Friday, August 24, 2012

Our Daily Bread

Give us this day our daily bread.  ~Matthew 6:11

Ave Maria!  Part of my usual morning routine is to fix a dish of wet cat food for my girl Queenie while my coffee is perking.  She has the timing down pat and knows precisely how many minutes to give me from the time I roll out of bed to the moment I put her breakfast down on the floor.  If I am a mere second behind schedule, she will tell me all about it, loudly and insistently.

I never should have named her Queenie.  That only reinforces her mistaken notions that, first, cats are royalty and, second and most importantly, she in particular is SWMBO, that is, She Who Must Be Obeyed. 

This morning I was not only behind schedule, I was also extremely tired so I deviated a bit from my routine to sit down for a couple of minutes before fixing Her Majesty's breakfast.  Plopping myself down in a chair was cause for Queenie to be filled with consternation, leading her to run back and forth between her food station and me in addition to crying more piteously than usual.  For added drama, she imperiously stamped her front paw a few times. 

It's not like I was starving her.  There was a bowl of fresh water at the ready along with another bowl full of newly dished-out dry food.

It wasn't what she wanted.

"Get over it, my girl," I told her.  "Give us this day our daily bread.  That's how our Lord told us to pray.  He never said that we get to pick what that bread will be or how much we'll get."

Whoa!  What's this?  Now I'm preaching to my cat?  No, not really, just preaching to myself.  Whatever bread our dear Lord will give me this new day will be exactly right.  He will provide for me in ways that I cannot imagine, and He will be generous beyond measure.  I only need ask and He will give me Himself.  Deo gratias!  Thanks be to God!

The bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.
John 6:51

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