IT'S MONDAY AGAIN...

...so it was off to the Community Fridge this morning.  I was already very hot driving there, but got even hotter when I had to try and park in a tight space.  I went backwards and forwards several times and after about six tries, gave up and tried another space.  I didn’t appreciate until this morning just how easy it was to park our Jazz!

Anyway, once parked and inside, there was work to be done and of course, having done such a great job on the grotty vegetables some weeks ago, that job always seems to fall to me now - but I really don’t mind - except that leeks that are wrapped in a plastic bag do smell rather bad - and I think everyone who came into the kitchen remarked on it!  But the best thing with a grotty job is to just get on with it, so I did.  

We also had some squashy and rather over-ripe peppers, cherries and watermelons, so all in all, there was plenty to go into the compost bins today, so of course, as well as it not going into landfill from the supermarkets, even the manky bits go into a compost bin, which the lovely Ruth takes each day.  She must have “compost coming out of her ears”, in a manner of speaking, with all the stuff she gets from the Community Fridge. 

Once those jobs were done, there was nothing else on the table in the kitchen, but when I took a few cabbages out to the main hall where people come to choose their five items,  there was a whole crate of cabbages that Heather kindly asked me to sort out - so another grotty job - to be done for the glory of God! 

I understand now that God doesn’t ask us to do grotty jobs for no reward - they are to build us up and to let us know that sometimes we have to do those jobs without complaining and with a smile on our face.  I think they also teach us that we need to experience the unwholesome side of life - which many experience every single day of their lives.  For instance, as I took the outside leaves off the cabbages - and you can see some of them in the bottom left of my collage - I was reminded that some people would make meal of those leaves that I was discarding.

And so it is with people - there are many who feel that they are treated as the lowest of the low either because they have no job, are on benefits, cannot afford to look after their families or even if they are homeless - and who are we, the privileged in society, to look down on them?

So whilst I didn’t ask for those jobs today - and most of what I did was work in the kitchen rather than sitting chatting to people - the lesson I learned was that God will never ask me to do anything that Jesus didn’t do - after all, He got down on his knees and washed the dirty, smelly feet of his disciples.  However, I was glad to be able to put my feet up and have a rest in the garden when I got home.

“It’s not about how much you do,
     but how much love you put into
          what you do that counts.”
Mother Teresa