For a long time, I’ve had something holding me back.  I’ve always supported Rita and Bags of Grace, but I’ve also had a nagging doubt.  If you can’t help everyone, or even most people, is it worthwhile or even fair to help just some?  What good does a small bit of help do if you can’t solve the whole problem? 

 

One morning we were getting ready to go to a Bags of Grace assembly with a group of youth at a retreat.  As I was thinking about what we were going to do, and how it might affect these young people, that calm voice from beyond my consciousness said, “It’s not about the bags dummy.”  What!?  How can it not be about the bags, it’s “Bags of Grace.”  We hand out the bags and they help people, even if it’s just a little.  “It’s still not the bags, dummy.”  Well, if it’s not the bags then what… Oh, I had the emphasis in the wrong place.  It should be “Bags of Grace.” 

 

I realized that the bag is just the instrument of God’s grace, a tool to bring people closer to Him.  The bag will only feed someone for a day at best, but the impact of His grace, which brought that bag to where it was needed, will remain long after the food is gone.  And the grace is not for the receiver alone.  The person who donated money to buy the goods felt it.  The volunteers who put the bag together felt it.  The person who handed the bag out felt it.  A passerby, who witnessed the gift, felt it.  Someone who just heard about it, they felt it too. 

 

Mother Theresa said, “If you can’t feed a hundred hungry people, feed just one.”  I kind of got that, but not really, until today.  Feed one hungry person, let God choose whom, and you have spread some grace, to more people than you might realize.  That grace then has a chance of being a seed, of growing and spreading, beyond what you might have thought.  More than I used to think.

 

Have you seen those motivational posters with wonderful pictures and some cute saying that’s supposed to be inspiring?  There is a web site I like that has posters like that, except that the sayings are all sarcastic and meant to be funny.  One of my favorites shows a pool of calm water just after a drop has landed in it and the ripples are spreading out.  The saying is “No one rain drop thinks it is responsible for the flood.”  Sarcasm, but, on the other hand, if you take “flood” to be a metaphor and not the terrible thing that it is, this sarcasm can be turned around.  Suppose it’s a flood of grace?  No one small drop of kindness is responsible for the flood, but the flood can’t happen without all of them.  So feeding one person, when one hundred are hungry, is still really important.  I get it now.  I don’t need to be the flood, just a drop, and maybe other drops will be inspired to join me.