Years ago, in a far-away land . . .. Actually, it was years ago, when we had four small children and were at our first pastorate in metropolitan Atlanta.

Finances were tight so we worked hard to stretch our pennies as well as our dollars. Occasional gifts of garden produce and such were greatly appreciated and were viewed as provision from the Lord.

Well, they were mostly greatly appreciated. I struggled with one gift. Jack, one of the men of the church, gifted us with liver mush. Liver was not our family favorite. Furthermore, it had been ground up and it was mush.

Yes, mush. And I’m a texture person.

I didn’t know how to cook it, so that liver lived in the freezer for several months, taking up space. Every time I saw it, I felt guilty because it was God’s provision. I ought to appreciate it and use it.

Finally, I pulled it out to cook. I couldn’t google, “How do you cook liver mush?” According to recipes I find on the internet, I didn’t do it right, but we didn’t know the difference.

It was part of God’s provision, so we ate it. Everybody ate some, because that’s what we required in our house.

I can’t say we enjoyed it, but we did give thanks before the meal. And, I was grateful for freezer space, and that it was gone.

Within a week or two, Jack gave us another package of liver mush. It too stayed frozen for several months before I got up the courage to prepare it. Jack seemed to know when our freezer lacked liver mush. Once again, within a very short time, we were given more.

It was long ago and memory is not precise. He probably only brought it three times, four at the most, but it was so consistently happened just after we’d consumed the stuff, that it seems it was many more.

Maybe we needed to learn to eat what was put before us or to be gracious and grateful in all things. But, we’ll probably never know why the Lord kept gifting us with liver mush—or how Jack always knew when to bring another package. Maybe we just needed a memory that would bring chuckles year later.

Eating liver mush did have one advantage. Several years later, when we were in a situation where we had no say over what we ate, I frequently would have chosen differently. However, thanks to liver mush, I knew that the pain of eating something unwanted passes quickly and is not so bad as the dread of anticipation.

I could usually be assured that within 30 minutes or so, the ordeal would be over. With that in mind, I could give thanks for my food. It was a choice.

Some days it was more difficult took longer to make that choice, but I was acutely aware that gratefulness for my food was my choice no matter what was set before me.

It was as if the Lord wrote on the wall, “This is a test! Will you be thankful for my provision?”

I hadn’t thought of liver mush in years, but it recently came up in conversation during the week a good friend buried her husband. Another friend was diagnosed with cancer, and another learned that his wife wanted a divorce because she loves someone else.

In comparison to such pain, liver mush is insignificant. It isn’t even so bad as a mosquito bite, that continues to itch and cause discomfort. It’s nothing.

But, I believe that liver mush helped me in ways I never dreamed of. I could have thrown it out, but I didn’t because I viewed it as part of God’s provision. Instead, I worked at being grateful for it.

It wasn’t easy, and I put it off, but eventually, I embraced the “hard” of life. I ate it and served it to the family.

Because of liver mush–and other things, I’m sure–I’ve learned that there is life, and grace for life, in seeing everything as coming through God’s hands.

He isn’t necessarily the author of those hard things, but, like Job, we can see that the Lord allowed the hard things to happen and we can choose to look to Him in the midst of them. We choose our attitude.

Because sin has entered the world, hard things happen. As we choose to thank God and lean on Him, He gives us strength and grace to endure them and even to choose our response..

Like with the liver mush, we don’t always know the purpose of the things that come our way. Indeed, we may never understand the why. We also might question the timing.

However, if we can force ourselves to cling to the one who made us, He will help us give thanks, and will carry us through the difficulty.

It doesn’t mean it will be easy, but we can find peace in the midst of the storm because we will know that He is with us.

To prepare for those big life-changing events, we need to look for God in our normal, every-day life. We need to train ourselves to be thankful for the liver mush that comes our way.