This year God is giving opportunities of celebrating the birthdays of some of our family members and friends.
In April we invited my mother 's friend Miss Jha to celebrate her birthday. She is a retired teacher. She tried very hard to find a post retirement job , but was not successful, so she is returning home mid-August.
In May we celebrated 10 year old Simran 's birthday. She is my cousin' s daughter. They have a dysfunctional family. Her father was not even home for her birthday. We are praying for this family to be saved.
Last week on July 21st we celebrated Auntie Maya 's 73rd birthday. For lunch I made a dumpling curry called KADHI. We were expecting her family and friends to visit in the evening so I got the house ready and arranged for snacks and cold drinks. Auntie is suffering from 5 kinds of medical problems and is on a restricted diet.
It was a very hot and humid day (like today) and I was extremely exhausted.
Her son said they would bring a home made packed dinner eat with us, so I also made CHOLE PANEER (with cottage cheese). And kheer or rice pudding for dessert. (Check out the recipe links)
It rained heavily that afternoon. Out first visitors were Diana and her son Ben. They are Americans. Di is married to the brother of Auntie 's son-in-law. Lovely Christians. I meet them occasionally. Di brought Auntie a lovely eggless cake and sugar free cookies and a bouquet. They sat for an hour and a half while it poured outside. We had a good time.
It rained so hard the streets got flooded and so for a while we thought Auntie 's son and daughter and their families would not be able to come. But they did come a bit late after the downpour abated and we had a second round of celebration. Her daughter brought steamed savoury snack called DHOKLA
Auntie' s daughter-in-law brought us dinner, but i was disappointed that they did not eat with us. I had cooked lots of food.It sort of hurt me too. But they are known to decline eating outside their home. Strange behaviour.
In all cultures eating together has great value and it brings friends and families together. One feels hurt when a meal is rejected. Remember the parable of Jesus . Luke 14:12 -24 A rich nobleman invited his friends for a banquet and all of them made lame excuses not to attend. So he directed his servants to bring in the lame, lost and poor from the streets . These so called rejects of society became his honored guests.
This story is interpreted in various ways.
God invites us to be part of his family and have fellowship with him, but if we reject his invite, he will call others, maybe those whom we don 't deem worthy.
God gave the nation of Israel a special status of being his chosen people, they spurned the Messiah, Jesus ,his Son, and now the invitation is open to all people of the earth. They are other deeper interpretations of this story , but I won 't go into those. You can share your views on this if you like , I am interested in knowing them.
No comments:
Post a Comment