Lessons from the Lunch Lady: Serving Humble Pie

“So, are you a teacher?”

Trevor, the boys and I were at the USF Credit Union opening up a new account for me, and the young man entering our information was eager to start conversation. Cole and Chase were side by side on the floor, quietly playing on their DS as I curled my toes into my flip flops.

An answer percolated in my mouth and slipped to the tip of my tongue.

Why, yes I am. I’m an English teacher, molding the minds of the young. I teach literature and analyze Shakespeare with 11^th and 12^th graders. I spend my days dissecting sentences and reading passages aloud and my evenings marking up the essays of my students.

Big, ugly, clucking, LIE.

I unroll my heavy, disobedient tongue, in the process swallowing the bitter soul food no one likes to eat.

Pride.

Yes, Lord, I’d like a large piece of humble pie. Extra whip cream please?

So I swallow my pride in one big gulp. Down it goes, chasing away the butterflies in my tummy and opening my mouth for the truth.

“Actually, no. I’ve taken a part-time position at a middle school as a student nutrition assistant.”

He looks at me blankly, then quickly masks it with a weak smile. Confusion lights his eyes. Surprise, surprise.

It’s been precisely three minutes since I told him Trev and I graduated from USF nearly a decade prior, our majors Engineering and English Education.

“I’m a lunch lady.” Well there you go, pride. Down you go. I wonder how fake my smile looks.

There’s a very pregnant pause.

“Oh, okay. That’s nice. I bet it works well with your children’s school schedules?” I nod and smile at his polite words.

The loan officer’s typing speed picks up, long fingers devouring the keyboard. We finish up the paperwork, his questions now focused on checks and debit cards and pin numbers.

I feel my tummy fluttering again. Up comes that pride again, unsettled and stubborn, growing exponentially.

“I wanted part-time because it allows time to write and be home with the kids before and after school. I’m a writer. I’ve been published twice in a local Tampa Bay magazine and online a few times. I wrote a book I’ll be sending to agents and editors soon.”

I picture a clown at a circus, bright red fingers gripping the air compressor while blowing up a balloon. Kids scream excitedly as the balloon grows bigger and bigger, expanding, stretching…

POP! There goes my pride.

A few minutes later we walk out of the bank into the hot and stormy September afternoon. I’m weary, and the only sustenance is the bland but nutritious humble pie I swallowed grudgingly, though there’s little of it left in my system.

After 7 ½ years as a stay-at-home mom, my life has taken on a new normal. For 5 hours each day I serve people not in my family. Strangers? Not for long. It’s a hard, hectic, HOT job, paying less than the job I had in college 12 years ago.

I work in the kitchen preparing food for 6^th, 7^th and 8^th graders at a nearby middle school. I can’t say I love it, but I can say following God’s will is truly awesome. I’m exactly where God wants me, and I want to honor Him by being faithful in what He’s given me to do. 

Even if I have to fill up on humble pie from time to time.

The blessings are adding up. I’m sweetly mothered by a couple of the older lunch ladies, and I serve the teachers and special needs kids their lunches each day. The teachers trail in weary, hopeful, beaten down, hungry for food and adult conversation, and I pray I’m able to lift their day with a smile and warm greeting.

And the kids…Manny, Leo, Krissy, and Nicholas press eager faces against my window at noon, their smiles like beams of golden light. Just a few days into this job and I’m falling for them. I want to do the best I can to smile back and serve the kids food and God’s love.

“For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.” 

 Mark 10:45

But I also must share about God’s perfect provision. Cole and Chase attend a wonderful Christian school that we really love and believe in. The boys’ education has been phenomenal and both boys are thriving in their small classrooms. Trev and I prayed hard about keeping the boys in the school, and we figured out that the amount of money I make as a lunch lady covers the boys’ tuition nearly to the dollar amount.

“And my God shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” ~ Philippians 4:19

So here’s the deal. I’m a lunch lady. I write on the side. If I publish a book one day, well, that’ll be the cherry (or two) on the whip cream on the pie.

Sometimes it’s humble, though I prefer apple.

But the best part of all? I work for the most awesome, amazing Boss in the universe.

“And what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?”

 Micah 6:8 

Penny Blessings

“Mom, look! I found more!”

Cole came running toward me, bright orange shirt clearly marking his path through the green grass. It was Saturday evening and we’d taken the boys to our neighborhood playground to work off some energy.

Just after we arrived Cole’s eagle eyes spotted a few pennies at the bottom of one of the slides. He spent the next few minutes nosing through the rubber chips of the playground floor searching for more. Nearly every time he bent down to look, he came up with another penny.

Obviously someone no longer had a pocket full of pennies.

Wherever we go – on a walk through our neighborhood, to Target, to the mall, or to a playground – Cole’s eyes are always on penny alert. It never fails that he’s able to catch the shiny copper glint alongside the road or hidden under a checkout line counter.

Needless to say, there are piles of pennies around our house, in the boys’ bedroom, clanking at any given time in the dryer, lining my purse, and scattered inside our truck. They give Cole a special kind of pleasure, even though some consider pennies nearly worthless.

As Cole trotted up that evening, his eyes shone with excitement and his hand reached out, palm up. Inside I saw a few more copper treasures.

“Five more! That makes 12.” He was breathless and giddy, little beads of sweat lining his forehead. Chase jumped off the climbing wall and came over to join us.

“Wow, honey, that’s the most pennies you’ve ever found in one place!” I smiled, feeding off the pure joy I saw in my seven-year-old’s eyes.

As he and Chase fingered through the pile of pennies, a still, small voice moved in my heart, urging me to remind the boys of Someone. 

The Blesser. The Giver of life.  

“God’s really blessing you tonight, honey. He knows you love pennies.” 

“Yeah. He gave me a penny blessing.” As Cole spoke, I saw pleasure wash over his face at the thought of God blessing him with exactly what he loves and enjoys most – pennies.

Lots of pennies.

Later that evening I was flipping through my Bible and came across a verse in Proverbs that reminded me of Cole’s penny blessing.

“The blessing of the Lord makes one rich, and He adds no sorrow to it.”  Proverbs 10:22

I thought of the clinking pile of bright pennies in my son’s hand, now stacked on the dresser in the boys’ bedroom. Although the pennies only add up to 15 or 20 cents, Cole was rich with God’s blessing. The pennies he found were special treasures from God, tokens of His love and a beautiful reminder of God’s vast, yet carefully detailed care in our lives.  

The more I read scripture, the more I learn that God delights in dropping penny blessings in each of our lives. But we have to seek Him first. After all, we give our Creator pleasure when we make His word a lamp unto our feet and a light to our path, and the Bible prepares our hearts to see God for who He is and learn about His heart for this fallen world.

“And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, because you obey the voice of the Lord your God.” Deuteronomy 28:2

Godly blessing will overtake us when we seek our Savior’s heart and root our lives in the wisdom provided by God’s word. Only then are we truly rich.

Seek God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength, and then take care to look around. Dig through the hours and days of your life and take notice of the many penny blessings your Heavenly Father has graced you with as you reach for His heart.