard fruit on our porch in Uganda.