Tasting Jesus

“For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink” 

 John 6:55

On hearing these words from Jesus, the disciples said “this is a hard teaching who can accept it?”

On hearing these words, I say too, this is a hard teaching…to keep eating Jesus, to be satisfied only by Him.

I was at a wedding shower a few weeks ago and a question was asked “what did you find out about your husband that you didn’t know before you married him?” A cute question for a wedding shower but in real life, the answer could be hard. 

I was married for 36 years to a man who was hard minded and strong willed, I didn’t really know then that these were going to be such a large part of who my man was.  He needed black and white answers with not much room for grey details. Life for John was based on hard work even his love language was work.  I learned that if I left a shovel or a rake out by the back door, maybe a half filled pail of some weed killer or a pair of muddy boots flopped to one side, placed there just so at the time of his home coming, he would enter in a happy man.  His love language was work and work, spoken in the language of work.

Once I found out about God and who Jesus was, life became a lot simpler for me, not easier because life was hard.  Marriage was hard work but here I had found a way to make sense of life, this hard knocks, hard work life I was in.  I found that if I kept Jesus within my grasp, in the corners of my heart mind and soul I could taste how a hard life could be made better.  Tasting Jesus, something I kept going back for…one more morsel, a satisfying meal, a delectable desert, always food for thought. Food for my heart and soul that kept me satisfied.

Now that I am alone, I am finding out something I didn’t know.  I didn’t know being alone would be such hard work.  Some days are filled with grace and joy and laughter, rainbows and sunny skies, starry nights and full moons.  Some days are good.

 

Some days are hard.  What I didn’t know is that it would be so hard.   I didn’t know that some days and nights would be long and hard and grey.  I didn’t know that some decisions would be rock hard, black and white work with little room for grey details.

I am finding that I need the satisfying taste of Jesus all the more.  So I am eating His words, taking in His ways and holding on hard to His grace, the grace He serves up to me day after day, each quiet minute, every passing hour, all these long alone days.

I need this hard teaching, tasting what is good, tasting Jesus...food for my heart and soul, keeping me satisfied.

I love that.