Toast Heroes

Early this afternoon (about seven minutes after noon, to be precise) my dear friend Carol and I decided to journey to the cafeteria for Sunday brunch. After circling the cafeteria, we decided our best option would be a made-to-order omelet. To order an omelet, one has to fill out a little card by writing their name and then checking all the ingredients they want in their omelet. For the chronically indecisive, this in itself was a challenge. But finally I handed in my little card and began the long wait for my breakfast.

Wondering how long omelets take, I decided I had time to make some toast. I selected two rather large pieces of bread and put them in the toaster (one of those box kinds with the conveyor belt inside). After watching the toasts that had been right before mine pop out and waiting a few long moments, I began to wonder what had happened to mine. Looking inside, I found that my toasts were too large for the toaster and had securely jammed themselves into the back corner. I found a pair of tongs and attempted to wrestle them out, growing desperate when I couldn't, more desperate when I had to stop for fear of burning my hand, and downright fearful when the toaster started to smoke. A man walked up next to me to start some toast of his own, and in answer to his questioning look I wailed, "My toast is trapped!"

This brave and valiant individual took the tongs from my scorched hand, glanced into the toaster, and with a few quick gestures extracted my toast, perfectly golden brown. His only remark was, "They should get some bigger toasters."

It was probably another twenty minutes before my omelet was ready(My roommate and I suspect it got stuck on the skillet and that same valiant individual had to go back into the kitchen and save it), and I spent many of those minutes wondering how it is that a total stranger decided to help me out when I failed to fix things myself. Think about it. This man had no reason to care about my plight. I was just the girl taking up the toaster for too long. But instead of standing back to watch me figure things out, he stepped in to help. And it's comforting to think that, just like this valiant toast-hero, God often reaches out to help me when by all logical reasoning I ought to be left to my own devices. 1 Peter 5:6-7 says "Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you." How amazing that despite all my failures, he cares for me. He cares for you. So come, let's cast our anxieties on him, and let him rescue us from our burned breakfasts.

Truly His,
Caroline