Naomi was on the scavenge.
Sarah was the first one to notice.
“Hey Sarah.” Naomi breezily said, still giving the impression of a woman on the move, “Do you have any of those containers we leave hanging around the kitchen? You know, like those used butter tubs and stuff. You got any you were going to get rid of?”
“Errrr … yeah, there’s a couple I was just going to chuck.”
“Oh, well, you wouldn’t mind if I just took them off your hands would you?”
“Well … I wasn’t going to do anything with them, you can have them.”
“Oh thanks a lot, you’re doing me a massive favour.”
“Sure thing, Naomi. What’s it for?”
“Oh, errrrrr … just a little project I’ve been … errrrr … challenged with.”
“Ooohh a little secret project, eh. No need to bother me about the details, girl. You feel free to take these. How are your two children? It must be rough after Josh died back in October. Oh, I’m sorry to bring it up again …”
“No, no, no. Jethro and Dinah are doing just fine, we’re all coping as best as we can.”
“Oh, well. That’s good to know. Listen if there’s anything we can do to help, please just give me a call.”
“I will do, Sarah. I really will.” Naomi said in a weirdly wistful way that gave Sarah a perplexed look at first before their time together was over as Naomi busied herself.
Naomi endured similar conversations like this for most of the day before finally settling back in the small home she shared with Jethro and Dinah. She lugged with her a big box of containers of a variety of shapes and sizes.
Jethro was the first to pipe up at the weird sight.
“Mum are you OK? Why have you got all those?”
“It’s as much as I could get from our friends and neighbours.”
“Yeah, but Mum … and why are you locking the door as well?”
“Son, don’t worry about that. We got work to do. You and Dinah come here now, I’m going to need your help.”
“But Mum …”
“Hush now, my love. Hush now. I don’t have a clue either, but we just gotta trust … well … we just gotta trust God. Now I’m going to start pouring out what oil we have left until the container is full.”
Jethro was going to ask her another question, but seeing the determined look in his Mum’s face, he just called his sister and got ready for what he thought would be a fairly short task. After all, there didn’t appear to be a lot of oil left in the pot.
To his surprise, though, every time he gave his Mum a container it would be returned to him sealed and full. What he hoped would take a few minutes ended up taking hours, but neither he or his little sister were bored. The three of them together made it a game. They didn’t put the time to waste. They sang songs as they passed the containers in one direction empty and passed them back full.
Jethro was having so much fun with their games and singing, that he didn’t notice that Dinah didn’t have a container to pass onto him. They had run out of containers. As if it was planned, Naomi discovered she had run out of oil at the same time.
“What are we going to do with these, Mum?” said Jethro experiencing a cheer he had not felt since before his Dad died.
“I have no idea, yet. But I do know this. Even as we have not wasted containers that people were going to get rid of, so I know we will not waste any of these containers now they are full of oil! They must be of some good now they are full.”
…
(Photo by Tony Shen on Unsplash)
For His Name’s Sake
Shalom
C. L. J. Dryden
Life With CD 