The multiplication of the cupcakes

It's Monday morning and my wife, elder daughter, and I are sitting in our living room. It still looks like yesterday afternoon's party here, as we still have some rearranging to do to get it back to "normal." Our elder daughter was sick during the party and had no energy, so she laid in her bed for a good portion of the party. It's good hearing her talk this morning, as she wasn't saying too much yesterday.

I dropped off my son and younger daughter at their schools this morning. Had a chance to greet parents & kids at both schools. I find this daily ritual to be helpful to keep in the reality of Paris life.

We also saw Lauren off to the bus stop on her way to the airport and eventually Orlando, FL today. She will eventually get back home to Melbourne, Australia after some time in the U.S. One blessing of where we live is getting to rub shoulders with people from around the world. Again, we just met her 24 hours ago, but now feel a connection with her. That's one thing I enjoy greatly about being part of God's family.

I tend to be wired after events. Even after going to bed, my mind was rehashing the party. At about 3:00 a.m., I started thinking about the cupcakes from yesterday. My wife baked 28 of them. We had 22 kids and either 20 or 21 ate one. My 3 kids each had one and we gave away to 2 to our son's teacher, plus another to Maxime's family. That makes 26 cupcakes, plus 1 left over. That makes 27 of the 28 cupcakes accounted for.

The funny thing is that my wife & I know that we gave away more cupcakes to family members who came by to get their kids. It appears that God somehow multiplied the cupcakes to go around. It also seems like He did the same with the appetizers.

When we had the California night for mothers last month, a couple of the women helping said that it seemed like the level of the cooking oil didn't go down, even after they used quite a bit. The same thing for the level of dish soap after they did a lot of dishes.

This is one of those surprising things that we don't understand. Yesterday we had a lot of more kids than we were expecting or had prepared for. 3 guests brought a sibling around, which I guess is a way of parents making sure that their kids would be ok.

It's a reminder of the generosity & provision of God. I think He wants us to be generous in inviting people. Jesus used banquets a number of times in His parables. Sure it's tiring to have lots of people come. But for me, it's a good tired, a tired with a purpose. I would rather be tired after an event with a Kingdom purpose than to be tired after something that is relatively meaningless.

We praise God for His provision in normal & unusual ways.