Pizza in Zion

Today Laureen Canchola texted asking what kind of pizza we like because, she announced, they were bringing us by dinner tomorrow.  I didn’t know why.  I still don’t know why.  I don’t ask questions when people want to bring my family some food.

Hours later, Adam Hunt called to see if my girls could babysit for him.  Being reticent to let them go to the house of a family I hadn’t met before, I arranged for all three little ones to come to my house for a few hours.  This was… not exactly in my plans.  Not at all what I wanted.  I said yes because I sometimes find it the right thing to say, not that my heart is actually meaning it.

During that excruciating twelve minute call, I was so hesitant they said thanks and to plan on them — but that they’d also be reaching out to a friend they’d been hesitant to contact because she was only coming back from a funeral tonight and they’d let me know if she was able to watch them instead.  I stewed in my head, wondering where exactly appropriate boundaries are in the Lord’s eyes.  I can be pretty easily overwhelmed in general, but especially right now.  It had been a hard Sunday.  Mikey’s volume was more intense than usual, and by a lot.  Having Angela over to edit Scott’s dissertation — and staying for hours — had been an unexpected drain too.  Where and when do I get to say no?  Why could they not find people in their own ward?  I could sense desperation.  I could read between the lines that the wife’s health and perhaps emotional issues were pretty intense.  I wanted her pain to be alleviated — but three extra kids while I homeschool?  Including a 15 month old in a house where we don’t have baby locks on cupboards anymore?

Restless, fidgety, and annoyed, I picked up my phone — and the text from Laureen showed up again.

Oh.

Yeah.

Dinner.

I didn’t have to worry about dinner.

I still had the gym.  And taking Mikey and Betsy to and from Clinton.  And homeschooling in general.  And maybe Scott working late; that was TBD.  And the three kids.  But… dinner was done.  Hey.

And to me, there’s some real divine intervention there, not just in taking care of everyone’s needs, but in the lesson of what Zion is: pitch in.  Do a little more than you’re comfortable.  (That’s what I just got done reading C.S. Lewis talking about in his charity chapter.) And I think I can trust that I’ll find the abilities to function are given me, abilities I didn’t see and couldn’t trust in, but which were latent and available.