Chocolate Pie and a Generous Heart by Eunice Matchett

I am really off the mark with my thoughts for this month, but I had an experience Easter Sunday I just can’t keep to myself.

As most of you know, I have a son who has MS and is mostly home bound. This makes having holiday meals at my own home impossible. As I have for the last several years, I cooked Easter dinner at home, then boxed up all the food and carried it to his house. What was different this year was, when I arrived, another family, a mother and her three sons, were already there.

Food wise, we were still okay because I always make extra so my son has plenty of leftovers. If there are too many, I will freeze them into meal sized portions. But dessert created a problem. Instead of making our traditional cheesecake, I lazy-ed out and bought a chocolate cream pie at the store on my way to my son’s home.

As I set it in the fridge, I glanced around the room. Seven people. One small pie. Okay…I’m no fan of chocolate pie…that leaves six. That I can do. No one will get fat, and a tiny piece is better than no piece at all. As I proceeded to cut the pie and place the pieces on plates, someone came up behind me. I turned, and the oldest boy, a fifteen-year-old, said quietly, “I don’t want one.”

A lump grew in my throat, but I finished passing the first five pieces around and told him I didn’t like chocolate pie so there was still one left. I asked him if he wanted it. He gave me an ear to ear smile and accepted the remaining piece. The lump in my throat throbbed. This compassionate young man had turned down his share so everyone else would have. Instantly, I wanted to go back to town and buy him a whole pie just for himself.

Later that evening when I was home and snuggled on my couch, my thoughts wandered back to our Easter dinner and a precious young man. If a gesture like this moved me, a little old human grammy in all my humanism, to this extent, how much more would it move our Heavenly Father’s heart.

The more I think of this young man’s compassion, the more I am humbled. And grateful. In such an unexpected way I was given a wee peek into the immensity of Gods heart.  Little things that we do everyday, because they are the right thing to do, and we think nothing of them, perhaps they are a blessing to someone else. Perhaps they will restore someone’s faith in humanity, or perhaps they will open someone’s spiritual eyes and allow them to have a tiny peek at God’s heart the way a chocolate pie and a fifteen-year-old boy did for mine.