bottomless pits

This is the downside to boys. My three and a half are draining our pocketbook, our fridge, our pantry and our freezer. And they’re draining what little energy I have because there are no longer any leftovers left over.

Gone are the days when I can make a pot of chili that will last two suppers. Gone are the days when a casserole will stretch for a couple days. Gone are the days when the bread got moldy before it was all used up.

The three point five juvenile stomachs (bottomless and unfillable) can gobble down an entire loaf of bread during one lunch.

Don’t believe me? Here’s what three boys devoured for lunch yesterday. Each had one ham, cheese and mustard sandwich (two slices of bread), one peanut butter and jelly sandwich (two slices of bread), half a peanut butter sandwich (one slice of bread) half an apple, two fistfuls of chips, three pickles, two dilly beans, a glass of lemonade, eight carrots and 12 grapes. (Yes, I counted, because these children have some sort of unconscious radar detection system that immediately senses and goes ballistic if one child gets one more grape than another.) It’s a bit scary.

Where does all this food go? Worse yet, how can they still want more after wolfing down enough food to feed a large family in a third-world country?

I hear, “Mom, can I have more to eat?” after EVERY meal. (Unless it’s something they don’t like, which is very rare.) These vultures will eat just about anything - olives, sauerkraut, broccoli, cottage cheese, fried cabbage, Chinese, venison and all those things many kids turn their noses up at.

I can’t figure out if their metabolisms are just that high, if they’re just that active, or if they truly do have bottomless pits for stomachs. (But, they’re boys, so it could be all of the above.) I enjoy food as much as the next person, but this consumption in our house is bordering on ridiculous. The sad thing is that others have assured me it will only get worse with teenage boys - more food, bigger messes.

Wonderful. They’re just going to have to learn how to fish or raise chickens for the family larder. Now I know why my parents raised their own beef. (I have five brothers.)

I got to thinking about not living on bread alone (I dare say my boys are making a pretty good attempt at it). I seem to always have an appetite for food, but not so much for what God considers “living bread.”

I wish I salivated over Isaiah and Romans and James the way I do over BBQ chicken pizza. (Put it that way and it sounds like I’m a cannibal, but I’m trusting you get the idea). I wish I satiated my hunger in the morning with Psalms instead of Peanut Butter Cap’n Crunch. Most times, if I’m being honest, I would rather consume a cheeseburger than stick my nose into God’s Word.

We are to hunger and thirst after righteousness, but I wonder if we sometimes aren’t more concerned with our hungry bellies. There’s a delicate balance there - too hungry and you can’t concentrate on anything but your grumbly tummy, too full and you tend to get sluggish. Either way food can be a distraction.

My physical hunger will never be satisfied, only temporarily. My spiritual hunger shouldn’t either, but sometimes, well it just is. I get lazy and comfortable and satisfied with where I am and how little of the Word I’m feeding myself. Often, I don't even have an appetite for it. You can want to have that craving, but that’s a bit like wanting to desire sushi if you can’t stand the thought of eating raw fish. It might work to force yourself to eat sushi to develop a “taste” for it, but I’m still not sure that would make you crave it. It might also work if you knew sushi was good for you, but again that’s probably not enough to make you dream about eating it or make your mouth water for another bite.

That desire has almost got to come supernaturally. Each of us has unique taste buds. Some of us love jalapeños. Some of us actually like pickled herring. Some people love seafood. (That one I still don’t understand.) At some point, a person had to sample the above items in order to know whether or not they tasted good. Some of those foods we’ve had to acquire a taste for, other foods we simply love the minute we put it into our mouths. (I’m thinking about chocolate, Krispy Kremes and ice cream in particular.) Some people might simply have an intense desire to get in the Word after one taste test; for most of us, that hankering has to come with repeated nibblings. Either way, the key action is: the Word has to get into our mouths to be tasted to see if the Lord truly is good.

I’m humble enough to admit I’m not there yet. I know that it’s not a simple aversion to God’s Word like my disgust for seafood. It’s more akin to the fact that I haven’t put it to my senses often enough to savor it. Let me put it this way, it’s kind of like broccoli – I know it’s good for me, I know how to eat it and I even like it, but I don’t LOVE it. I don’t want to eat it every day. I wouldn’t choose it over a cup of steaming coffee laced with chocolate mint truffle creamer or a bowl of maple nut ice cream. Or over fried chicken and mashed potatoes.

Somehow, I’m hoping I can either learn to relish broccoli like French silk pie (read: change my perspective) or experience God’s Word in such an personal, deep, pleasurable way, that it would be just like eating French silk pie. Both are possible if I just get out of the kitchen and into the Good Book.

But, first I’ve got some pits to fill.