Food For Fines a/k/a How Ramen Noodles Taught Me About Grace

January 9th marked the start of the annual food drive that Nashville’s Public Library conducts in order to purge people of all their sinful ways. I mean to waive their overdue fines.

As I approach the gentleman at the library, my face turns pink. My eyes often well with tears when I discuss my overdue fines. I preface our conversation with, “I’m probably on your most wanted list. I need to pay up before I can check anything out.” Fear veiled in humor is a dead giveaway.

He perches up on his elbow, leans in close and whispers, “Don’t sweat the small stuff.” He points to the flyer that says “Food for Fines” and tells me to pay up then. “There is so much else to be concerned about.”

Problem is, when I go back on the day Food for Fines starts, he is nowhere in sight. I saunter up to the counter and face the nicely dressed woman who scares me. I force a smile and put my return books and canned goods on the table of shame. I pray that no one approaches behind me to witness my confession.

“I need to return these today.” This is really just to warm her up. “I’d also like to apply the cans to what I owe as well.” It would take no less than 50 cans of petite peas to completely erase our family library debt and I refuse to pull a Radio Flyer behind me.

She looks at me, then the cans, then the computer, pushes some buttons, and glares back at me through pointy silver-rimmed readers. She announces, in an outside voice, “But you have $19.40 to pay off,” so that everyone around me knows I’m guilty.

“Oh my, I didn’t realize it. Let’s just start with these,” I feign surprise at the amount I owe although it’s lower than what I anticipated. She takes my mercy cans and inspects them. I admit this was my clean-out-the-pantry effort, however, I did not submit anything expired. Afterwards, I go look for more books.

It wasn’t until my way out that I saw the official flyer. It stated in neat bullets what they would accept:

  • Canned Tuna/Chicken
  • Cereal
  • Canned Vegetables, Fruit, or Soup
  • Peanut Butter
  • Pasta

I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. Clearly refried beans, jellied cranberry sauce, and bamboo shoots weren’t technically on the list.

I return the following Wednesday, this time with six cans of generic vegetables and find the nice worker. “Hi,” I look down and pray the tears away. “I’m here to pay off more of my debt.” He cracks a joke and senses my ill ease because once again, he tells me to relax.

“See those tall boxes?” He points to the back. “They have been overflowing with canned food all week. Literally spilling out. Some people have brought truckloads so don’t worry. We’ll take care of it.”

“I just feel so bad for racking up these fines.” I glance behind me and see a woman carrying a cardbox box, awaiting her turn at repentance.

I confess that he’s the nicest guy in the library and I confide my fear of the pointy glasses woman. He grabs my hand and offers the sincerest of thanks. “Nobody should be afraid to come to the library.”

He then pulls up all the fines my kids and I owe (I still don’t have the heart to bring up my husband’s account that probably has my lost book attached to it) as we laugh and take our time determining exactly how much more food it will take to wipe the slate clean. This is when he gives me an insider tip: Raman noodles. My eyes light up!

I tell him I will bring the noodles (six for a dollar…yippee!) in tomorrow since it is the last day of the food drive when he says, “Oh no, you don’t have to. The deadline [for grace] has been extended until Sunday!”

I tell ya…while chatting over peas and carrots, my little foreign friend taught me more about grace than I’ve heard in a long time.

I used to lug around a similar cardboard box that held the enormity of all I ever did wrong. Eventually the weight did me in and I finally got the nerve to state my case. Head hung low, I presented an offering that was equal to a bunch of dented cans filled with pureed shame because I had nothing else left.

And right then and there, He accepted everything I did without the slightest bit of judging. I will admit that I look for simple re-reminders from places just like the library. When I saw the tall boxes overflowing with cans, it painted a picture for me as though The Grand Canyon were right in front of me and it was abundant with…you guessed it. More ramen noodles than an eye could behold. Yet not even that beautiful creation can contain the sheer amount of grace He makes available to me!

So I commend you if you’ve lived a life worthy of sainthood or at least having a fellowship hall named after you. But for those of us who have stood outside the shadow of grace for far too long, the idea of a canyon filled with dried noodles makes perfect sense.

I learned through my friendly librarians that grace doesn’t come with a deadline or expire in 24 hours. No one has to be afraid to ask for it. You don’t have to carry it around with you and you don’t have to be afraid to lay it out before a loving God. All you have to do is accept it. Because it’s free. Because it’s immense. And because He already paid your debt.

Tearing Up the Scary

The first time Eli forgot his lunchbox I didn’t realize it until it was almost too late. I got to school just as the second graders were marching towards a smell that, in my opinion, was anything but appetizing. Imagine a wave of relief sweeping over a face. My boy looked at me through tears. “She said I had to buy my lunch. And that I had to eat it.”

I got that hen and her chick feeling, ready to peck away at the teacher who would be so mean as to tell my son he had to do anything, let alone eat that mess.

I never knew my son was quite so obedient!

It was a few months ago on a Sunday after I routinely asked Eli how Kid’s Chapel went that I was in the chicken coop all over again. He promptly said, with disdain written across his freckled nose, “They told us to think of the one thing that scared us the most. Then they made us draw it!”

Before allowing him to finish, I decided that was the craziest thing I’d ever heard. My feathers started to ruffle. This is church…a place where we should not have to discuss what makes us uncomfortable. I asked him to continue so that I knew exactly who I’d be giving a piece of my mind to.

“What did you draw?”

“Ch…” He hesitated, because he won’t say the word that scares him the most. “Ch…”

Somewhere along the way, and at someone’s house who will go unnamed to protect their innocently guilty self, he was on YouTube and found the movie trailer of that sick-o doll that comes to life and kills people. I can’t say or even type the name because it has been struck from our family’s vocabulary.

Just know that since stumbling on that horror, he has obsessed over it. If we pass the movie section at Target and he sees it on the shelf, he goes around it, hands covering his face. We banished everything with eyes from his room: teddy bears, nutcrackers, even a mirror. For months we dealt patiently with him at bedtime. No matter the prayers offered, he was not convinced that God cared because his pleas for this evil to leave his mind would not go away. Regi and I took turns laying down with him and singing happy songs as he drifted to sleep. We left lights on. He would sneak into his sister’s room and sleep with her. He would moan down from the upstairs railing saying that within fifteen seconds of closing his eyes he would have a terrible dream. Nighttime was a nightmare for us all.

It even culminated with him dragging his comforter and pillows into the hallway and sleeping for a couple of weeks. Night after night he lay between the wall and stair railing, bundled like a babushka in his blanket to protect him from the bad lurking around him.

About a week after he was forced to draw his deepest fear, I took some clothes to his room. His comforter lay in a crumpled mess on the floor. It struck me as odd because it was never that far from him at night.

Later he said, “Guess what, Mom? I didn’t sleep with my comforter around me last night. I don’t have to anymore. And You Know Who doesn’t bother me anymore!” Remember that swell of relief I mentioned? Now it came across my face.

That dreaded day in Kids Chapel something more happened. And after I untangled my tail feathers, Eli told me the rest of the story.

“What happened after you drew this terrible picture of …” I asked.

“There was this light that they [the leaders] shone on everything we drew. Then they held up all the pictures of our fears and ripped them to pieces. They shouted and we sang some songs and they said I don’t have to be afraid anymore. Jesus is bigger than my fears.”

I’ll be honest. After he told me what happened, I shrugged it off as a cute-little-act done in cute-little-children’s-church. I mean, if my prayers hadn’t worked by now, he could never grasp the significance of shredding his fears into tiny little pieces. Don’t most parents drop their kids off in class with the simple hope that they’ll make a friend and put their quarter in the offering so they can call it a day? You mean my big God shows up in little kids’ church?

While I’d like to say that Eli’s fears flew the coop the same night he drew that picture, it took a little time. It had to so that my grubby little fingerprints were nowhere to be seen on his miracle.

When we try to make everything so perfect and unnerving for our kids, we interfere with God’s desire to show them who He is. Our vain attempts to smooth the rough waters called life means they don’t get to experience Him as Protector, Healer, Provider and Savior for themselves! Eli needed to see the life altering effect that happened when he faced that creepy little doll through the mighty power of a mighty God by tearing his fear to pieces himself.  I’d rather my kids face life with a few battle scars because they’ve learned how to fight than show up to battle without a single skill.

In conclusion…well, I really don’t how to conclude. This was intended to be a post on why I’m thankful for the Pastor Bill’s and Pastor Ian’s, the Brittany’s and the Amy’s, and all the others that call my kids by their name. Who pray for them. Who make them feel welcome every time they arrive. Who make church fun. And relevant. Who care enough to provide their lives as an example week after week. Who put up with chatty teenage girls who’d rather talk than pray. And who understand enough to show these kids that the same God who cares about mortgages and heart conditions is the same God who cares about boogeymen and midterms.

But truly this post is about what I’ve learned from my own children…again. So if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some pictures of my own to draw. And a lot of tearing up to do.