LOVELY MEMORIES

Are you enjoying your glorious role of child cherisher and nourisher? Dear Nurturer, don’t despise the time you spend in the kitchen. Sometimes you feel as though you spend half your life in the kitchen cooking! Well, praise the Lord! You are doing what you are meant to be doing. You are cherishing and nourishing the children God gave to you. You are in His perfect will. You are being like God Himself.

God loves to feed His people. God’s Word is filled with the subject of food and feeding. Acts 14:17 says: “Nevertheless He (God) left not himself without witness, in that he did GOOD, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, FILLING OUR HEARTS WITH FOOD AND GLADNESS.” The word food is “trophe” meaning nourishment. God loves to nourish us. He even nourishes the little sparrows, and then reminds us how much more He will feed us (Matthew 6:26).

God not only loves to feed us physically, but also our inner man. Do you notice that He wants to fill us with gladness too? Food and gladness couple together. Food and fellowship are twins. Eating is more than eating food. It is communicating with one another. We are not meant to eat food on our own. God wants us to gather our family (and others too) around our table to communicate and fellowship as we eat. This fills our hearts with gladness.

As we minister food to our family, let’s not only think of physical food, but food for their souls and spirits. Think of nourishing the whole man. Think of ways to nourish your children mentally, emotionally, and spiritually at your table. Enlarge your vision. Begin to see your table how God sees it.

Jesus came to this earth “eating and drinking.” He was always fellowshipping at a table with people. So often when we read of him sitting at the table, the Bible goes on to say, “And he said . . .” The table was where Jesus loved to tell parables, teach, and give understanding of the Scriptures.

Even after Jesus rose from the dead and suddenly stood in the midst of His disciples, He asked for something to eat. He still loved to eat in His resurrection body. “And they gave him a piece of broiled fish, and of a honey comb. And he took it, and did eat before them. And he said unto them . . .” Once again, we see Him talking with his disciples as they ate together and He “opened their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures” (Luke 24:367-49).

I love the words of Luke 4:16: “And Jesus came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up.” The words “brought up” are translated “teknotropheo” which we talked about yesterday. Do you remember that it means to cherish and nourish a child with food? Jesus came back to his home where he had been nourished--physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

What memories will your children have when they grow up? Will they have memories of a nourishing home? Where they were nourished with delectable, delicious, and wholesome food? Where they were nourished in their soul? Where their spirits were daily fed with the Word of God? Where they lived in an atmosphere of healing? Because to nourish is to heal! Body, soul, and spirit.

Make this your prayer for your children: “And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your WHOLE SPIRIT AND SOUL AND BODY be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thessalonians 5:23).

I send God’s blessings and healing to your home today,

Nancy Campbell

Painting: Laurts Tuxen