A Pretty Good Eyeballer

                For over a decade, cranberry relish has graced our Thanksgiving table. Its simple recipe of cranberries, an orange, and some sugar makes it a perfect dish for me to prepare.

                After Dad’s first stroke, he and I made the cranberry relish while Angie took Mother to her yearly appointment with her oncologist. It seemed to be scheduled Monday or Tuesday of Thanksgiving week each year. Dad asked about Mother’s whereabouts routinely about every hour. For that reason, I planned and filled our several hours they would be gone with activities.

                This year, I had already used the round, frosted glass container from which I usually serve the cranberry relish. I bit my tongue and didn’t mention the pretty glass dish embellished beautifully in the perfect size had a noticeable chip-- knowing that Mother can’t part with it.

                I pulled down the two serving dishes that seemed most compatible with the cranberry relish. I bemoaned a bit about having used the most appropriate glass serving dish with another salad. Mother eyed the two glass containers before her and said empathetically, “I think it will fit in this one.”

Mother was a pretty good eyeballer on
choosing this fluted serving bowl!

                As I began spooning the fragrant cranberry relish into the dish Mother selected, I thought No big deal. I’ll just transfer it to something else if the cranberry’s quantity exceeds this little glass container. To my surprise, the Thanksgiving cranberry relish fit perfectly into the serving dish Mother at age 99 chose by eyeballing it.

                Pondering on the solution for serving the cranberry relish brought to mind the account in Luke 5:1-11. Jesus used Simon Peter’s boat as a nautical pulpit. When He finished His message, Jesus asked Simon to Launch out into the deep and let down their nets.

                Simon Peter wearily, “Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing; nevertheless, at Your word I will let down the nets.” Peter astounded at the vast number of fish causing the net to break called another boat, but both boats began sinking with the huge haul.

                Upon seeing the power of Jesus, Peter fell at the feet of Jesus recognizing the Lordship of Jesus, his own sinfulness, and the incompatibility of the two. He requested Jesus depart from him. Unfazed, Jesus calmed the trepidation within Peter and gave him a new direction – to fish for men.

               How often we doubt commands, instructions, and directives given clearly from God’s Word or by the leading of the Holy Spirit in the same way I questioned Mother’s recommendation for the serving bowl for the cranberry relish! Each time we follow Him and see His plan work for His glory may we find courage to obey even quicker and with a heart full of faith. Just as the cranberry relish fit perfectly in the bowl as Mother predicted it would, we can know anything our Father suggests for our lives will work for our good and for His glory.

Photo of Mother and me taken on
Thanksgiving Evening 2023