Feeding the Five Hundred

Just feeding the five in my family sometimes feels overwhelming, so reading in the New Testament about Christ’s miraculous feeding of the five thousand has always impressed me.

But I was also impressed one day as a good neighbor and Relief Society sister brought my family dinner after the birth of my third child. For more than twenty-five years, my neighbor has been taking dinners to families who need a helping hand. She has provided food on scores of occasions and must surely have fed several hundreds of hungry husbands and children. Although she has not miraculously fed five thousand people on an isolated hillside, she had worked her own quiet miracle in feeding the five hundred. Unknown numbers of casseroles, cakes, and salads have gone to nourish people just as dear to the Lord as those gathered on that ancient hillside.

I often wonder how many quiet “miracles” similar to hers are being worked by sisters with charity in their hearts and how much more I can learn to offer. Diane L. Mangum, Salt Lake City, Utah

Illustrated by Ron Peterson