Jesus in a Bowl of Oatmeal?

It wasn't a typical Monday morning! My son wasn't feeling great; sick most of the weekend with a cold, lacking sleep from coughing and generally feeling poopy - I agreed to let him stay home from school to get some rest.  I decided to be a good mom and make him a hearty breakfast to help him mend - what could be better than stick to your ribs oatmeal right!

As I boiled the water, my mind began to wander to Deuteronomy 6:7-9 - Where God describes the best method for passing on God's decrees to the next generation, he says " Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. ⁸ Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. ⁹ Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates".  Sadly, in that list I didn't find a well timed lecture, or a scheduled bible lesson or devotional. Instead, God seemed to be saying that discussion about his decrees were best brought to life while going through ordinary life!  I began to ask God what that could look like today, right now with my son home sick - could this be true today?  Suddenly the revelation hit me - YES... I began to see how I could talk about Jesus because of a bowl of oatmeal.

My son wandered into the kitchen and asked if he could pour the oatmeal into the boiling water - of course he could!  Then I looked at him and said, "You know... making oatmeal makes me think about Jesus", he looked at me curiously, "It does mom?? Why oatmeal?" he asked.  I said, well, you see, it's like we are the oatmeal, dry and flat and lifeless and Jesus is the water.  The more time we spend with Jesus, the more we take on his character.  Eventually, you can't differentiate the oatmeal from the water.  Jesus, wants to fill us up with himself, so that we can bring life (and in this case nourishment) to others!  He looked at me and said "Hey, you're right.. that's really cool mom, I'm gonna remember that next time I eat oatmeal".

The cool thing was, our God conversation didn't end there, it had only begun, and we shared, and chatted about God things as we ate! I guess it's true, you really can find Jesus, in a bowl of oatmeal!