Food for thought... oh yes. Pun intended.

I've always told people that I'm not a huge fan of food. Simply put, I don't live to eat.... I eat to live. I see eating as some sort of hassle, a necessary break when I'd rather not take one. Of course I do have favorite foods... spaghetti, gyros, all sorts of hard cheddar cheeses, baguette, pizza, ice cream...

Now that I'm in Hungary with my Hungarian family, food is a priority. We go to bed talking about what we're going to eat tomorrow. We plan meals days in advance. On Sundays, the afternoon is taken up with meal preparation, eating and talking and eating and talking (about food), dessert, coffee, talking, fruit, dessert, talking, and clean-up. We go to the corner store daily to get fresh bread. When people drop by for a visit, we lay out every possible meat, fruit, or cheese that might strike their fancy. In fact, I'm pretty sure my Hungarian family's love language is "Food."

Coming from my typical view of food where on some days I would *gasp* skip lunch.... I sometimes get frustrated with the focus on food that I suddenly find myself having to adjust to.

But there's a puzzling thing that I've always wondered about...

Peppered throughout the Psalms, God is referred to as "my portion." I've always wondered what that means. I pictured God on some giant dinner plate... trying to make sense of him as "my portion." Somehow putting God in terms of pizza slices or something like that just seemed so off... and I knew that's not quite what the Psalms meant. But just because I knew what it did not mean still gave me little insight into what it did mean.

Well today as I was thinking about food... talking about food... eating food as usual, it  dawned on me... (and I sure do like metaphors).

A portion of food is something we all need in order to survive. But even with a small portion, we will survive. We don't need a five course meal to stay alive... just a portion. Sometimes we get more, though. We do get those tasty five course meals sometimes... and those are a huge huge blessing. After a while though, we may begin to take them for granted, and when they're stripped away and we're reduced down to just our portion, we're grumpy. We think we're suffering. We think life is unfair. We think back to those other days when we had far more than a portion. But when we really think about it.... we still have a portion. We're still surviving. A portion is all we need. All else is just an added blessing. My prayer is that I may learn to be content in every circumstance, with my portion, God. If He chooses to give more, then gladly I will accept it. But if not, I will be content.
 
My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever.

-Ps. 73:26