Fresh Bread

I volunteer at a food bank where we make free food and clothing available to people in our area. Stores provide ‘leftovers’ for us to give away which usually includes a lot of bread. Much of it is ‘day old’ as we call it but still quite usable. Karen, our ‘Bread Lady’ sets it out on the racks with a sign overhead with the limit of loaves you can get from each rack. As closing nears on Tuesday, our last day to be open for the week, Karen becomes quite evangelistic about getting rid of the extra bread to the many volunteers that work there.

“Oh, you need this loaf of bread,” she says with a grin, pushing the said needed loaf in my face. While I don’t actually eat much bread, because I often fast on Tuesdays, that bread looks more tempting than it might otherwise be to me. So, I end up with a few loaves in my freezer even though I use my own skills of persuasion to pawn off some of it on my kiddos!

This past week I have had houseguests who have a rental house not far from us. They have actually needed bread for breakfast and for the lunches they take with them every morning as they head off to work on their house in preparation to sell it. That bread has come in handy!

Some of those loaves are better than others. Toasting definitely helps, as topping with a little of my homemade raspberry sauce. But even so, I can’t help but compare it with the lovely fresh loaf of Costco Cranberry Walnut bread that I splurged on for my birthday just before Christmas. At 8 dollars a loaf, I felt like I was making a small investment! But eating that bread fresh off the shelf was nothing short of heavenly. I didn’t put anything on it to adulterate it or to enhance it; it simply didn’t need it.

I pray that 2026 will be a year of plenty; plenty of delicious bread for sharing. It will take an investment of time to sit at the feet of Jesus where he can feed me with His fresh manna. And those loaves are not just for me to enjoy, but for Him to bless and multiply so that I can share it with hungry ones all around me. I pray that in this new year there will always be some of God’s fresh-out-of-the-oven bread in my ‘kitchen’ to share. I have no doubt that one taste will make them come back for more!