Stone Soup

This past week I bought the book Stone Soup from our school book sale where they were trying to clear out old books. 10 books for $2.50 is not bad. :) I read it to the kids and told them about how in first grade I had read the same book and then my class made our very own stone soup. The kids wanted to make some stone soup too. So yesterday we went to work making stone soup.

We went on a stone search around the neighborhood and found five smooth, large stones that were "perfect soup stones" - one for each of us. :) We made sure to add everything the book said to: stones, water, salt, pepper, potatoes, carrots,...

When it was all done and we sat down to eat it for dinner they were so surprised that the stones were still there as hard as ever. Bridger said, "Why, aren't they soft?" and Angeli was sad that we couldn't actually eat the stones. I realized I hadn't really explained the book that well. They were as tricked as the villagers in the book. They thought that the stones were what made the soup good instead of all the other yummy foods they had added to the soup.

After explaining it better they were ready to eat. However they still insisted that they should have the biggest stone in their bowl. They were fighting and fussing over who had the largest stone. I tried explaining it all to them again and they settled down enough to actually try the soup. With taste after taste they realized their soup was wonderful and began to find that having a big stone in their bowl was actually not a good thing at all. One by one they picked the stone out of their bowls and threw them back in the pot.

After I laughed in my journal today about the experience and how the kids had totally missed the message it hit me that in fact I had missed it too. Just like how the kids realized that a stone is simply a rock with no real soup value, that it was worthless and a burden to have in their bowl even though they had fought so hard for the biggest ones I realized that I have been so upset about what I and my family were missing out on I was missing out on what we are actually blessed with that is worth so much more.

I also think that often in life we get caught up in what we expect things to be like so much so that we can't enjoy the greater good we have just been given just because it wasn't what we planned just like the kids being so disappointed that their stones were not soft and editable. Sometimes I know I set my hopes and dreams on things that are of no real lasting value and in the end they are more obstacles then anything else.

Lately I have been so caught up in the fact that all the holidays, all our birthdays, and my baby's birth are approaching and we have absolutely no money to do much of anything for them to the point of it darkening my excitement of the season and events when I should be feeling joy instead. I had to remember what matters is not that I am having a baby who will not have much of anything but rather that I AM HAVING A BABY! I have to except that at this time I am not able to build up treasures here on earth but that I can certainly build up treasures in Heaven - right now, today, free of cost! With that acceptance and realization I have felt so much more peace about our poverty. Yes we still have the stress of paying the bills, repairing our van's transmission, fixing our broken computer, replacing our rain gutters that flew off our house last spring, and buying plane tickets for Stew to go all over the country for hopeful interviews but the loss I felt in mourning our "holidays" is gone. I am realizing how magical they can be in the simple meaningful ways like curling up with my entire family in a blanket, sipping hot cocoa together as we watch the snow fall outside. Or how fun it will be to watch our kids faces as we introduce our new baby to each of them for the first time and how we'll all pile on my hospital bed to take our first picture all together. Those are the things that are priceless. Not the outfits we are sporting or the number of presents under the tree.

Thinking of our situation as me crying over not having the biggest stone in my bowl really helps me put it in perspective. Who cares if there is a stone in your bowl when your bowl is full of all the soup you could ever wish for?!?!?! Our family's life is what it is and I think in the eternities to come we will thank our God for all of it. And for today...

we are better learning to enjoy our soup, stones or not.