There’s the fruit of the Spirit and then there are strawberries.   Today I visited an older member of our church.  She’s a widow and I have not seen her in church lately.  I made an appointment to stop by with hopes of offering a prayer and some encouragement.  She greeted me at the door with a smile, a hug and warm greeting.  We wandered into the kitchen and she invited me to have seat at the worn old table.  The table was set beautifully set with flowers, a green tea pot, a platter of cheese, crackers and some of the most beautiful strawberries I have seen this year.

My friend poured the tea, added the sugar and asked me, “How are you?”  We caught up on church life and on each other’s lives.  I had skipped lunch today because it’s been a busy week.  My friend made up a plate and said, “You need to eat.”  So I ate the wonderful plate of food and enjoyed a quiet cup of tea.  As a good pastor, I asked if I could pray for her.  Four hands clasped together, curved toward each other, offering a benediction on a beautiful afternoon.

As I prepared to move to my next appointment, my friend stood and found an old bread sack.  She scooped up the strawberries and dropped them in the “Farm to Market Bread” bag.  She handed the bag to me and said, “Enjoy these with your dinner tonight.”  .  Sometimes God shows up in a bread bag of strawberries and sometimes God shows up as a cup of green tea.  Today God was incarnated through tea, cheese, crackers and the sweetest strawberries of the season.