Her Cruse of Oil ...

In a time when grocery shelves are sometimes sparse and worries about provisions abound, I think it would be good to take a gander at chapter 17 of the book of 1 Kings. It is there that we read the story of how God prepared a widow to provide for His servant Elijah during a severe drought. The widow only had a little oil in a cruse (an earthenware pot or jar) and a little flour--but because she served the man of God before she served her only son and herself, God blessed her and multiplied that oil and flour until the drought broke. It's quite a story. But to our family it's more than just Biblical history. It's a promise for today. All we have to do is look at Grandma's story …

After her three babies were born, a congenital disease they had no idea was festering in his body, but had nonetheless been biding its time to reek its havoc, presented itself in Grandma's beloved husband, Eliseo. First he lost his sight, then his cognitive abilities. Those were pre-government-fixes-everything days. No social security, no assistance for the poor. Grandma was on her own. With no money, all she had was a little lard and some flour to feed her family of five. So she used what she had on hand and made flour tortillas. And more flour tortillas. And more flour tortillas. Morning, noon, and night. Flour tortillas. Such humdrum and repetitive fare might not meet with the demands of someone with gourmet tastes, but Grandma made awfully yummy flour tortillas and her family's hungry tummies sure appreciated them!

Then came a day when, in the process of making more flour tortillas, she lifted her eyes to the window at the counter and saw that the mailman had stopped at her house. Clear as day, she heard the Lord whisper in her ear, "Notice how long the flour and lard have lasted."

The words gave her a start. Blinking, she looked down at the tortillas her hands were working on and at the flour and lard. The ingredients had lasted days … and days … and more days … The containers should have run out by now! Marveling at the truth she had failed to realize till this prompting from the Lord, she wiped her hands clean and headed to the door to take out the day's mail from her mailbox.

As she pulled it out, she saw that the first letter was from her sister-in-law, Consuelo. In those pre-texting/pre email days, letters were veritable nuggets of gold. Not only were they few and far between, but because they took a while to get to their destination (hence the current designation of "snail mail") when they did get there! Wow! Were they precious!

Inside Grandma hurriedly tore open the envelope. What news did her sister-in-law have to impart? Hopefully everything was all right in her household, no bad news … Grandma took the folded paper out of the envelope and gasped. Nestled inside the page was a money order. A money order for ten whole dollars! Aunt Consuelo had felt a nudge to send her brother and sister-in-law this money (hmm … I wonder where that nudge came from???). You must realize that this was no paltry sum. Ten dollars in the 1940s would be worth about $200.82 in today's currency. Back then, you would be looking at a lot of groceries for that amount of money--in 1940 one dollar alone could buy four one pound cans of coffee!

Grandma sat down in astonishment. God had provided for her family! And, wouldn't you know it? That was the day her flour and lard ran out! God had made them last until He met her needs another way! Moral of the story: God will provide for His children! Might not be the way we want or when we want--but He is faithful!

"Behold the fowls of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?" Matthew 6:26

Addendum: Before I got married, Grandma began to experiment with the measurements needed for her delicious tortillas. She grew up, as did most people from her generation, just throwing ingredients together in a way that "felt right"--no measurements needed. Because my generation wasn't as handy (translation: my initial forays into tortilla-making were, by and large, miserable failures), Grandma worked laboriously until she came up with the exact amount of flour, lard, salt, and hot water needed for the best, yummiest flour tortillas ever, just like her own "thrown together" ones. Her dream of having her granddaughter make them with confidence as she set up her own housekeeping came true! In fact, I have been using her recipe for half a century now, with nary a bad tortilla in the making!