Rice and Beans

from Grandma Stories: God’s Little Miracles by LDMahan

Did you know that sometimes people do silly things?  It would be a silly thing for a child to hide a box of popsicles under his covers and sneak back to eat them later!  What a mess!  Well, adults can do silly things, too.  But some things that seem silly, turn out just fine later.

Once there was a mom and dad who wanted to work for God full time.  In order to do that they had to leave their jobs, they had to leave their grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins, and they had to move away to a different city.  This was a very big deal to them.  They had two little children, a boy and a girl.  The boy was five and the girl was three.  They all moved to a town on the border of Mexico, and enrolled in a school to learn Spanish.

From what their sight told them, they would not have enough food and clothing or money for a house, since they had quit their jobs.  But they knew God’s word says: “We walk by faith, not by sight,” so they didn’t feel so silly after that.

When they arrived in the border town, life was very different.  The mom washed the clothing in the sink and hung it to dry on the clothes lines behind the long metal trailer house. There was no air conditioning, so the dad would cool the children off before their naps by misting them with water from a spray bottle!  The trailer home was hot and dusty, but worst of all, they had to eat rice and beans! 

Now, rice is very healthy for you, and so are pinto beans.  If you eat them in the same meal they give you almost as much protein as meat.  The problem was that the mom and dad and children did not like rice and beans.  They tasted boring.

But this family had decided to live by faith, so they ate the rice and beans every day and tried to think grateful thoughts. 

Then, one day there was a knock at the door.  When the dad opened the door there was no one there, but on the front porch was a large paper grocery bag filled with all kinds of meat!  Amongst  the packets of meat was an envelope with $30.00 and a note that read: “This is to pay for gas so you can cook the meat.”  They were very excited and praised the Lord.

Two days later one of their teachers at the Spanish school asked to meet with them.  The mom thought maybe they had done an assignment wrong and they were in trouble.  Instead, the teacher told them that some unknown person had given them a gift.  The whole family would get a hot lunch—every single day in the school’s cafeteria—for FREE!  This cafeteria had every kind of food: chicken, hamburgers, spaghetti, green vegetables, hot rolls, apple cobblers, and hardly any rice and beans!

Then the mom and dad rejoiced because now their sight told them that they were going to be all right at the new school. 

Sometimes what seems silly because it is too hard for people, is not too hard for God at all.