When I lived in Brazil, a seven year old boy lived with me. His name is Daniel. Daniel was found when he was two with his brother eating the garbage and rats were eating his belly. Their mother was young and unable to care for them, caught in her own addictions and poverty. So the courts took the boys and entrusted them to my community at the Fazenda. Five years had passed since then, by the time that I knew Daniel.
So every day we would make his breakfast, he’d come back from school by noon and have a big lunch. He’d have an afternoon snack and we’d cook dinner in the evenings. He was well fed. But it always struck me. Whenever I was cooking dinner, he would come into the kitchen and check out the parts of the veggies that I cut off to be thrown into the compost. He’d take that gross end of the carrot and he’d eat it. I would say to him, “Daniel, you have been fed four times a day for five years, you do not need to eat the scraps anymore.”
It just hit me, I have been provided for in all of my needs and yet, I still reach for the scraps. I have this fear in me that maybe today will be the day that it all falls through. I won’t be given what I need, I’ll be fending for myself so I better grab whatever I can, while I can, even if it’s the gross end of the carrot.
Isn’t that what my anxiety stems from? Fear of not getting what I need? Things not being taken care of? I am like Daniel who couldn’t see that he didn’t need to eat the trash. I cannot see that I am provided for with healthy, enriching, nourishing things. I no longer need to settle for the things that other people have thrown away.
No one does because when we turn to our Provider, when we open our hearts and our lives to include something greater than ourselves, there is abundance in our world. For me, it’s just about opening my eyes to see it.