Lesson in a TV Dinner
When I was a student at Southwestern Adventist University, my needs were always greater than the money available. I saved money by living in a small off-campus house, and I worked my class schedule around two jobs.
One day, after attending classes and working my first job, I went home to eat before going to my second job. This meal was going to be especially meaningful because it was my last TV dinner and the only food that I had left in the house. I had no money to buy any more food. It would be my only meal of the day, and I was preparing for a “forced fast.”
The hunger had been gnawing all day, so I relished the blissful anticipation of eating this frozen Mexican dinner. While heating it in the oven, I absent-mindedly scanned the ingredients on the packaging. To my dismay I read that the dinner contained lard.
After some mental wrestling I decided to be faithful to my convictions and biblical teachings. I threw the dinner into the trash and reminded the Lord of His promise that my bread and water would be sure. I drank a large glass of water, put ChapStick on my lips to cover their ashen pallor from my hunger, and headed off to work.
When I returned home later that night, I found, to my great joy, a sack containing two large homemade pizzas. The next day, while mentally preparing my angel-of-deliverance testimony, I met the brother of Ben Davis, one of my classmates. He asked if I had found the pizzas on my doorstep. He told me that Ben’s wife, Elsie, had made too much pizza dough, so she made extra pizzas. Unaware of my predicament, they had decided to give me the two extras.
From this experience I learned a valuable lesson about being faithful to the Lord’s commands at all times, even when it is difficult to obey and when those commands can seemingly be disobeyed in secret.
I learned also how mysteriously the Lord works. Elsie probably never figured out, or even wondered, why she made too much pizza dough. But a faithful Father knew. He had a promise to keep to a faithful child.
“O love the Lord, all ye his saints: for the Lord preserveth the faithful, and plentifully rewardeth the proud doer“ (Psalm 31:23).
By Samuel L. Green
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