There’s a story in the bible about one of the many miracles that Jesus performed. With nothing but a couple of loaves of bread and a few fish, he fed a group of thousands and not only that, after they ate their fill, they were able to carry away many baskets full of leftovers.
I always more or less took that story at face value. Obviously Jesus had multiplied the little food there was into tons of food in order to feed the large hungry crowd before him. It was a miracle, simple as that, and I’d been taught by the nuns in 3rd grade not to question miracles.
My son, however, has a different take on the story. As he told me recently, “Jesus just broke the bread and fish into lots of little pieces, and that is how he fed so many people.”
So basically, he fed them crumbs.
I was shocked, to say the least. I’d never even thought of that. When I mentioned it to my husband he pretty much agreed with my son.
Crumbs. Huh. Go figure.
And now, related to that only because I’m in need of a teeny little blanket miracle, I tell you this: My son has a favorite blanket that he’s had since he was an infant. It’s a blanket his godmother made for him that has old shirt tags sewn all along the edges. There is one tag in particular that has always been his favorite. Snags calls this tag his “Night Tag”. He sticks his fingers through this tag and holds it up to his nose and sniffs it. In all honesty, after 8 years of nose rubbing and sniffing, the tag is the foulest smelling thing on earth, and no amount of Tide or OxiClean or Febreze can help it. But my son doesn’t mind, and in fact, PREFERS it when I don’t wash the blanket as he loves the smell, one so foul it makes me gag. My eyes water just thinking about it.
Thankfully, it’s a small tag on a larger blanket and unless it’s pressed to your nose as a form of torture, you won’t smell it at all. A tiny air spoiler it is, (imagine a teensy weensy skunk smashed onto a blanket), but luckily it’s so small it doesn’t usually attract attention because Snags only sniffs on this tag as he’s falling asleep at night, and nobody sees him but us and the dog.
Well, Taggie (the blanket) and the Night Tag have been through 8 hard years of sniffing and nose rubbing, and Night Tag is now worn thin at its fold. My son brought it to me in tears the other night, asking if I could fix it because it’s falling apart. I told him I could sew it back together but it would feel a little different. He’s not happy about that.
This morning he woke up more or less crying. He was crying because he said he’d prayed to God to fix his Night Tag “but he didn’t!” he cried.
“Oh.” I said. “I don’t think God works like that. He doesn’t always answer our prayers the way we think he should. He might answer your prayer about the Night Tag by helping me to sew it nicely for you, but I am pretty sure he’s not going to perform a miracle and just fix the tag overnight while you sleep (although me sewing anything nicely would be a miracle in itself!)
I mean, really, think about this. If Jesus fed the masses by chopping up the bread and fish into tiny little pieces, rather than by multiplying the little before him, why would he miraculously weave back together the frayed edges of a smelly shirt tag sewed onto a blanket? I don’t think he would. I think he’d point me toward the sewing kit in the closet and call it a day.
Running With Books 