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 

Serving From the Sole

They wanted to do what to my what?

I stared at the four young women perched on the corners of the large roman tub. The water was a few inches deep; colorful containers of foot scrubs and lotion were scattered about the bathroom floor and the tub’s edge. The sharp smell of peppermint was quickly clearing through my nostrils.

 Insecurity rose up as I looked down. My feet? Someone wanted to wash and scrub my feet?

My long, Florida sun-tanned toes outlined sharply against the white bathroom tile. Their lack of daily care was much too evident. Each toenail was a different length, the shiny pinkish purple nail polish I’d painted on in early October barely clinging to two of my nails. I’d parted ways with my pumice stone when Chase was still in diapers and hadn’t gotten around to buying another.

I had no problem with washing and scrubbing someone else’s feet. It was the unsettling idea of having my own callused, definitely-tomboy tootsies rubbed by one of the sweet young women from church that had me frowning with nervousness and embarrassment.

We were having a laid-back girls’ night out, enjoying a variety of delicious snacks and treats while planning a little spa pampering, all sprinkled with talk of the jobs, husbands and families. Most of the ladies were 20-something newlyweds; there was only one other woman with children. I was greatly enjoying the evening away from home, my mind off my children and house for a couple hours as my personal battery quickly, gratefully recharged.

“Come on, I’ll do yours.” Danielle, early 20’s, a petite brunette with beautiful brown eyes and a quick smile motioned me over. I cringed inside, wishing I could trade in my serviceable, perpetually flip-flop clad feet for a pair of dainty, nail-polish-highlighted feet. “I apologize for any trauma this may cause,” I muttered as I climbed in and sat on the tub lip. Smiling sheepishly, I traded my foot for hers and tried to relax.

Washing someone else’s feet was a novel experience. Though I’d occasionally massaged my husband’s feet, I’d never actually washed them. In our present day abundance and technology (and given the hot Florida climate), daily showers and baths are a necessity. When my children were babies they were both ticklish enough that I couldn’t linger around those pink sausages long for fear of being splashed, kicked or causing a miniature tidal wave.

As I carefully scrubbed Danielle’s feet it struck me how intimate and humbling this experience was for both the washer and washee. After all, our feet see and touch the worst of wherever we are – the ground, the inside of well-used shoes, the dirt or grass – places we wouldn’t put our hands. Our feet are the transportation for our body. If they’re tired, hurt or sore, that’s most likely the state of our body as well. I realized that washing another’s feet was a true act of service.

I was also reminded of Jesus in the book of John. After sharing the Passover Meal with his disciples, he “took a towel and girded Himself. After that, He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded” (John 13:4-5). Imagine the disciples’ shock at having God’s perfect son bent down in front of them, dark hair spilling around His beloved face as He concentrated.

Peter even incredulously asked, “Lord, are You washing my feet?” (John 13:6).

What exactly was Jesus telling and showing his disciples – and us? Why was it necessary for Him to humble himself to His disciples’ feet? Jesus chose to do what they could very easily have done for each other. But He was purposed from His Father and soon to leave earth, and He wasn’t finished teaching His disciples. In the book of Luke, “there was also a dispute among them, as to which of them should be considered the greatest” (22:24). Jesus was settling this dispute with his actions. “For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you” (John 13:15). He lowered himself to the floor and showed not only His love for them but also became an example of how we, as Christ-followers, are to love each other. Not service with a smile, but service from our heart. As Owald Chambers notes, “Service is the overflow which pours from a life filled with love and devotion.”

Jesus doesn’t call us to be great for Him; He calls us to greatly serve each other for Him.

When I read over this account in the book of John, I couldn’t help but see Jesus – God’s beloved son, my wonderful, sinless Savior – acknowledging and overcoming the dark heart of human nature…self. Human nature, from the first cries of birth to the quiet groans of death, struggles to elevate itself above those around us. We naturally seek for self before and above anything – or anyone – else. “For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there” (James 3:16). Yet self-seeking goes against the sanctified, redeemed nature of those born again through faith in Jesus Christ. ”But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:11). 

God’s word warns against selfishness while teaching and admonishing toward selflessness. The Bible states that the fruit of the Spirit is, “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23). Our natural tendency is to fight first and foremost for our own good, yet we were not created by God in a vacuum. We exist side by side with others on purpose and with purpose…to serve others as Jesus served…to love others because God first loved us, because that’s what God has called us to do within His word. Jesus told His disciples in John 13:34 & 35, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

It’s a tall order, one I fail at regularly. But when I strive after Jesus, I’m striving toward this end: learning to love and serve others selflessly.

Paul exhorts us in Philippians, “Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others” (Phil. 2:3-4). Through the act of washing and drying the disciples’ feet Jesus showed us precisely how we’re to disable our human desire of elevating self. “If I then, your Teacher and Lord, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet” (John 13:14). Through humble obedience to God and His word, we can learn to let go of our overwhelming desire for self and grab onto a Christ-centered desire to serve others.    

Though feet-washing may not be a regular occurrence in my life, the joy-instilling, selfless act of doing so for another reestablished in my heart the important need to serve others with my life, in order to honor His.