spaghetti and the love of jesus

Posted on March 5th, 2020 by mountain girl  |  Comments Off on spaghetti and the love of jesus

spaghettismall

For the past six months, the focus of my life has undergone a major shift, and I have become a student of the heart of God. It all began with this dream, early in the morning on August 18 of last year. I have decided to post it here, as a way to record it. If you are reading this, I hope you see Jesus as you have never seen Him before.

I dreamed my friend Marilyn and I were making spaghetti at my house for dinner, and we decided to give some to a family—a man, his wife, and their little girl. I didn’t know them very well, but we thought they could use a meal.

Marilyn’s husband Javier works with David (in real life) and in the dream they were getting ready for a speaking engagement trip for work. Marilyn decided to catch a ride with them and take the spaghetti to the family.

We mixed the spaghetti with sauce and set a bowl of it to the side for the family, and then we all sat down to dinner.

Javier was the only person I was focused on. Everyone else was peripheral, but he was crystal clear. He was dressed for the speaking engagement, with pressed pants and a spotless, bright white dress shirt.  His jet-black hair was slicked back and his figure was trim and svelte. He looked like a Hispanic singer or dancer.

We were gathered around the table. Everyone was happy and talking. I was standing a little behind Javier’s chair and to his left.

During the conversation, I leaned over to Marilyn and asked if she thought the extra bowl of spaghetti would be enough for the family. She immediately asked Jav what he thought.

He was much more interested than I thought he would be, and stood up and walked around the table to the bowl. He looked into it, and his face beamed with pleasure. To our amazement, he reached into the bowl and picked up the spaghetti with his hands! He examined it, turning the saucy mixture over and over, and said, “It’s a family of three?”

I said “Yes, and one of them is just a child.”

It was almost like the spaghetti was growing in his hands, and suddenly it was an armful. He held it close against his chest and cradled it like a baby. His face beamed with joy. “Yes,” he said after a few minutes, “it is enough.”

He set it back in the bowl, still beaming, and walked back around the table. He sat down and looked around at us, his face shining. We were all stunned and filled with respect and awe. His clean white shirt was covered in red sauce. It was on his face, all down his front, and all over his sleeves. We just stared, thinking of his important speaking engagement!

He didn’t seem to notice his clothes at all. It was like his joy in the meal we were giving this family superseded everything else.

He asked us something we couldn’t understand. It sounded like, “Para gweeser?” We just looked at him in confusion, and he tried again, but in a different language. “Ebenezer?” We still didn’t know what he meant, but we all tried to help. Marilyn quickly passed him a shaker of salt, and my brother Seth (who I hadn’t noticed till then) grabbed a jar of toothpicks and shoved it toward him.

It struck me as so funny that everyone tried to help–although no one knew what he wanted–that I doubled over in laughter. Laughter bubbled up out of me. I laughed and laughed, belly laughs that tumbled out of me, and my head almost touched the floor.

Then my parents were there, and I was explaining everything to my mother. I told her how Jav had picked up the spaghetti and held it in his arms, and that he must have a “deep, deep love for food”.

I woke up with those words going through my head—a “deep, deep love for food”.

Almost immediately, I began to cry. I suddenly knew that wasn’t Javier, it was Jesus. And he didn’t have a deep love for food—he had a deep, deep love for people. And that spaghetti wasn’t just spaghetti—it was the people who would come to know him, and be washed in his blood. He loved them so much that he didn’t care about himself—didn’t care that their mess got on him, that his life blood was poured out. They were the joy set before him, and that joy overrode everything else.

I know that giving that family the spaghetti was much more than a nice gesture to fill their bellies. It really meant bringing Jesus to them, so they could find him, partake of him, and know him, and that made him incredibly happy and interested in our endeavor.

Ebenezer means “stone of help” and I think the Lord was saying that when we reach out to others, he will be with us to help us. The Holy Spirit is our helper, and he will help us as we reach out in love.

For the next days and weeks, I replayed the dream over and over in my head, and I cried every time I thought of him with his beaming face and white shirt covered with red sauce. I felt I barely knew him this way, but I wanted to, badly, and to learn to love people just like he does.

Later I realized I had the dream on the morning of Javier’s birthday.

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