I failed tonight and I need to confess my pride and lack of love. One of my roommates was assigned to cook dinner for the rest of the roommates that were planning to be home tonight. I love this guy, but he’s not as crazy about being clean as I am. This really isn’t a problem for me except when preparation of food is involved.
I walked into the kitchen to see how things were going. He was having fun cooking for all of us, but I noticed him using his mouth and the shorts he had worn all day to clean off his hands between chopping veggies, making sauces, straining pasta, and picking up food off the ground. It was great to see him enjoy himself, but as he touched all the food, I kept asking myself, “Am I really going to eat that?”
As I continued watching him cook, I remembered a story a friend had told me. He was visiting a number of remote villages in Burma while volunteering with a missions organization for a month. At a particular village he was presented with a plate of what was the most unappetizing substance he had ever seen and was expected to eat it. He said it looked and smelled like a plate of rotting meat paste. He took a bite not because he was up for the culinary adventure of a lifetime, but because of the people who gave him the dish. This was their way of welcoming him and giving him honor.
The situation I found myself in wasn’t nearly as difficult as my friend’s situation in his story. I was convicted. I needed to eat the food that my roommate was getting ready for me. He was loving me by cooking. I needed to love him by eating what he cooked. I did eat it and it was tasty, but I still struggled so much with laying down my own fanaticism about cleanliness and wasn’t able to fully enjoy what my roommate had done for me and our time together as we ate. I don’t love my roommate enough. I need to love him more and love myself less.
