Pantry Chronicles

Like sand in a beach pail, tiny grains of sugar softly collect, filling the canister.

This particular morning is not unlike many before. I’m a southern girl and, as such, have my priorities rightly placed.

      God, family, sweet tea.

However, this day I’m unimpressed with the empty status of my sugar bowl. There is no “sweet” in tea without sugar – and, well, any good southerner knows that the “tea” without the “sweet” is – so very unfortunate.

Enter my ten pound bag of sugar. As these shiny, white grains tumble into pillowy sugar dunes within my canister – I notice it.

An invisible dusting of sweetness permeates the air. An unexpected taste of confection on my lips. Unseen, yet evident.

As the air around me held this loveliness, I considered how much I long to be like this unassuming sack of sugar. Poured out. Not a trace of myself lingering in the spaces of this life, only a pervasive essence of sweetness—of grace, gentleness, love.

A sympathetic word, patient forgiveness, a warm shoulder. Quiet, airborne sweetness, rooted in the unseen, but carried…evidenced by grace.

Just like this obscure, candied dust fell on my lips that morning—I want a life that scatters sprinklings of softness—that rest on the hearts of those around me.

More of You, Lord, less of me. May it ever be so.

“You should clothe yourselves…with the beauty that comes from within, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is so precious to God.” (I Peter 3:3 NLT)

(Originally written for Faithwriters on September 18, 2014.  To view it as it appeared on Faithwriters, please visit this link: http://www.faithwriters.com/wc-article-level1-previous.php?id=49452 .)