She Feeds the Five Thousand: A Funny Story About Finding God in Unexpected Places
Have you ever known someone who fed the squirrels?
We live in a two-story apartment building, where an elderly lady lives above us. One morning shortly after we moved in, I opened the bathroom window to find a half-eaten slice of pizza sitting on the windowsill—well, balancing precariously there, anyway.
“John!” I called out to my husband. “Did the girls put this pizza here?”
“Don’t know,” he said, walking in to survey the scene.
We glanced at each other with worry.
If it had been our girls—and we had ordered a pizza just a few nights ago—we certainly didn’t want them pushing food out the window. We didn’t want them anywhere near an open window, come to think of it.
“I really don’t think it could’ve been them,” I said finally. “I just don’t think it’s possible that they carried a piece of pizza in here…climbed up on there,” I said, gesturing to the edge of the tub, “and then managed to open the window.” My voice trailed off.
“Very unlikely,” my husband agreed.
“Squirrels?” I suggested.
In the days that followed, I glanced up at the bathroom window from the outside, noting the flat face of our brick building and the unlikelihood that a squirrel could’ve scaled the wall to get to our windowsill.
The pizza should’ve been a red flag.
A couple days later, I opened the back door to let our dogs out to do their business on the small strip of grass between our building and the parking lot, only to find the place covered in bits of bread.
I mean, a feast.
Our Pomeranian, royalty that she is, sniffed one piece and turned her nose up in the air. She walked proudly away.
Our Beagle mutt, jolly dog that he is, began vacuuming the grass with his snout.
It took me a few seconds to put it all together, but when I realized our upstairs neighbor must be feeding the local woodland creatures, I quickly shooed my dogs away. There doesn’t seem to be a specific day of the week when the bread comes down, but I have noticed she sticks to carbs: bread, pizza crusts, and the occasional handful of peanuts.
I can’t bring myself to say anything to her about it. Thing is, I’ve never once seen a squirrel on that patch of grass the entire time we’ve lived here. Not once. So I don’t know if the squirrels are feasting at night, or if our Beagle has himself a bedtime snack when my husband lets the dogs out at night, but what I do know is: I ain’t saying a thing.
There’s big love at work here—an intent to nourish and feed those who might be hungry and a spirit of love, a spirit of godliness: not one who’s working for food that spoils, but one who is working for the stuff of eternity, someone who’s acting from the heart.
And Jesus Christ said: “48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. 50 But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”(John 6:48-51).