Abundance

During a hilarious game of Pictionary many years ago I attempted to draw "abundance." What the picture really looked like, I don't quite remember. Big mounds of something or other, I think. My friend didn't guess it, but she gave me a hard time about my effort. How indeed could she have guessed such an abstract noun? (OK I'm sure you all have many wonderful ideas about what I could have drawn. Feel free to share so that I can have a better drawing next time!)

The word itself can't be accessed with our five senses, but many things of abundance in my life don't shock my senses at all. I've grown accustomed to them. Food, for example.

When I walk into a grocery store I don't fall to my knees and weep over the abundance of options available. I go in with my list, rush around to get everything on it, and then get out of there because it is such a bother being there in the first place. What a hassle in my life to have to shop for food.

Well. Maybe you never weep either, but my mom once told me a story told to her by a person returning from the Peace Corps (or some other mission-minded placement) who did in fact fall to her knees in the grocery aisle, overcome by the quantity of food—the abundance of nourishment—on the shelves. Having returned from a country where the people were lucky to get any food at all, this person suddenly saw abundance in very concrete terms.

Photo credit: Creative Commons, markyeg

How, then, can I open my refrigerator and cupboards—especially after returning from shopping—and bemoan the lie that there is nothing to eat? How can I choose to go out to a restaurant because I can't figure out anything to cook for dinner? I find nothing wrong with going out to eat and I don't make a habit of feeling guilty about it, yet I ask myself these tough questions when I realize I've been complaining again. 

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Abundance I hope to acknowledge in my life ever more deeply from day to day—besides food—is love. I know I have it—and I see it and am told it every day—from my husband and my family. I also know I have it from God, but mostly I've read about it and people say it is true. Maybe I let it be too abstract and miss the concrete representations. I could say the fact that there is all this food available to me vividly shows God's love, but that sounds a little off somehow. My house, my job, my possessions, my food supply are all blessings that many people don't have. I really don't know what part God plays in them all. So are there concrete—sensory—representations of God's love for me? He acts through people to show me love. Is that the only way? Do I need to see his abundance of love or just learn how to accept it?

*photo credit markyeg