Manna

One of my favorite Old Testament Bible stories is how God provided manna from heaven during the forty years the Israelites wandered around in the desert.  It’s the perfect picture of how God takes care of us, even when we are being idiots.  I had a similar experience a few years ago when visiting friends on the Oregon Coast.

I used to live in Astoria in the 70s and still have ties to that community.  I love going to the Coast, but it always seems so rushed as I have more things to do and people to see than time allows.  Such was the case that fateful day - a day which I’d forgotten about until my girlfriend, Jan, reminded me of when I visited her in Astoria this past weekend.

As the story goes, we were running late and nearly out of gas.  I was trying to make it to Jan’s house in time for a little celebration for her husband who turned 65 that day and retired.  I told her we’d eat something before we came over so as not to put her out.

I was ever so thankful we made it to Costco for gas before we were stranded on the side of the road.  When I paid for the gas I realized I’d forgotten to stop at an ATM to get cash so we could grab something to eat along the way.  We were more than a little hungry, out of cash, and now our options were very limited and time was slipping by.  I hadn’t managed our schedule too well and we had a choice to make – either go out to dinner somewhere we could use a debit card or forget the dinner and just head over to Jan’s house for cake. 

Being it was such a special day, we decided even as hungry as we were, we really didn’t have time for dinner, so we opted to just drive straight to Jan’s.

As I pulled out of Costco onto the side road, there, in the middle of the street, was a Costco pizza box.  It struck me as odd, since it hadn’t yet been run over, so I stopped and told my son to jump out and see if anything was in there.  When he lifted it up, he yelled that the box was heavy and still warm.  I told him to bring it on in the car because we were hungry and that “road kill pizza” was just the ticket.

There was one piece missing and I could only imagine a person, probably as rushed as I was that day, grabbing a slice out of the box, setting it on top of their car, chomping down their slice as they loaded up their groceries, then driving off with the pizza box still on the roof. 

I don’t know if it’s funnier that we found a fresh baked pizza in the middle of the road, or that we actually ate it.  Manna from heaven, indeed.